selecting / focusing

Use Numpad . to centre the view on the selected object or control.

navigation

These controls move the view, not the object.

camera / view modes

Perspective: objects further away appear smaller.

Orthographic: removes perspective distortion and is useful for alignment.

editors

• 3D Viewport - scene work and posing
• Timeline - basic animation timing
• Dope Sheet - keyframe organisation
• Graph Editor - animation curves
• Outliner - objects in the scene
• Properties - object, scene and render settings

toolbar / sidebar

Rain's CloudRig controls can appear in the N sidebar.

3D cursor

The 3D Cursor is a movable reference point used for snapping, adding objects and transforms.

Shift + S -> Cursor to World Origin resets it to the centre.

resetting values

Backspace can reset a numerical field when the cursor is over it.

Alt + G clears location. Alt + R clears rotation.

holdout

Holdout removes an area from the rendered alpha. It is different from normal material transparency.

transforms

Press X, Y or Z after starting a transform to lock it to that axis.

A number can be typed for an exact value.

LMB confirms. RMB or Esc cancels.

keyframes

A keyframe stores a value at a specific frame. Blender calculates the movement between keyed values.

I is the main shortcut for inserting keyframes. K is used for Keying Sets.

moving / copying keyframes

scaling timing

Select multiple keyframes and press S to spread them apart or move them closer together.

• S -> 2 = roughly twice as long
• S -> 0.5 = roughly twice as fast

markers

preview range

P + drag sets a temporary playback range. Alt + P clears it.

playback

Sync to Audio is useful when audio timing matters more than displaying every viewport frame.

Course note: 24 fps with motion blur / 30 fps without motion blur.

channels

The left side lists animated objects and properties. Expanding a channel can show location, rotation, bones and other animation data.

grouping

Ctrl + G groups selected animation channels.

graph editor shortcut

With the mouse over the Dope Sheet, Ctrl + Tab switches that editor to the Graph Editor.

curve visibility

interpolation

Select keyframes and press T to choose the interpolation type.

• Bezier - smooth acceleration and deceleration
• Linear - constant rate between keyframes
• Constant - holds one value until the next keyframe

handles

Bezier handles control the shape of the curve. V opens the Handle Type menu.

normalize

Displays curves with different value ranges at a comparable scale. Useful for viewing and editing.

cycles

Repeats an animation curve. Useful for looping animation such as walk cycles.

stepped interpolation

Holds a value for a set number of frames before updating. Useful for deliberately stepped motion.

A project can still run at 24 fps while a pose only changes every 2 frames.

Rain V2

Practice character rig used for the animation lessons.

When working directly inside the Rain file: select the armature and enter Pose Mode.

object mode / pose mode

Object Mode: moves the entire rig or object.

Pose Mode: manipulates rig controls and bones.

With an armature selected, Ctrl + Tab can switch into Pose Mode.

copying poses

Copying a pose in Pose Mode is different from copying animation keyframes between channels.

rig layers

Rig Layers show or hide groups of rig controls, such as face, arms, fingers, IK and FK controls.

FK

Forward Kinematics. Controls are rotated down the chain: shoulder -> upper arm -> forearm -> hand.

Useful for free-swinging limbs and rotational movement.

IK

Inverse Kinematics. Move the hand or foot controller and Blender calculates the rest of the chain.

Useful when a hand or foot needs to stay planted.

IK / FK summary

FK: rotate the limb.

IK: place the hand or foot.

motion paths

Motion Paths show the route a bone or object travels through the frames. Useful for checking animation arcs.

camera view

You can also use the camera icon to view the world through the active camera.

multiple camera cuts

Use timeline markers to choose when different cameras appear during the animation.

Select the camera, then use Marker -> Bind Camera to Markers on the frame where you want that camera to take over.

contact shadows

Light -> Shadow -> Contact Shadows can add realism, but comes with a performance cost.

light types

• Point light: no rotation.
• Sun: uses rotation but does not move.
• Spotlight: can focus on a smaller area.

Spotlight blend can be adjusted to make the edge of the light sharper or softer.

render settings

• Viewport denoising can be switched off.
• Screen Space Refractions.
• Materials.
• Motion Blur.

screen space refraction

Used in Eevee for materials like glass, water or other transparent surfaces that need to distort what is behind them.

Enable Screen Space Reflections in Render Properties, then enable Screen Space Refraction in the material's settings.

Because it only uses information currently visible on screen, objects outside the camera view may not appear correctly through the refractive material.

materials

Materials control how the surface of an object looks and reacts to light.

