Blender 101

I'm slowly catching up and trying to learn blender so I'm just writing down a few things that frustrate me as an old maya/houdini user, and answer it as i go.

Resources

• Cool cards/non-video tutorials. Would be great to have them in a normal scrollable page! https://www.3dbestie.com/
• French Studio Les Fées Speciales' blender tech blog: https://lacuisine.tech/
• Maya to blender in 30 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C0njghXPAI

Some shortcuts

Will sort! Trying to be a GoodBoy and learning the blender standard. God it's hard not to hit the Alt key for navigation.

function	key	equivalent to
Add objects	shift-a	Tab-drop node (houdini)
Frame/focus object	. (numpad)	f (maya)
Make active camera	ctrl-num0	mmb drag and drop cam from outliner to VP (maya)
Toggle object/faces edges/vertices	tab 1 2 3	Maya F8 F9 etc...
Search for function	F3	Maya's Find Menu but actually looks nice
Change sudbdiv	ctrl+0,1,2...(top row keyboard digits)	Maya's numpad 1 2 3
Select Linked	ctrl-L	double click in maya to select shell
Select More/Less	ctrl-Num+	Maya's grow/shrink selection </>
Proportional Editing	o / scrollwheel (while using it)	Soft selection in maya (B/shift MMB)

Concepts

Collections !

Is kind of like maya's set+renderlayer on steroids. You can have an item in several collections (ctrl drag).

Groups !

No such thing, but use a null object

Specific Tips

to be sorted once I get a few

Where can I edit the pivot point, what's with the weird cursor that looks like a lifebuoy ?

The cursor which is a bit jarring is actually quite useful. Shift + right click to move it around, Shift + s to send it places (like the origin)

For pivots, top of the viewport, shortcut is '.' dot but apparently not on a french keyboard. Still don't know what the first box does, I'll remove this line once I know ;)

How do I animate text ?

Apparently you can't keyframe text easily. That sucks. However you can open up a python script, it seems you have to relaunch the script at every session.

# assumes you have a text object called 'Text'
import bpy

scene = bpy.context.scene
obj = scene.objects['Text']

def recalculate_text(scene):
    text = '--'
    cf = scene.frame_current
    if cf < 1800:
        text = ' '
    elif cf < 1920:
        text = 8
    elif cf < 2030:
        text = 5
    elif cf < 2180:
        text = 1
    elif cf < 2300:
        text = 2
   
    obj.data.body = f'{text}'

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_pre.append(recalculate_text)

Will modify this if I find a more user friendly way of doing this.

How do I lock camera to view

This is kinda hidden amirite ? Shortcut to twirl/untwirl that little menu is 'n'

Other random notes

• The outliner forces sorting by alphabetical name ? Not by creation order.