YSFlight Headquarters

Aircraft Modeling Guide

Decaff ’s All-In-One Blender Guide to

Modeling Aircraft For YSFlight

Author: Decaff 42

Editor: Patrick31337

May 2015
Contents

Contents i

List of Figures iii

List of Tables iv

Abbreviations v

Preface vi
0.1 Welcome! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi
0.2 My Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
0.3 Pass On What You Learn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

1 Introduction to Blender 1
1.1 Introduction to Blender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Setting Up Blender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.1 All-In-One Download . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.2 Needed Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 Key Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.4 Navigating The Blender User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.4.1 Important Parts of the Blender User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.4.1.1 An Important Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.4.2 View Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.4.3 View Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.4.4 Object, Edit & Vertex Paint Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.4.5 Selecting Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.4.5.1 Selection Highlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.4.6 File Browsing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.5 My Recommendation for Saving Your Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.5.1 File Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

A Full List of Blender Shortcut Key Commands 18

A.1 Object Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
A.2 Object Rotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

i
Contents ii

A.3 Number Pad View Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

A.4 Layer Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
List of Figures

1.1 The Blender Logo from Blender.org . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.2 The Default Blender Start Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.3 Decaff’s Customized User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.4 3-D View Window Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.5 Blender’s File Menu Options That We Commonly Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.6 Blender’s Window Selection Menu Options That We Commonly Use . . . . . . . . . 10
1.7 A Selected Object Highlighted In Object Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.8 Edge Selected With Yellow Highlight In Edit Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.9 Face Selected With Yellow Highlight In Edit Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.10 Blender’s File Browser Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.11 Files Recognized By Blender Will Be Highlighted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

iii
List of Tables

1.1 Key Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

1.2 Keyboard & Mouse Combination View Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.3 Number Pad View Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.4 View Mode Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.5 Important Modes for YSFlight Modding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.6 Controls For Selecting Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

iv
Abbreviations

MMB Middle Mouse Button

UI User Interface

v
Preface

0.1 Welcome!

Welcome to this all-in-one guide to using blender for making and modifying aircraft for YSFlight.
I have released many tutorials and guides in the past, through a variety of mediums, but I wanted
to consolidate everything that I knew into one place. Additionally, many of the older tutorials
are filled with inaccuracies that I only discovered after months or, in some cases, years of extra
experimentation.

Blender is a very powerful program. There is a lot of capability built into blender that we will
never touch in our efforts to create aircraft for YSFlight. I think that there is a misconception that
just because blender looks complicated when we first open it up, that a new modder will not be
able to learn enough to make what they want.

This is absolutely not true.

Within a few short weeks I went from not knowing anything about blender to starting my first
project, the F/A-18C/D Aggressor Hornets. Many resources that you will want to look towards
when first starting out is non-YSFlight tutorials about Blender 2.49. These tutorials, along with
the HUGE online manual will equip you with nearly every tool you will need. Often times I will
be working on something and think that there must be a better way using some built-in tool. Sure
enough, 75 percent of the time, blender has a tool that will save me a vast amount of time.

Throughout this document you will constantly see that I strive to minimize the amount of manual
work that I do on an aircraft. The more I can take advantage of automatic scripts and tools, I will

vi
Preface vii

gain one of several things:

• Extra time to put more details into the aircraft

• Save upwards of 100 hours on a single aircraft project.

• Reduce the stress on my hands from working on a computer for so long to complete a YSFlight
Project.

• Reduce frustration

• Achieve milestones faster and feel like I am progressing smoothly and not being held up on
one taks.

I have learned many of the tips and tricks I will pass on to you through hours-upon-hours of working
with blender. The way you will learn beyond my own experience is to experiment with blender and
try different things. The fact that I am still discovering things more than two years after starting
to use blender should indicate that there is a lot of potential yet untapped that you can exploit.

0.2 My Computer

If you are not familiar with me on YSFlight Headquarters, you should know that I primarily use
a Macintosh computer. Unless something is incredibly different between operating systems, I will
stick with showing you screen captures from my computer. While I can use a windows machine, it
is definitely something that I am less comfortable using and thus know less about.

