Hello again. I continue exploring Blender, and, this time, I take a look at the modeling tools. The most basic way of editing a mesh is editing its vertices. Blender allows you to do this by selecting an editing mode from the top left corner.

If you select Edit Mode, you can modify vertices, edges or faces using the transformation tools.

And if you select Sculpt Mode, you can modify the object using sculpting tools, just like ZBrush, Mudbox or similar apps. Of course, in this case the result was barely visible since I was using a cube.

The modeling tools can be accessed from the side toolbar or the menu right above the viewport, when you are in Edit Mode. The menu and toolbar change if you go to Object Mode, Sculpt Mode or any other mode.

Something I use a lot in Maya is the snapping. I use it to align vertices to other vertices/edges, but also when I am working on retopology.

In a somewhat unrelated note, while I was trying to find the hotkeys to switch between wireframe and shaded mode, I found that I was using the “Industry Compatible” keymap. When I changed to the Blender keymap, I noticed differences in how some keys behave, and even the viewport navigation. Right now I will be using the “Industry Compatible” but I don’t know if I may need to switch to the Blender keymap at some point, since Blender has a lot of shortcuts that save a lot of time. It all depends on how confused I get switching between navigation modes.

Luckily, I can always just use my 3D mouse.

Another thing I was exploring is the selection tools. Blender has quite an array of selection tools that let you select loops, entire surfaces, invert selections, gradually increase or decrease a selection area, etc.

I think my next step now should be make a first 3D model. That’s something I will do in the next article.