To learn how to enable Number Pad Emulation, you can watch this short YouTube video, or follow the instructions below. But by enabling Blender’s number pad emulation, the number keys on the top of the keyboard will work like a number pad. On the other hand, the number keys at the top of the keyboard select the Visible Layers.
Specifically, the number keys on the number pad select the different views, which is a very handy feature. View menu is located in the footer of the 3D View windowīy default in Blender, the number keys on the number pad work differently than the number keys at the top of the keyboard. By opening the menu, you can see the selections for the views along with their associated hotkeys. But you can also select the views from the View menu which is located in the footer of the 3D View window. The number keys, on the number pad, are hotkeys for the various views. Both of these methods are explained below. This allows the number keys, at the top of the keyboard above the letter keys, to be used instead of the number pad. Another method is to enable Blender’s Number Pad Emulation. While this is easy to do, it’s not the most efficient way to work with Blender. To add other shortcuts to Blender, including those that are not currently assigned, check out Darrin’s article on setting up Manipulator Shortcuts.There is more than one way to use Blender without a number pad. When you’re done with your customisation session, press Save User Settings at the bottom of the window to save your work.Īnd there we have it: The Case of the non-working View Selected shortcut has been solved! Thanks to Richard Marklew for this tip. To return this shortcut back to its default, click the arrow. This gives you a clue which shortcuts have been changed. Notice the little X next to the field change into an arrow. I’m going to map mine simply to the standard period key. To change the keyboard mapping, click into the light grey field you’d like to change (until it reads “Press a key”), followed by the shortcut you’d like to use. Likewise, you can also change the drop down to Name again and search for particular menu item. Blender will now filter the list and only show results involving said key. NB: To see if your desired key is already in use for something else, you can whittle this long list down to particular shortcuts by changing the drop down menu (left of the search bar) to Key-Binding, then enter your shortcut and see what comes up. (I have no idea why, but Blender users find such idiosyncrasies charming). and the other one is mapped to CTRL + NUMPAD +. There are two options for the same thing here: one is mapped to NUMPAD +. You’ll see many scary options, including a long list of current actions and associated shortcuts on the right hand side.įor View Selected, we’re looking for 3D View – 3D View (Global). Head over to File – User Preferences and select the Input tab.
Let’s see how we can assign our own shortcut to the View Selected option. Thankfully, Blender is endlessly customisable. So what can we do, if we don’t want to invest into more hardware? Re-mapping the keyboard shortcut to something usable springs to mind. There is an option under File – User Preferences that lets users like me emulate one, and it works with most keyboard shortcuts – but NOT for the View Selected shortcut. But the default doesn’t work, because I don’t have a Number Pad. I do this a lot, so I really want this as a usable shortcut on my keyboard. View Selected is accessible from the View menu, and by default it’s mapped to NUMPAD +. It frames the selected object(s) and lets us tumble the camera around them. One of the many useful shortcuts in Blender is View Selected. While those aren’t expensive, some of us just don’t want to use another gadget that clutters our desks (be that at home or in our coffee shop). That’s because many of them rely on us having a full-size keyboard or an additional Number Pad.
On standard Mac keyboards and laptops, some of the handy Blender shortcuts are hard to find.