Introduction

Reference

Mode: Object and Edit Modes
Hotkey: Ctrl and/or Shift

Holding Ctrl during a transform operation (such as grab, rotate or scale) will toggle Transform Snapping. When the Snap Element is set to Increment, this allows the transformation to be performed in discrete amounts.

Holding Shift during a transform operation will transform the object at 1/10th the speed, allowing much finer control.

The magnitude of the transformation can be viewed in the 3D View header in the bottom left hand corner. Releasing Ctrl or Shift during the transformation will cause the movement to revert back to its normal mode of operation.

Holding both Ctrl-Shift enables precise snap. This option will move the object with high precision along with the snapping constraint.

Note

The snapping behaviors described on this page only apply when Increment Snap is selected.

Usage

With hotkeys

Press G, R or S and then hold either Ctrl, Shift or Ctrl-Shift.

With the Transform Manipulator

Hold Ctrl, Shift or Ctrl-Shift and click on the appropriate manipulator handle. Then move the mouse in the desired direction. The reverse action will also work i.e. clicking the manipulator handle and then holding the shortcut key for precision control.

Tip

Combining with other controls

All of the precision controls detailed on the page can be combined with the Axis Locking controls and used with the different Pivot Points.

Snapping

Grab/move

../../../../../../../_images/editors_3dview_transform_control_precision_blender-units.png

1 Blender Unit (default zoom level).

For grab/move operations at the default zoom level, holding Ctrl will cause your selection to move by increments of 1 Blender Unit (1 BU) (i.e. between the two light gray lines). Zooming in enough to see the next set of gray lines will now cause Ctrl movements to occur by 1/10 of a BU. Zooming in further until the next set of gray lines becomes visible will cause movement to happen by 1/100 of a BU and so on until the zoom limit is reached. Zooming out will have the opposite effect and cause movement to happen by increments of 10, 100 etc BU.

Rotation

Holding Ctrl will cause rotations of 5 degrees.

Scale

Holding Ctrl will cause size changes in increments of 0.1 BU.

Note

Snapping modes

Note that if you have a Snap Element option enabled, holding Ctrl will cause the selection to snap to the nearest element.

Read more about Snapping

Precision

Holding Shift during transformations allows for very fine control that does not rely on fixed increments. Rather, large movements of the mouse across the screen only result in small transformations of the selection.

In rotation mode the selected element will be rotate in 0.01 degree increments.

Precision Snapping

Grab/move

For grab/move operations at the default zoom level, holding Ctrl-Shift will cause your selection to move by increments of 1/10 Blender Units. Holding Ctrl-Shift at any zoom level will cause the transformation increments to always be 1/10 of the increment if you were only holding Ctrl.

Rotation

Holding Ctrl-Shift will cause rotations of 1 degree.

Scale transformations

Holding Ctrl-Shift will cause size changes in 0.01 BU increments.