wow that last ones a new one on me! :o ( scribble scribble,…shift B. check. )
Shift+V works great for doing planar mapping. Just select the faces that you want to map and press Shift+V and choose top. The view is automatically aligned to the optimal angle for you planar map!
TorQ
alt+v = resize object to image texture proportions. I’ve used this one a lot for simple background objects that were actualy just image planes, like houses trees and such.
. (Del on num-keypad) = Centers selected object in view.
Ctrl+LMB inserts a key frame at the cursor position in IPO window for a selected curve.
since a while back it even centers selected vertices in mesh-edit-mode 
I poked Goofster about it till he got annoyed and did it 
small correction on Tip 17:
You actually do not have to select a vertice first.
You just hold your cursor over the mesh part you want, and press L, Blender will pick whichever vertice is closest. Selecting a vertice does nothing. (try it out, separate the suzannes far apart, select a vertice on the first suzanne, then hold the cursor over the second and press L… the second suzanne will be selected, in addition to the one vertice on the first suzanne… without holding the shift key)
Now that’s a useful one. For background images, I use image planes and I always have to resize the planes manually.
Unfortunately, when you open an image in the UV window, it doesn’t assign that image as a texture to the material so you have to do both before it will let you auto-resize the object. For image planes, I normally just use the UV editor.
What does that one do? It didn’t change anything in the scene for me.
Here’s one I found by accident - if you do alt-b in camera view, it shows you a projection from the camera where it intersects all parts of the scene. Do alt-b again to clear it.
BTW, how do you clear the shift-b selection?
This stuff should be on the wiki.
I just click/deselect the “border” button under the Render section in Scene Buttons.
I just click/deselect the “border” button under the Render section in Scene Buttons.
I know this works, but theres gotta be a better way. If not, then why isn’t there? It seems pretty clunky…
This thread is OLD! In those days Ctrl-F was extremely useful before a boolean (that was just after the “Intersect” button disappeared).
%<
I just click/deselect the “border” button under the Render section in Scene Buttons.[/quote]
Oh, so that’s what that does. I agree with dante, there should be a better way than that. Maybe if there was a square in the camera view that you clicked or put it in the camera attributes.
DAMMIT! I hate when people do that. I didn’t even notice this time. Still, I learned something so I guess it’s not all bad.
I am sorry, I meant to post my thread reviving post in this thread:
https://blenderartists.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=53230&highlight=
Old or not. Its one of the aha threads.
“~” turns on all layers. I’ve seen this used before, so I know many already know this one. I had to learn it by accident, however. (Sometimes it pays to be a clumsy typist. %| )
Left click and drag in the video player steps through frames (left is backward right is forward).
[EDIT]
Enter restarts the player and the arrow keys also step through frames.
And numpad +/- zooms the player window.
[/EDIT]
‘a’ in the render window shows the image alpha as a greyscale mask.
‘z’ in the render window zooms in, moveing the mouse pans, numpad plus/minus zooms in/out.
‘j’ is amazingly handy once you start using it (spare render buffer).
It would be nice if we could get the z-buffer like ‘a’ gets the alpha…
Mac OS X users only (for everybody else this will probably not seem quite spectacular):
This isn’t really a hotkey but I just found it out and I think it may be useful:
If you want to launch a second copy of blender (say you want to look at two different files simultaneously), open a terminal, and enter this command:
/Applications/blender/blender.app/Contents/MacOS/blender
that way, you can also supply command line arguments (try -Y (capital), not very useful, but funny)
<EDIT>
Btw, to moderators / admins: I’ve just seen this is quite an old thread that’s been revived. Further, there seem to be other threads like it laying around here at elysiun (for example this one, which are all very useful, but a bit hard to find. Both of these threads have fairly recent posts. I just wondered why there isn’t some sticky thread (maybe in the Blender General forum) which collects useful little tricks and hotkeys at one place, so everybody knows where to look for / post such things. Just a thought (inpired by this very useful CGTalk thread http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=52560)
Can someone tell me how to “rescale” an IPO window display (not the curves but the “timeline vs transformation”) using a one button mouse?
Pressing Ctrl-Shift works fine (press then drag to stretch and squash as desired) but because Ctrl is used, it adds also a key frame if one curve is active.
It’s frustrating because I usually find each IPO window is scaled differently for some reason and I am always zooming in and out then rescaling and then often have to delete this extra keyframe, if I notice it added one.
ctrl-alt-leftmouse - make sure you have the ‘emulate 3-button mouse’ button checked in your user preferences. Everywhere you see mmb in the documentation, replace it with alt-leftmouse. But seriously consider getting a multi-button mouse.
Alt-V
Scales an object to match the proportions of an image texture.
ctrl-alt-leftmouse - make sure you have the ‘emulate 3-button mouse’ button checked in your user preferences. Everywhere you see mmb in the documentation, replace it with alt-leftmouse. But seriously consider getting a multi-button mouse.
Thanks for that. Once I discovered Ctrl-Shift-Mouse I assumed that was it then noticed the occasional adding of keys using this method.
Any recommendations on what to look for in a 3 button mouse for Mac?