2.5. EditMode Mesh Hotkeys

Relevant to Blender 2.33

This section and the following highlight peculiar EditMode Hotkeys.

CTRL-NUM+. Adds to selection all vertices connected by an edge to an already selected vertex.

CTRL-NUM-. Removes from selection all vertices of the outer ring of selected vertices.

ALT-CTRL-RMB. Edge select.

EKEY. Extrude Selected. "Extrude" in EditMode transforms all the selected edges to faces. If possible, the selected faces are also duplicated. Grab mode is started directly after this command is executed.

FKEY. Make Edge/Face. If 2 vertices are selected, an edge is created. If 3 or 4 vertices are selected, a face is created.

SHIFT-F. Fill selected. All selected vertices that are bound by edges and form a closed polygon are filled with triangular faces. Holes are automatically taken into account. This operation is 2D; various layers of polygons must be filled in succession.

ALT-F. Beauty Fill. The edges of all the selected triangular faces are switched in such a way that equally sized faces are formed. This operation is 2D; various layers of polygons must be filled in succession. The Beauty Fill can be performed immediately after a Fill.

CTRL-F. Flip faces, selected triangular faces are paired and common edge of each pair swapped.

HKEY. Hide Selected. All selected vertices and faces are temporarily hidden.

SHIFT-H. Hide Not Selected: All non-selected vertices and faces are temporarily hidden.

ALT-H. Reveal. All temporarily hidden vertices and faces are drawn again.

ALT-J. Join faces, selected triangular faces are joined in pairs and transformed to quads

KKEY. Knife tool Menu.

LKEY. Select Linked. If you start with an unselected vertex near the mouse cursor, this vertex is selected, together with all vertices that share an edge with it.

SHIFT-L. Deselect Linked. If you start with a selected vertex, this vertex is deselected, together with all vertices that share an edge with it.

CTRL-L. Select Linked Selected. Starting with all selected vertices, all vertices connected to them are selected too.

MKEY. Mirror. Opens a popup asking for the axis to mirror. 3 possible axis group are available, each of which contains three axes, for a total of nine choices. Axes can be Global (Blender Global Reference); Local (Current Object Local Reference) or View (Current View reference). Remember that mirroring, like scaling, happens with respect to the current pivot point.

ALT-M. Merges selected vertices at barycentrum or at cursor depending on selection made on pop-up.

CTRL-N. Calculate Normals Outside. All normals from selected faces are recalculated and consistently set in the same direction. An attempt is made to direct all normals 'outward'.

SHIFT-CTRL-N. Calculate Normals Inside. All normals from selected faces are recalculated and consistently set in the same direction. An attempt is made to direct all normals 'inward'.

ALT-S. Whereas SHIFT-S scales in Edit Mode as it does in Object Mode, for Edit Mode a further option exists, ALT-S moves each vertex in the direction of its local normal, hence effectively shrinking/fattening the mesh.

CTRL-T. Make Triangles. All selected faces are converted to triangles.

UKEY. Undo. When starting Edit Mode, the original ObData block is saved and all subsequent changes are saved on a stack. This option enables you to restore the previous situation, one after the other.

SHIFT-U. Redo. This let you re-apply any undone changes up to the moment in which Edit Mode was entered

ALT-U. Undo Menu. This let you choose the exact point to which you want to undo changes.

WKEY. Special Menu. A PopupMenu offers the following options:

XKEY. Erase Selected. A PopupMenu offers the following options:

YKEY. Split. This command 'splits' the selected part of a Mesh without deleting faces. The split parts are no longer bound by edges. Use this command to control smoothing. Since the split parts have vertices at the same position, selection with LKEY is recommended.