My current operating system is OS X 10.6.8. I am unsure how newer versions of OS X will interact
with Blender 2.49 as it is a relatively old piece of software. I have not heard of any issues from
members of YSFlight Headquarters, but if you find an error, please let other people know!

0.3 Pass On What You Learn

I ask that if you learn a new trick in blender, that you post a tutorial on YSFlight Headquarters
or the forum of the community that you belong to in order to spread and expand the YSFlight
Preface viii

Community’s collective knowledge. Having learned more than 50 percent of what I know from such
tutorials and guides, I hope that you can pass on what you learn and someday someone new will
be able to follow in your footsteps and then create even more amazing things.

I maintain a small website dedicated to modding for YSFlight with dozens of video and text-based
tutorials at YSDecaff. These tutorials are generally geared towards one specific topic, or in the
case of my Learn To Use Blender series, a number of sequential tutorials guiding you through a
beginner-level project. Feel free to use any of my materials as inspiration for your own tutorials
and link to them.

Thank you for reading my Guide. I hope that you will learn something new and be able to use
blender to create a great addon for YSFlight after reading this.
-Decaff 42
Chapter 1

Introduction to Blender

This chapter will cover some of the basic things that you will need to know about Blender before
you begin to work on an aircraft model. If you have never used Blender before, I highly recommend
that you read through each section so that you can pick up everything written here.

1.1 Introduction to Blender

At its core, Blender is an animation and game-design software package. It also has powerful 3-D
modeling capabilities, along with a high degree of customizability that we will take advantage of
to create models for YSFlight.

Figure 1.1: The Blender Logo from Blender.org

One thing that people often confuse is that YSFlight Modeling generally uses an older version of
Blender because the scripts that our past community members created do not work with newer
versions of Blender. We use Blender 2.49, which is the last version with the old User Interface
design and layout. It is distinctly different from Blender 2.5, 2.6 and 2.7. Blender is frequently

1
Chapter 1. Introduction to Blender 2

updated with new and more powerful and useful tools which we cannot use unless you wish to do
your modeling in a newer version of Blender. A word of caution of using this method is that you
will still have to learn to use Blender 2.49 for animation and exporting the YSFlight, which is not
an insignificant portion of your work as modder.

My personal recommendation is that you stick entirely within Blender 2.49. You may be more
computer-literate than myself and decide that you can work between two different versions of
Blender. If it works for you, that is great! Don’t interpret my reasoning as the only way to do
things. This is what has worked best for me and is what I recommend. I exclusively use Blender
2.49 for YSFlight Modding for the following reasons:

1. Reduce the number of installations of Blender you need to balance.

2. Minimize the chance for errors to be introduced during the semi-backwards compatible trans-
fer of your work between versions of Blender.

3. You will master the 2.49 User Interface and not get as easily lost in it.

4. Switching between the vastly different User Interfaces and having to learn two highly similar
but subtly different sets of keystrokes and shortcut commands is frustrating.

5. When you double-click on a Blender file, it will automatically open in the version of Blender
that you want it to.

For this document, I will only use Blender 2.49 as I can guarantee that it will work 99.99 percent
of the time. There are still a few error that you may encounter but they are extremely unlikely
and for the most part, nothing to worry about.
Chapter 1. Introduction to Blender 3

1.2 Setting Up Blender

To fully utilize Blender for YSFlight, you do not need a powerful computer. It should go without
saying that a better computer will be able to handle more complicated models, but I have yet to
run into a problem with my 2.4Ghz Intel i5 CPU and 4Gb of RAM for handling even the most
detailed Lord Flasheart model.

1.2.1 All-In-One Download

Because we need several custom scripts for Blender to work, there are 3 components that we need
in order to model for YSFlight:

1. Blender 2.49

2. YSFlight Paint Scripts

3. Python 2.5

Previously, you would have to install each of these separately on your own, but today there are
pre-packaged versions available for download from the YSFlight Simulator Wiki. You can download
them from the Installing YSFS Blender page. As noted on the webpage, they were packaged by
long-time YSFHQ web master, Eric T. After downloading the correct version for your operating
system, you should be able to simply open up Blender and begin to work on YSFlight projects
without any other installation on your part.

