3d cursor and snapping modes, Face question only

I realize I can SHIFT+S snap the 3d cursor to things, but I’d like to know:

Snapping mode seems to work on the 3d cursor TOOL, but works best with EDGE CENTER and VERTEX. I was wondering why it doesn’t seem to work with Face (Center) at all.

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AGAIN, I KNOW ABOUT SHIFT+S.

Afaik there is no direct way to snap on a face center. You can use snapping points to do so.
Use vertices snapping, you can set weight points with pressing “a”, set them to the vertices of the face and move away the object will snap to the center.

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Thanks for answering, but your sentence above lost me. Am I correct in thinking that EDGE CENTER SNAP does work for the 3d cursor? Does that make it seem like FACE (Center) is simply an oversight?

I get/{half-agree} that CURSOR TO SELECTED probably makes just as much or more sense, but it’s a paper-cut to me: snapping exists, seems to work sometimes (as above), so why not Snap To Face?

To me, it’s yet another speed-bump in the parking-lot of speedbumps/papercuts that is Blender’s UI.

Transform snapping (i.e. snapping while moving/rotating/scaling) to face centers does not exist in Blender, only to faces (that is, to any arbitrary point on a face).

What @rigoletto described was Multiple Snap Targets, with which you can “find” a face center by snapping to several vertices.

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Ah, so it’s really the median point of several Verts? Academically: While generally useful, if you had a ‘crazy’ uneven polygon, would it necessarily be inside the polygon? Now we’re getting into “centroid” and other pathological situations…

Yup, in an asymmetrical face it could be anywhere. Though this thing is weighed - you can hit A for one vertex several times, increasing its weight and so biasing the final snap result toward it, so in some cases you can fudge like that. Still, be much more sensible if Face Centers existed as an option. Alas…

??? What’s the workflow, do you need to hover over a vertex while hitting A multiple times?

Where might I search in the manual for this feature? Thanks.

Link is a few posts above.

I understand exactly where you are coming from as I wondered this too!
sbf

The interface gives the impression that you should click snaps, then select ‘Face’ as the target, and then below it lets you select ‘Center’. Now if you can’t snap to a face center, that should be grayed out, or give a warning, but it just silently fails. Yes you can snap to the face, but not to the center, just anywhere on the face’s surface. Very misleading on Blender’s part unfortunately. Another example of implicit program functionality where you are not told it cant happen, because it’s assumed you know this somehow, or, buried somewhere in the docs and assumes you read said doc page.

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The “center” option does not belong to the target. It belongs to the object you want to snap. (Snap with stands above the options.)
If you want to place an object on a face center you have to define additional snapping points with the key “a”.
When you move the mouse aside the object is placed in the middle of these points.

As example if you use edge center and define two snapping points the object is placed between them:


Sometime you have to combine or use 2 snapping operations in row for the desired result.