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.

Cool Resources

French Studio Les Fées Speciales' blender tech blog: https://lacuisine.tech/

Some shortcuts

key	function	equivalent to
shift-a	add objects
. (numpad)	frame/focus object	f (maya)
ctrl-num0	make active camera	mmb drag and drop cam from outliner to VP (maya)

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.