1.2.2 Needed Hardware

While Blender 2.49 will run on nearly any machine, you will need the following items to properly
use Blender:

• 3-Button Mouse

• Full Keyboard or QWERTY keyboard with extra Number Pad.

While it is possible to use Blender without a Number Pad or 3-Button Mouse, it is incredibly hard
to do so. Having tried to work on Blender models without the mouse or number pad, I can say
with absolute confidence that it wrecks your workflow and can be highly confusing.
Chapter 1. Introduction to Blender 4

1.3 Key Terminology

In later sections of this document, you will need to know the following definitions and terminology
in order to fully comprehend what I am writing about. These terms are a mix of YSFlight Head-
Quarters lingo that I picked up, along with some terms in Blender that help me convey my points.
Chapter 1. Introduction to Blender 5

Term Definition

Mesh Shorthand for mesh geometry, or the mesh object type. The
’physical’ shape of the 3-D Model. This is directly edited in
the Edit Mode.
Object A single component in the Blender model that can be ma-
nipulated independently of the other things while in Object
Mode. There are many different types of objects. We only
use 4 for YSFlight purposes: Mesh, Curve, Text, and Empty.
Vertex A point with x, y, and z coordinates. Used for form Edges
and Faces of a mesh.
Edge A line formed by two vertices, typically at the boundary of
faces. Used to help smooth the mesh geometry.
Face A polygon formed from 3 or more vertices or edges. They
fall under 3 classifications: Triangle, Quad, or n-gon.
Triangle A 3-sided face.
Quad A 4-sided face.
n-gon A face with more than 4 sides. Cannot be used in YSFlight
models.
Modder A person who modifies or creates models of aircraft or maps
for YSFlight.
Modding The process of updating, modifying or creating new maps,
aircraft and ground-objects for YSFlight.
Modifiers A built-in Blender function applied to an object to alter the
shape of the object mesh in a manner that would be difficult
to do manually.
Painting The act of applying colors to an aircraft model, typically
combined with some simple mesh cuts to create divisions
between colors.
Frame Where animations are defined within Blender. Cycle
through the model’s frames to see animations that are a
part of DNM Files by pressing the left and right arrow keys.

Key Frames Every 10 frames (1, 11, 21, etc) a Key Frame exists to help
us insert an animation for YSFlight models. Cycle through
Key Frames by pressing the up and down arrow keys.
Parent Object The controlling object in a parent-child link.
Child Object The following object in a parent-child link.
Family Tree When objects are parented together, I refer to the entire
chain as a Family Tree because it is a chain of parent and
child objects

Table 1.1: Key Terminology

Chapter 1. Introduction to Blender 6

1.4 Navigating The Blender User Interface

When you open Blender, the program window is divided into three windows even though it looks
like there is only two.

Figure 1.2: The Default Blender Start Screen

Starting from the top, we have the information window. This is where we find many drop-down
menues that are needed for handling opening, importing, and exporting. In the middle, we have
the large 3-D View Window where we will work on the aircraft models. Right now we have the
default Cube and camera.1 At the bottom of this window there are several important menus and
buttons that will play a large role in how we interact with the 3-D model. Finally, we have the
Button Window down on the bottom which houses many powerful tools.

While this may seem complicated, many more useful tools are hidden in the default User Interface.
I have customized my own user interface by adding several more windows that help me when I am
working on creating 3-D models, as well as painting and animating them. I will show you how to
1
NOTE: The default light source is not shown in Figure 1.2.
Chapter 1. Introduction to Blender 7

do this later2 but it is a little too much for when you are first beginning to use Blender. Once
you learn the basics, adopting a customized User Interface like mine can have many advantages,
especially if you have a large screen to work with.

Figure 1.3: Decaff’s Customized User Interface

Note that in Figure 1.3, I do not have the default light source. Since I almost never use a light
source except to experiment with a few minor effects for non-YSFlight purposes, I eliminated it in
my customized start-up screen.

1.4.1 Important Parts of the Blender User Interface

Before we discuss how to model things, I need to create a roadmap of the various controls that you
will need to use to properly manipulate your view of the aircraft. Please read through these parts
carefully because these controls are very important.

