Tips for moving from Blender 2.7x to version 2.8

Hi,

After exploring the Blender 2.8 alpha version for a few days I’ve written a blog post with tips and observations regarding Blender 2.8, for those who are used to working with previous Blender versions.

Hope it helps. Any corrections and/or additions to this list are welcome, thanks in advance.

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Very nice summary of the current state. I will admit that most I got used to very quickly.

The biggest annoyance/change that will require most from me is the below point from your list…

In Edit Mode, you can now easily switch between vertex, edge and face mode by simply pressing 1, 2 or 3. I’ve waited a long time for this.

Curious about your mention that you waited a long time for this. May I ask why?

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Also the search option. when pressing space the floating menu’s first point on the list is search aslo… so if you press space again, does it not go into search? Will have to dig into the search option. Will admit that in 2.79 it was the most common “shortcut” I used for things like bridge tool. now being under F3, I have to move my entire hand upwards to access it… :frowning:

Pressing the spacebar now pops up a floating menu version of the Tool bar. If you want to search for a function, press the F3 key, or Command + F in Blender macOS.

The biggest plus for me is of course the “favorites toolbar” :slight_smile: in a way allows me to bypass the “search” a lot.

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Thank you, @Grzesiek, much appreciated.

I’ve waited a long time with my move to Blender 2.8 because I read everywhere that lots of functions were still buggy or didn’t work yet. But after recently reading in this Blender developers blog post that a beta version is imminent, I decided to take the plunge, and being used to the previous Blender versions I initally had to search for even the simplest functions in 2.8. But it’s gradually growing on me.

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Good point, I’ll change that in the article, thanks.

Thanks, but i know that as you placed this on that site :slight_smile: however I was curious why you waited for the 1,2,3 switch in edit mode.

I myself have been using 2.8 for a few months, didn’t want to wait for even beta as that was already delayed a bit.

Do verify if pressing space twice works. i just recall search was the first option on the list under the spacebar.

It turns out not to work. Double Space activates the 3D cursor, at least on macOS. I have to press F3 or Command + F for search.

I meant that I’ve waited long for that way of switching between modes in Edit Mode in versions prior to Blender 2.8. As far as I know you couldn’t assign your own keyboard shortcuts to those switches in earlier Blender versions.

I’ll double check the search on my PC when I get home in the evening and report back.

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Ok, question is why do you prefer 1,2,3? Is it because other apps use that?

It’s just the straightforwardness of having individual keys for the modes in stead of having to keep going the Alt + Tab menu route numerous times during a modeling session. It’s been years since I worked with 3ds Max, but I remember it worked that way too. Don’t remember which keys though, but that might as well be 1, 2 and 3.

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So tried the double spacebar, nope didn’t work…

Though if you press spacebar once, then hover over the search filed and press spacebar again it will activate it (and honeslty any of the options in that menu… though you might as well just click it… same result :frowning:

Would be better if they did a double spacebar to access it…

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It was like that untill 2-3 days ago, Double space was for search, but it was changed.

Thanks, downloaded latest version and the search is no longer there :(… ohh well

Yeah, now it is on F3.

Yes, F3 or Command + F in Blender macOS (maybe Control + F on Windows?).

@metin… you have been able to assign 123 to vertex/edge/face select for as long as i can remember. there are scripts on the forums that will do it for you or you can just ctrl-tab while in edit mode to bring up the mesh select mode menu, right click on the component type, that will bring up another context menu which has among other options “change shortcut”. (it will overwrite the existing 123 to switch to the first 3 layers)

(just in case you need to go back to 2.79)

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Thanks for the info @jandress, appreciated. I didn’t know this.

I did have to return to 2.79 a few days ago, when the 2.8 build of that day turned out to be very crashy. But I’ve returned to new, more stable 2.8 builds in the mean time.

:frowning: nope, CTRL+F give me nothing… I guess I know what I"ll remap F3 to :slight_smile:

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