The Principled BSDF shader is the main all-purpose shader and includes most of the settings needed for common materials.

• Base Color: the main colour of the material.
• Roughness: lower values look shinier, higher values look more matte.
• Metallic: use higher values for metal surfaces. Most non-metal materials stay at 0.
• Transmission: lets light pass through the material and is useful for glass-like surfaces.
• Alpha: controls transparency when the material is set up to use it.

For glass or transparent materials in Eevee, the material settings and render settings both need to support transparency or refraction.

motion blur

Shutter: controls how much blur appears in the motion.

Steps: controls quality. For a final render, around 2 or 3 was suggested in the lesson.

transparent background

Under Film, enable transparency to make the background transparent when rendered.

colour management

Standard: for stylised characters and scenes.

Filmic: for more realistic scenes.

quick render

View -> Render Animation can be used for a quick render, but does not include motion blur.

output location

In Output Properties, the default output can be /tmp, but this can be changed to wherever you want the render files saved.

full render

Render -> Render Animation renders the full animation and ignores a preview range set on the timeline.

It can export the animation as a PNG image sequence.

video settings

• File Format: FFMPEG Video
• Encoding -> Container: MPEG-4
• Audio -> Audio Codec: AAC

MPEG video does not support transparency.

frame rate

24 fps: standard. It can look stuttery without motion blur.

30 fps: more suited for game animation.

image sequences

Rendering as an image sequence such as PNG with RGBA is useful when transparency is needed.

The image sequence can be imported into Premiere Pro or other video software and assembled into a sequence for editing.

starting setup

• Change colour management from AgX to Standard.
• Ctrl + S - save.
• Ctrl + Alt + S - save increment, creating another version of the file.
• Enable Rigify under Edit -> Preferences -> Add-ons.
• A Human Meta Rig can be used as a size reference while modelling a human character.

edit mode + selection

W cycles through the different selection tools.

view + transforms

For an exact 90 degree rotation, use R + axis + 90.

common mesh tools

• Edge Loop: adds another loop of edges around the model.
• Bevel: bevel a selected face using the bevel control.
• Extrude Region: pulls a new connected shape out from the model.
• Knife: press Enter when finished making the cut.
• F - fill a selected boundary with a face.
• M - merge selected vertices.
• Ctrl + J - join selected objects in Object Mode.

merging + filling

To bridge an empty gap, select the surrounding edges and use Ctrl + E -> Bridge Edge Loops.

Merge at Last merges vertices to the last vertex selected. Merge at First uses the first vertex selected.

mirror + symmetry

Add a Mirror modifier from the wrench tab.

The symmetry controls opened from the N panel can mirror edits across different axes.

To turn a mirrored result into a full object, apply the modifier in Object Mode.

S + X + -1 flips something across the X axis.

separating geometry

Select the faces you want to separate, press P, then choose Selection.

Faces and vertices cannot be selected normally while X-Ray mode is on.

texture sizes

Many game engines recommend texture sizes using powers of 2, such as 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048 and 4096.

Start with flat colours to work out where colours and details should go, then build more detail into the UV map gradually.

adding a texture

• Select the object in Object Mode.
• Open Material Properties and create a new material.
• Change the surface to Emission.
• Open the Shader Editor.
• Drag the image into the Shader Editor, or use Shift + A -> Image Texture and open the image.
• Connect the image colour to the Emission surface.
• Switch to the UV Editing workspace.
• Use Rendered view to preview the result.

project from view

Select the faces you want to texture, press U, then choose Project from View.

The selected faces / vertices will appear over the texture in the UV Editor so they can be lined up.

UV workflow

• Overlapping UV maps can be an issue in some game engines.
• Shift + Alt + Z hides overlays while UV mapping.
• Scale on the X axis to flip UVs.
• F9 opens the adjustment panel.
• If the viewport becomes slow, try Numpad ..

For easier access while UV editing a mirrored model, the realtime display for the modifier can be temporarily disabled.

bones

• Shift + A -> Armature -> Single Bone adds a bone.
• Under Armature Data, enable In Front so bones can be seen through the model.
• The pointed end is the bone's tail and the thicker end is its head.
• Select a bone tail and press E to extrude a connected bone.
• Shift + D duplicates bones.
• Alt + P clears a parent relationship.

binding to a model

In Object Mode, select the object and armature, then use Ctrl + P -> Armature Deform with Automatic Weights.

Selecting the bones and pressing Ctrl + Tab enters Pose Mode.