2
Insert proper section reference here
Chapter 1. Introduction to Blender 8

Figure 1.4: 3-D View Window Controls

1. Object Mode Drop-Down Menu: Changes how you interact with different parts of the
model by switching to different modes.

2. View Mode Drop-Down Menu: Controls how we look at the model.

3. Object Pivot Control: Lets you take advantage of different pivot points to precisely
manipulate the 3-D model.

4. Layer Selection: Blender has different layers that we can and will work in.

For the most part, I only use the functions shown in Figure 1.5 in the File Menu. The others are
useful in a very small number of situations that I have yet to actually encounter. These options are
relatively self explanatory, however I wanted to provide a little more information about the session
recovery option. The Recover Last Session will look back to whatever file you had open previously
and allow you to start exactly where Blender either was closed or happened to crash. Even if you
restart your computer you can resume your work.

Even when we fully use Blender’s capabilities for YSFlight Modeling, we only use half of the avail-
able windows. The others are for portions of Blender that we don’t need for YSFlight animation
and model creation.

1.4.1.1 An Important Note

With all of the different windows that we can have on-screen it is important to note that our mouse
cursor will control what windows are active. This means, for example, that unless we have our
mouse cursor hovering over the 3-D window, any command that we input (like a rotation) will not
be started. However if we begin a command with the mouse cursor inside the proper window, and
Chapter 1. Introduction to Blender 9

Figure 1.5: Blender’s File Menu Options That We Commonly Use

move the mouse outside the window while performing some intermediate step (such as defining a
cut-path) we can treat the entire Blender screen area as a continuation of the window we started
in. It is important to distinguish the commands that are affected by this limitation. Mainly key-
board shortcuts and the view controls described in the next section are the ones we will commonly
experience this cut-off with. If you ever experience a particular command simply not working, this
is typically the root cause of the problem and very easy to fix. Even with years of experience, I
will still run into this on occasion.
Chapter 1. Introduction to Blender 10

Figure 1.6: Blender’s Window Selection Menu Options That We Commonly Use

1.4.2 View Controls

With Blender we will be using a combination of mouse and keyboard button inputs to manipulate
the orientation of the 3-D model relative to our 3-D View window. The tables below will outline
what you will need to know.

Control Input Result

Click & Hold middle mouse button Rotates the model about the pivot
and drag mouse (center) of the model.
Hold Shift while clicking and hold- View pans in the plane parallel to
ing the middle mouse button while the screen, both up and down, and
dragging mouse. left and right.

Table 1.2: Keyboard & Mouse Combination View Controls

There are also very important view controls tied only to the number pad.
Chapter 1. Introduction to Blender 11

Number Pad Buttons Result

7, 1, 3 Buttons Snaps the view to the top, right side, front

view of the aircraft model respectively.
Ctrl + 7, 1, 3 Snaps the view to the opposite of view.
i.e. the front will now view the back.
5 Toggles between perspective and orthogo-
nal view. I personally find it much easier
to work in orthogonal view.
8, 2 Rotates the view 15 degrees in the vertical
direction with respect to the screen.
4, 6 Rotates the view 15 degrees in the hori-
zontal direction with respect to the screen.
/ Isolates selected object(s) from the rest of
the model for easier viewing of details.3

Table 1.3: Number Pad View Controls

1.4.3 View Modes

These control how we see the Blender model. The three that we will be paying the most attention
to are the Textured, Solid, and Wireframe. They are useful for the following applications:

View Mode Application

Textured This allows you to see the different colors that

you paint the model. These colors will be the
ones you see in YSFlight.
Shaded Shows you the shadows and shading issues that
may appear in YSFlight. With the 2013 update,
shadow control became much more important
for creating a quality model.
Wireframe Lets you look through the model to select dif-
ferent things that might be completely enclosed,
or hard to get to. For complicated geometries,
this is a very useful tool.

Table 1.4: View Mode Applications

3
This is different from the ”/” that appears on the keyboard.
Chapter 1. Introduction to Blender 12

1.4.4 Object, Edit & Vertex Paint Modes

Each of these modes allows you to do certain things to the model as outlined in the table below:

Mode Usefulness to YSFlight Modding

Object Mode This allows us to manipulate objects, moving them around

the 3-D models space, or use the built-in tools of Blender to
perform modifications to alter their shape.
Edit Mode This is where we directly manipulate the geometry of the
object’s mesh by moving vertices, edges and faces, or adding
in new ones.
Vertex Paint Mode As the name suggests, this is where we apply color (Painting)
to the faces of a mesh.

