Digital Art Blender Shortcuts: Fast-Track Your Workflow

Blender Shortcuts: Fast-Track Your Workflow

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If your moving to Blender from Maya or 3ds Max or any other software, one of the biggest challenges you will face is shortcuts!

and the first thing you will do is try to change Blender Keymap to match the shortcuts of the software you switching from because you are so used to it and it's very comfortable.

My advice to you is DON'T DO THAT!

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Switching to Blender from another software

I know it's convenient and in your mind, it's the shortest path to switch to Blender but the reality is you are just skipping an essential part of learning Blender.

Learning new software is challenging even if your switch from one software to another and the struggle you face with new software is similar to when you move from one apartment to another or from one job to another, at first it's uncomfortable and hard but it gets easier with time.

The more you stay attached to your old house and old job the harder the new ones and getting accustomed to the new situation will become, but if you accept the new situation and take it head on and acknowledge that it will take time and it's okay the faster you will feel better and get better.

Blender Essential Shortcuts

ShortcutDescription
SpaceSearch (very useful to get to commands you want)
Shift+DDuplicate
Ctrl+Alt+QQuad View (Space in Maya )
Shift+AAdd Menu (to add all kinds of elements)
Shift+SCursor Menu
.Pivot Menu
yShading Menu
TABswitch between Edit mode and object mode
1,2,3switch to vertex, edge, face mode
(you have to be in edit mode)
ASelect all
LSelect linked (in edit mode, hover over one part of your mesh
and click L and it will select all the polygons of that mesh)
hHide
Alt+hUnhide
Shift+hHide All Except Selected
g+gSlide edge
Ctrl+ or -grow and shrink select (- + one the numpad)
QQuick favorite menu (very useful starting out, to add to the menu
right click on anything and click "add to quick favorites")
Alt+ZXray mode (very important because selecting vertices or edges
or faces and you want to select the back elements you have
to be in Xray or wireframe mode)
XDelete Menu
EExtrude
IInset
KKnife
JConnect 2 Vertices
Ctrl+RInsert Loop
OProportional Editing (soft selection in Maya, Scroll wheel to
grow or shrink its size)
uUV Map Menu
f12Render
fBrush size (Sculpting)
Shift+FBrush Intensity (Sculpting)
ShiftSmooth (Sculpting)

Move, Rotate, and Scale Gizmo in Blender

one of the struggles I had in Blender is move, rotate and scale, coming from Maya it was very easy by just using shortcuts but in Blender ohhh its a challenge.

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There is the G for move and R for rotate and S for scale, yes BUT there is no Gizmo involved! you don't see any axis to click and control.

Now after a while, I realized that there is a way to activate those Gizmos on Select of any object, it's not ideal but it's a very good midground.

Here is how you activate it:

Blender Gizmo

Activate all 3, Move and Rotate and Scale, this way whenever you click on an object you will get a Gizmo like the one below automatically.

Blender Gizmo2