I think I’ve heard this being referred to as the ‘origin point’ in tutorials, but I have no idea how to get rid of it. It’s set by left-clicking with the mouse (but you probably already knew that). I accidentally left clicked while trying to render my mesh, and now I can’t get rid of it.
Trying to scale the top row of vertices while this ‘origin point’ thing is in the scene causes them all to magnetize towards it. Does anyone know how to get rid of it?
I tried Googling ‘Blender left click’, and ‘Blender origin point’ but nothing showed up. I’m not even sure if I’m calling it by the right name.
Also, is there any easy way to identify what a specific feature is called within the program? I don’t want to have to resort to the forums all the time, but the manual navigates via functionality and not input commands so I don’t know where I am supposed to look.
It is not the origin point (the object origin is the orange dot in the centre of your object). It is the 3d curser. When you add a new object you add it at the location of this curser. It is also used in combination with some other tools, learn to use it.
You can use it as the location of the pivot point (as in your case) or not, it’s up to you. You set the pivot point from the dropdown list on the 3d view header
Also, is there any easy way to identify what a specific feature is called within the program? I don’t want to have to resort to the forums all the time, but the manual navigates via functionality and not input commands so I don’t know where I am supposed to look
The manual. There is a link in the blender Help menu. Look also at the "New to Blender’ link at the top of this forum
As Richard said. You cant get rid of the 3D cursor. There is lots of standard functionality connected to this 3d cursor in Blender. Thats why this cursor is hardcoded and always visible. Even when it disturbs. And the developers are not to convince that it may be a good idea to make this more than once disturbing rascal at least hidable.
There was a plugin that was able to hide the 3D cursor, the enhanced 3D cursor plugin. But this had an massive performance impact. Which means the cursor was invisible, but at a very high price. So that this functionality gots removed then. The little icon for it still exists, but it is greyed out.
Yeah, 3D cursor might seem like a distraction but it’s very useful thing to have. There’s even a 2D cursor in the UV/Image editor, which is not as useful but it’s also less distracting.
In addition to what has been already mentioned, when you hover over the fields you should be able to see a tooltip. It’s also possible to right click on fields and click “online manual”. Many fields don’t have a functioning link or it just goes to the main section of the manual the field applies to, but some of them point to spesific information.
While it’s not possible to get rid of the 3D cursor, you can get rid of the 3D manipulator (the item with the blue/red/green arrows that is around the 3D cursor in your screenshot) by clicking on this button :
Thanks for the answers guys, you’ve all been really helpful.
The thing is that I’m so used to most other programs (which select with LMB click) that there is a tendency for me to instinctively left click when trying to select an object, which shifts the 3d cursor from its original position.
But I digress. Is there a way to set or snap the position of the cursor to the center of the mesh if the mesh has been moved from its original position (the one it was at during creation?). I know it can be snapped to origin co ordinates (0,0,0) from the manual, but what if the mesh is no longer residing at 0,0,0?
The objects origin may not be in the centre of the object so:
Shift+S / Curser to Selected in Object Mode moves the curser to the selected objects origin
Shift+S / Curser to Selected in Edit Mode moves the curser to the centre of the selected vertices
Have a look at the Origin Button in the toolshelf at the left side.
I dont doubt the power of the 3D cursor. But it should also work when it is hidden. It simply visually disturbs in 99% of the time. I would love to make it invisible. For me its one of the UI quirks in Blender that i dislike.
Then you get new threads starting “I’ve added a new object, I can see it in the outliner window but it’s not showing in the view. Is it a bug ?”
A simpler solution is to just ignore it.
In the User Preferences panel you can switch to Left Click select. It’s in the Input tab. Once you’ve changed it, hit Control-U to save this as your preference.