Table 1.5: Important Modes for YSFlight Modding

1.4.5 Selecting Objects

Objects come in many shapes and sizes and there are many different types with different properties.
For the most part we will only work with three types: Mesh, text, and curves. To select any type
of object, we can use these controls:

Commands Type of Selection

Right click on object Selects that particular object.

Shift-Right click on multi- Selects all objects that were clicked on.
ple objects
Ctrl-Left click, drag mouse Selects all objects that fall inside the loop
in loop defined by the mouse’s path.
Press ”b”, click and drag Selects all objects within the box.
box over objects
Press ”a” Toggles select all / deselect all

Table 1.6: Controls For Selecting Objects

Chapter 1. Introduction to Blender 13

1.4.5.1 Selection Highlight

When something is selected in Blender, it is visually highlighted and we see the a different color
depending on what mode we are in. In Object Mode we have a pink outline around the selected
object(s).

Figure 1.7: A Selected Object Highlighted In Object Mode

In Edit Mode, a vertex or edge will be selected yellow, but a face will be selected as a pink color fill.
Chapter 1. Introduction to Blender 14

Figure 1.8: Edge Selected With Yellow Highlight In Edit Mode

Figure 1.9: Face Selected With Yellow Highlight In Edit Mode

Chapter 1. Introduction to Blender 15

1.4.6 File Browsing

Blender’s file browsing method is a little different from what you might be familiar with. If you
are reasonably familiar with the file structure of your computer’s files, then you will be able to
navigate though Blender’s file browser. When you open, import, or save a file, you will see this
window replace one of the screens. Which window this is varies and I have not figured out why
it changes. However, when you select open or cancel the action, the window will be replaced with
what was originally there. You do not need to worry about your UI.

Figure 1.10: Blender’s File Browser Window

As you can see in Figure 1.10, we navigate through the folder trees by clicking on folders or on the
double-dot row at the top of the column. When you click on a file (Black Text), you will see the
filename appear in the Filename bar. If you click on a while file, you will enter that folder and see
what is inside.
Chapter 1. Introduction to Blender 16

Figure 1.11: Files Recognized By Blender Will Be Highlighted

When Blender recognizes a file, it will provide a highlighted color box to the left of the name, as
shown in Figure 1.11. The only two colors we will need to pay attention to are orange (.blend file)
and purple (font file). Even if we see a file that can be imported into Blender, Blender will not
highlight it.

You can change how files are ordered in the Blender File Browser by selecting another option in
the four buttons on the bottom left of the window. Personally, I have never used this, however it is
something that you may wish to do to find something you just worked on, but is no longer in the
’open recent’ menu.

If you are going to be working on a model in a newer version of Blender, then you will want to
deselect the Load UI button on the bottom of the window so you do not introduce any weird
errors due to different versions.
Chapter 1. Introduction to Blender 17

1.5 My Recommendation for Saving Your Work

When you go to save your modding work, you will want to save your work as a .blend file. Some
people think that they need to save their work in the same filetype that they imported the aircraft
they are working on. Do Not Do This. You will introduce countless errors from multiple import/-
export cycles and also waste time. Simply saving your file as a .blend file means you can quickly
resume your project by opening the file.

1.5.1 File Structure

Having struggled with file organization in the past, please follow my recommendation below. I have
found it to save time and be less frustrating when trying to find a particular model. I have included
a quick snapshot of my folder structure below:

YSFlight Modding Folder

>> Aircraft Modding
>> Project #1 Aircraft Name
>> Reference Images
>> Original Model
>> Model Files
. All the files you are using to create your model
>> YSFlight Files
. Filled with finished components that go in add-on package.

This Folder and Files Structure seems to have worked the best for me and is relatively straightfor-
ward to implement and follow.
Appendix A

Full List of Blender Shortcut Key

Commands

It is hard to find a full list of keyboard short cuts that are used in YSFlight modding. Therefore
I decided to compile the various commands, and others found throughout this document into Ap-
pendix A to help you quickly find the command you want. The tables are sorted by topic, which
is visible in the table of contents.

