Simply cannot snap

Support Basics & Interface
1

Yes I know the magnet icon is for snapping and I see all those options like face, vertex, edge , distance etc… I simply cannot make it work. i even tried a test drawing with 2 simple cubes and i cannot even snap them together as I want.

Here is what I do. I am in object mode. I select one of the cubes. Then I hit G and grab it. But then I cannot snap it to where I want on the other cube. Simply doesn’t do it and behaves as it pleases. Then I try also another way. After I press G, I now also press B. Now I first get happy because I believe, it grabs from where I want (sometimes) but then it does not show anywhere to snap on the second cube. Either snapping really, really sucks in blender or I cannot do it - and I used other drawing programs in my life before and never had issue with such simple thing as snapping.

Can someone explain it as if explaining to a grandpa with all the steps. Do NOT assume I know something secret among blender guys between steps. No. I do not. Describe every mouse click, and button press and also which option is chosen at that instant from menu please.

For example describe this:

How can I snap the center of a face of first cube to the mid point of an edge of the second cube?

Or

How can I snap a corner of the first cube to a corner of the second cube?

Can you explain in detail?

2

Yes. By default, it is snapping closest element of moved selection to target.
So, a Blender user may have taken the habit to move the selection to bring element to snap close to target, before enabling snapping.
There are other choices : Center, Median, Active element or object.
In Object mode, that is center, median or active object of selection of objects moved.
In Edit mode, that is center, median or active vertex, edge or face of selection of mesh element moved.

So, you can not snap center of a face of a cube to mid point of an edge ot another cube, without defining a base.

You have to press B to do that.

Pressing B, once time, is not sufficient.
First time pressing B → to define base point.
Second time pressing B or left click → to validate base point.
Then, you can snap it on target.

So, first, you can define edge center as target to snap to.
Then, you have to define face center as base point. So, you press B.
Then, you place mouse point above one middle of edge of face. And you press A to select this point and allow to move mouse pointer above middle of opposite edge.
Base point will be in the middle of this selection of two middle of edges, in the middle of face.
You can validate base point, and move it to target.

Or in Edit mode, you still define edge center as target to snap to.
You define face center as base point by choosing to snap with Active element.
You select all faces of cube, but you define an active one.
Then, you snap the cube on edge center target of of the cube.
Then, in Object mode, you reset origin to geometry.

You define Vertex as target element.
Then, you press B to select corner of cube to move. You press B or left click to validate this Base point. You move to target. Left click to validate movement.

Or

You move the corner of cube to snap, close to corner of target, without snapping enabled. Then, you enable basic vertex snapping and move again the cube to snap.

3

Thanks for the effort but you skipped so many steps and assumed I know what you knew, just like I stated in my question. Again, I do not know what you know. So since no one else answered and if this doesn’t work I must quit blender, I will go over your response line by line and ask you again (I will just copy paste from your response, I do not know how to take something from your response as quotes):

You said: “Pressing B, once time, is not sufficient.
First time pressing B → to define base point.
Second time pressing B or left click → to validate base point.
Then, you can snap it on target.”

How? I already try pressing it twice. Even in second time it does not go where I want. What does validate mean here then. And then it does not show where I want to snap at all.

You said:“So, first, you can define edge center as target to snap to.”

How? Where? Are you talking about the options near the magnet icon? So they are for where to snap TO? and NOT where to grab FROM?

You said : “Then, you have to define face center as base point. So, you press B.”
So assuming in the line above , the options are for where to snap to, I continued as what you said and pressed B. And, nothing… First of all, before this, is the cube I want to move selected? And do I press G before B? I assumed so and continued. And nothing again… It does not select the center of a face. I pressed B again, and still nothing

I will not go over the rest of your response as things does not work so far already, based on the above.

So, I appreciate your effort, but, you assumed I knew a lot of steps in between and skipped them.

So from the beginning… Assume we start a new project. So now we have our famous cube at sight. Now assume we Add another cube and move it away a little. Assume that is all we have.

Now step by step, WITHOUT skipping any mouse button or keyboard button, please write the steps to move and snap the center of a face of the first cube (lets say cube A), to the center of an edge of second cube (lets say cube B).

