Deleting things? (materials, cameras, etc.)

Support Basics & Interface
1

I’m wondering how to fully delete things in blender. When I start getting lost, I often make something extra that I later want to get rid of… let’s say, a camera.

I had a scene in which I had deleted the stock camera before I even started modelling, and then put in my own camera when I was done.

When I hit NP0, it showed the camera view of the camera that wasn’t there anymore (the one I deleted before I started anything). When I was trying to get things figured out (I since have found the CTRL-NP0 trick for switching active cameras), I added another camera, which I later deleted.

Then, with the lone camera selected, in object mode (of course) if I click on Editing (F9), under links and materials, is my camera, named Camera.001

If I click on the Up/Down arrow to the left of that name, it shows me a list of three names. Camera, Camera.001, and Camera.002 – of which only Camera.001 still exists. Why are the others still in that list, and how can I clean the list up/get rid of them?

This has happened in the past with materials, etc. I’d really rather not have to deal with lists cluttered up with things that don’t exist anymore… or am I completely misunderstanding the role of that listing?

Thanks…

2

Well, in Blender objects aren’t really deleted when you press the delete button. They are just unlinked from the scene. That means they still are there if you want to reuse them, but aren’t represented in the scene anymore. The only way to get rid of unused objects is to save and reload your project (AFAIK sometimes even mutiple saves and reloads are needed).

I guess it would be practical to have a “clean up” button.

3

I agree about the cleanup button, or have a section in the outliner where you can permenantly delete things (I find the outliner awkward, and haven’t figured it out, so maybe you can and I just don’t know. :stuck_out_tongue: )

4

Just in case you don’t know, you can select the real camera you want, then press Ctrl+Numpad 0. This will make the selected camera the “real” one. When you render, it will look through that camera then.