A.1 Object Translation

Keyboard Shortcut Description

g Moves the selected object(s) in any direction you move your

mouse in the 3D View.

g→x Moves the selected object(s) in the x-direction for as far as you
drag your mouse in the 3D View.

g→y Moves the selected object(s) in the y-direction for as far as you
drag your mouse in the 3D View.

g→z Moves the selected object(s) in the z-direction for as far as you
drag your mouse in the 3D View.

18
Appendix A. Full List of Blender Shortcut Key Commands 19

g→x→# Moves the selected object(s) in the x-direction as far as you spec-
ify in # of meters.

g→y→# Moves the selected object(s) in the y-direction as far as you spec-
ify in # of meters.

g→z→# Moves the selected object(s) in the z-direction as far as you spec-
ify in # of meters.

g→x→x Moves the selected object(s) in the z-direction of the parent ob-
ject for as far as you drag your mouse in the 3D View.

g→y→y Moves the selected object(s) in the z-direction of the parent ob-
ject for as far as you drag your mouse in the 3D View.

g→z→z Moves the selected object(s) in the z-direction of the parent ob-
ject for as far as you drag your mouse in the 3D View.

g→x→x→# Moves the selected object(s) in the z-direction of the parent ob-
ject as far as you specify in # of meters.

g→y→y→# Moves the selected object(s) in the z-direction of the parent ob-
ject as far as you specify in # of meters.

g→z→z→# Moves the selected object(s) in the z-direction of the parent ob-
ject as far as you specify in # of meters.

A.2 Object Rotation

Keyboard Shortcut Description

r Rotate selected object(s) with a mouse drag.

r→x Rotate selected object(s) about the object’s x-axis with a mouse
drag.

r→y Rotate selected object(s) about the object’s y-axis with a mouse
drag.
Appendix A. Full List of Blender Shortcut Key Commands 20

r→y Rotate selected object(s) about the object’s y-axis with a mouse
drag.

r→x→# Rotate selected object(s) about the object’s x-axis by # of de-

grees.

r→y→# Rotate selected object(s) about the object’s y-axis by # of de-

grees.

r→y→# Rotate selected object(s) about the object’s y-axis by # of de-

grees.

r→x→x Rotate selected object(s) about the parent object’s x-axis with
a mouse drag.

r→y→y Rotate selected object(s) about the parent object’s y-axis with
a mouse drag.

r→y→z Rotate selected object(s) about the parent object’s y-axis with
a mouse drag.

r→x→x→# Rotate selected object(s) about the parent object’s x-axis by #

of degrees.

r→y→y→# Rotate selected object(s) about the parent object’s y-axis by #

of degrees.

r→y→z→# Rotate selected object(s) about the parent object’s y-axis by #

of degrees.

A.3 Number Pad View Controls

Keyboard Shortcut Description

NumPad 1 Right-side view

NumPad 2 Rotate view -15 degrees about the screen’s horizontal axis.

NumPad 3 Front View

Appendix A. Full List of Blender Shortcut Key Commands 21

NumPad 4 Rotate view 15 degrees to the left about the screen’s vertical
axis.

NumPad 5 Toggle between perspective & orthogonal views.

NumPad 6 Rotate view 15 degrees to the right about the screen’s vertical
axis.

NumPad 7 Top View

NumPad 8 Rotate view +15 degrees about the screen’s horizontal axis.

Control → NumPad 1 Left-side view.

Control → NumPad 2 Translate view down.

Control → NumPad 3 Rear view.

Control → NumPad 4 Translate view left.

Control → NumPad 5 Translate view up.

Control → NumPad 6 Translate view right.

Control → NumPad 7 Bottom view.

Control → NumPad 8 Translate view up.

Control → NumPad 9 Translate view up.

A.4 Layer Controls

Keyboard Shortcut Description

m Opens the Move-to-Layer menu to move the selected object(s)

to the layer selected in the menu.

m→# Moves selected object(s) to # layer.

˜ Shows all layers on top of each other.