I really appreciate your effort. This is my last hope. If this doesnt work I dont know how I can continue. Since 2 days I am trying to snap 2 cubes without any luck

They made blender with 1000000000000000000000 features, but they just did not take care of something as easy as how to snap things properly. this is really ridiculous. i already spent weeks to learn blender now. And no youtube video I watched works. All I want to do is to snap the center of a face of a cube to the center of an edge of another cube…

4

Press G to move, then B.
when you press B a little square appears (for vertex snap) with the mouse you can move that little square to the vertex you want to snap with, move it to a vertex and left click to select that vertex as the snap base.
now move the object and it will snap with that vertex.

5

Read the manual.
Our assistance is voluntary.

Nowhere did you say you have turned on snapping by clicking the icon at the top of the 3D window, or by holding down Ctrl while moving a mesh to temporarily activate snapping.

:man_shrugging:t4: :man_shrugging:t4: It works both ways my friend.
Are you missing vital steps - like activating snapping ?

6

Yes. That is what I am talking about. I did not make crazy assumption that you did not see those options.
You wrote it.

There are labels in the corresponding panel above options.
It is written in the UI : “Snap With”, “Snap To”, “Snap Individual Elements To”

I wrote the mention to click on : Edge Center, Active.
I repeated the procedure 5 times, in my answer.
First to expose general concept.
Then, for each request, I gave two different examples of how to do it.

That is not my fault, If you decided not to read completely my answer, before making a try ; or if you gave up on trying to pay attention, after first fail.

7

Hi all :smiley:

I’m also turning in this problem: snapping whole object to other object from verts…

I red on former posts that hitting B after hitting G ( and beeing in grab mode ) allows to select a snap vert. But it appears in my blender3.5 B does nothing when in grab mode.
What blender version are you talking about ?

Thanks and happy blending :smiley:

8

The snap base function is new in 4.0 so 3.5 doesn’t have it.

2 Likes
9

@Meshmonkey okay thanks for your answer :slight_smile:

And could you please tell me wether there’s a way in B3.5 to snap objects to their verts ? Or maybe a tutorial ?
I know there’s a way with changing the object-to-be-snapped’s origin but it’s a bit heavy and i wouldn’t want to write a script for this :wink:

Happy blending !

10

Best use an addon like this:

11

Not exactly a tutorial but snapping ain’t too complicated. Here’s how to make vertices of one object snap to vertices of another. Just choose the right elements from the snap interface and fiddle around with the Ctrl key a lot.
snap.mkv (3.5 MB)

1 Like
12

Thanks @Meshmonkey :smiley:
I give this an eye…

1 Like
13

Oh okay i see what you mean in your video and indeed it works perfectly with cubes :wink:

Unfortunately it wont work with anything else as it seems blender uses object bounding box corner as snap point.

Just give a try with a cone and a cube to snap to. Something like this:

image
image713×512 40 KB

And try to snap the cone to the cube’s red dot :wink:

TBH i suspect there’s a way to do this in 3.5 but i didn"t find it yet :confused:

14

You could try in this way…(not so elegant and could be a problem with the origin with animated objects):

  • in the snap options, set “Vertex” and “Active”
  • then select the cone, go to “edit mode”, select all the vertex paying attention that the last vertex is that you want to use as snap base
  • press G and point to the cubve terxtex you want to snap to.
1 Like
15

Yes this would be one way. However the ( ugly ) way i do my snap is by selecting the vert in edit mode, put the cursor on it, back to object mode, then set origin to cursor, and finally snap my origin to vhatever vertex i want :slight_smile:

Of course this could be esaily done with a script ( that could also keep the original object origin ) but i’m kinda lazy today for this :wink:

Thanks and happy blending !

16

Ah I see. I snap a lot in edit mode and it works really well, but when in object mode it’s indeed wonky.

snap2.mkv (2.8 MB)

I mostly snap a lot using the axis constraints, so in edit mode I grab vertices then snap them to another object only in one direction or plane.

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17

That is the same as setting Snap With Center & To Vertex with everything else turned off in the Snap settings.

18

Except i dont want to snap center to vertex but vertex to vertex in object mode.
Therefore i have to change the ‘center’ ( eg: object origin ) to the object vertex i want to be snapped to other object vertex :wink:

19

Yeah that not possible in your blender version with snapping, the addon I linked days ago solves it in an absolutely elegant way. So use the addon or update your blender version.

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