Alt + R resets bone rotation.

basic Rigify setup

• Make sure the Rigify add-on is enabled.
• Add a Basic Human Meta-Rig.
• Enable In Front so the armature stays visible through the character.
• Line the meta-rig up with the model.
• Apply transforms or at least apply scale with Ctrl + A.
• Wireframe overlay can help while adjusting the skeleton inside the model.
• Enable X-axis mirroring so matching bones update on the opposite side.

Leave a slight bend in arms and legs in the direction they are meant to bend.

generate + bind

In Armature Data under Rigify, choose Generate Rig.

The meta-rig can then be hidden while the generated rig is bound to the model.

Select all model objects, then the generated rig, and use Ctrl + P -> Armature Deform with Automatic Weights.

regenerating

The generated rig can be rebuilt later. Hide the generated rig, unhide the meta-rig, adjust it in Edit Mode and choose Re-generate Rig.

weight paint basics

In Object Mode, select an object and switch the mode dropdown to Weight Paint.

Vertex groups can be viewed under Object Data.

Red means more influence from the selected bone. Blue means less influence.

The Weight slider changes how much influence is painted. Strength works like the opacity of the brush.

useful settings

• Symmetry can be enabled from the viewport symmetry controls.
• For the brush falloff, the flat / stapler-shaped option was recommended for low poly work.
• To weight paint in X-Ray, use Solid view rather than Rendered view.
• Enable Front Faces if you do not want to paint through the back of the model.
• Enable Auto Normalize.

Auto Normalize removes weight from other bones as weight is added, helping prevent several bones from adding up to more than 100% influence.

viewing bone influences

In Pose Mode, the DEF bone collection can be isolated to see the deformation bones.

With the rig and model selected in Weight Paint Mode, Alt + left click a bone to view its vertex group.

version note

Switched from Blender 4.0 to Blender 4.2.1 LTS during this part of the course.

adding a custom bone

• In Edit Mode, use Shift + A to add a new bone.
• Create a new bone collection and give it a useful name such as hair.
• F2 renames the selected bone.
• Bone colour can be changed under Bone -> Viewport Display.

binding + weighting

Select the object and custom bone, then use Ctrl + P -> Armature Deform. Empty Groups or Automatic Weights can be used depending on the setup.

Weight paint the area that should be controlled by the new bone.

parenting the bone

Under the bone's Relations settings, choose the parent bone with the strongest influence over that area.

A relationship line appears once they are connected.

This setup can be used for things like hair, tails and ears that need secondary motion.

pose resets

separate face material

• Select the face object in Object Mode.
• In Material Properties, duplicate the existing texture material and rename it for the face.
• Open a Shader Editor panel.
• Replace the body texture with the face texture image and reconnect it to the shader.
• In Edit Mode, select the faces that will animate and assign the new face material.
• Use U -> Project from View and line the UVs up with the face texture.

mapping the expressions

Enable the Node Wrangler add-on.

Select the face texture image node and press Ctrl + T to add Mapping and Texture Coordinate nodes.

Add Combine XYZ nodes and change their X values so each one points to a different expression on the texture.

Shift + D duplicates nodes. Number fields can also use multiplication, for example by typing an asterisk and a number.

switching expressions

Mix nodes can be chained together, with each expression connected as the next input.

To avoid a sliding transition between expressions, the lesson uses a Value node with Greater Than math nodes connected to each Mix factor.

Move the Value node to switch between the expressions.

comment-section alternative

A simpler setup suggested in the comments uses one Value node for the face count, then Clamp, Round and Multiply math before feeding the result into the texture offset / mix setup.

face control bone

• Add a new bone to the rig and rename it Face_Control.
• Place it beside the character and rotate it -90 degrees.
• Create a Face Controllers bone collection and assign the control bone to it.

driving the face value

Right click the Value node's number and choose Add Driver, then edit the driver.

• Object: the character rig.
• Bone: Face_Control.
• Type: Z Location.
• Space: Local Space.

If the control is moving in the wrong direction, check the bone axes and set its Roll back to 0.

The driver expression can be multiplied, such as var * 10, so less movement is needed to change expression.

limit movement

Add a Limit Location bone constraint and lock the X and Y minimum / maximum values.

Use Local Space, set the minimum Z to 0 and set the maximum Z to the position of the final expression.

separate eye + mouth controls

Duplicate the face material for the mouth, assign it to the mouth faces and give it its own texture driver.

Duplicate the face control bone to create separate Eye_Control and Mouth_Control bones.

Point each material driver's bone setting at its matching control.

follow the head

Set the face control bones' parent under Bone Properties -> Relations to the head deformation bone used in the tutorial, so the controls follow the head when it rotates.