Advertisement

You're blocking ads, which pay for BlenderNation. Read about other ways to support us.

Blender Hotkey Map

33

keymap kopie.pngWhile designed for speed and ease of use, the Blender interface can be daunting for new users. One of the reasons for this is that is is largely hotkey-driven. Once you have these keys 'in your fingers' you'll be able to use Blender like a true 3D Ninja, but until then you're in for a steep learning curve. Here's a bit of documentation that may be of help.

The Blender Hotkey Map is a neat overview of all the hotkeys and their modifiers. Looking at it, it reminds me of my first computer: a ZX Spectrum ;-)

The Map constists of two parts: one for the 3D View and Object Mode and one for Edit Mode. If you want to dig deeper, there are also the Hotkey Reference Pages.

This map is still for Blender 2.40. I have contacted the Blender DocBoard group but it seems like they haven't had time to update it yet. They have assured me that changes should not be too large to make this map unusable, though.

Note: please don't turn this post into a UI discussion. I'm preparing a post about that subject where you can write all you want and say ugly things if you are so inclined ;-)

About the Author

Avatar image for Bart Veldhuizen
Bart Veldhuizen

I have a LONG history with Blender - I wrote some of the earliest Blender tutorials, worked for Not a Number and helped run the crowdfunding campaign that open sourced Blender (the first one on the internet!). I founded BlenderNation in 2006 and have been editing it every single day since then ;-) I also run the Blender Artists forum and I'm Head of Community at Sketchfab.

33 Comments

  1. rpgsimmaster on

    @jogai

    Yes it would be interesting having that keyboard work with Blender. In more ways than one; each key would need to be as big as the Return key to be able to fit the name of the Blender Function it's controlling. (Just how small can you write the word 'keyframe' on the I key anyway?)

    Yes, this keyboard map is useful, even if not complete. It's getting there though (for example, did you know Shift + E is crease, which is useful if you want subsurf AND sharp edges on the same object. Unfortunately that's not listed on the keyboard map and I forgot the key combination the other day, when I needed it.)

  2. @moo

    In my own configuration 'Open last' will appear when you press the ctrl key. However for newbies should it be easier if it doesn't switch.
    Let's first await the release of the board, I'm expecting it will be too much for me to buy.

  3. Hello there!
    I think some wiki little things could be made to improve this HotKey reference :
    - gives [[Category:HotKeys]] to http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/Reference/HK (allowing to see this page in the HotKeys category list : http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/Category:HotKeys) because there is no link between the beautiful HotKey Map and the comprehensive HotKey list!

    - create a "Render Window" (you know, with F11 ;) ) chapter in http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/Reference/HK because it seriously lacks!
    There powerful HotKeys for the Render Window, like JKEY to switch between render buffers, ZKEY to zoom in, F3 to save the image (not so obvious...) or PKEY for ping-pong reading in an animation...
    See what I mean?

    I write this here because even if I'm logged into blender's wiki, I can't edit these articles : they are locked (and that's the same for discussions associated to the articles)!

    Long life to blender!

    PS : that's really strang that even logged we can't edit anything in blender's wiki... I don't even have the right to edit my own user wiki-page :s

  4. These are terriffic!

    I admit that when I first started Blenering and saw the list of hotkeys I ran for cover. Still I frequently run into problems when I forget a less often used shortcut.

    If someone could make a complete (for the other screens) and up to datde version of these that would be grand.

    Cheers Smitje

  5. I seriously WANT one of those keyboards --- hmm... have to wait for it to come out I suppose - the release date as stated on their website is about a week ago...something tells me that it won't be out for a while :(

  6. @Neokilly:
    I thought ZKEY in the render window was pan (PADPLUS/PADMINUS to zoom)? - or is that what you meant anyway?...

  7. @epat:
    Hmm sorry, I did not clearly answered to your question!
    ZKEY is for pan, you're right, but I thought it was the zoom function because it magnifies the picture too (ratio 2x)

  8. They forgot some shortcuts like on the numpad - panning with ctrl + 2 4 6 8 or mirror views - CTRL + 1 3 7 - which are pretty useful

  9. @jogai

    lol, I wrote that about the post you posted before that one, looks like we were both writing comments at the same time and you beat me to the "Submit" button :P

  10. Hehe, I knew this was a good idea to ask here for render windows Hotkeys!

    Each person knows ont little thing on it and it's worth put all these information together in my opinion.

    so,
    @pamtango (and epat) : thanks ;)

  11. I SERIOUSLY want one of those optimus keyboards... I would give up all my life's savings for one! (32 US dollars)

  12. A program showing all the shortcuts would be better; have the Blender window open and have a different window with the keyboard on it, and you click shift and it tells you the options for it... A virtual Optimus keyboard!

    Windows comes with something lke that, but it only shows letters and symbols.

  13. The period key, (center view on selected object/s) is not in there. Nor in the reference pages.

    Thats probably why it took me a while to find (a post about it on elysium) such usefull key.

    Maybe there is a reason its not there, but i didnt rtfa.

  14. @ Tynach

    It would be quite easy to get that in Blender.
    Using the pictures of the shortcut keys, write a simple script to change from one image to another whenever a mode is changed.
    I thought about doing that, But it would take up too much room on my computer screen, and I hate cluttered workspaces.

    I think could write a script that would do that in about 5 - 10 minutes, but I don't know if my python modules would work in Blender...

    There is a Blender function that allows you to get what mode blender is in, isn't there?

  15. while we're on the subject, does anybody know what blender actually does when you "touch" a file (TKEY in fileselect window)? - I've never been able to figure out what it does, there's a similar command in the linux console too, maybe I should look that one up on the net, it might give some hints as to what it does in blender...

    @Neokilly:
    but you can zoom in/out while panning too; so it dosen't necessarily have to be zoomed in by 2x ;)
    -
    alternatively, you can zoom in/out first and pan with MMB - if you don't like the arkward controls when pressing ZKEY!

    -epat.

  16. @epat

    I'm not sure about a Blender touch, but the Unix "touch" updates a file's timestamp - i.e. its modified date. I'd presume that Blender's touch function does the same.

  17. Charlesworth999 on

    You know, in the Blender source files you can find EVERY hotkey there is.
    It can be found at this location:
    ...\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\scripts\hotkeys.py
    There's even a nice little description of what every hotkey does ^^.
    I might create a map showing ALL hotkey one of these days, for my own convience, although those mentioned above are pretty comprehensive as well.
    Cheers

Leave A Reply

To add a profile picture to your message, register your email address with Gravatar.com. To protect your email address, create an account on BlenderNation and log in when posting a message.

Advertisement

×