Selecting objects in Blender is quite simple. We already went over it in the Viewport Navigation video, but, to quickly review, left-click an object to select it, and left-click empty space to deselect. But, there are other selection tools as well. You can press "A", for example, to Select All, and "Alt-A" to Deselect All. However, what if I want to select multiple objects, but not all of them? Well, for that, there is the Select Box tool. This is turned on by default, and, with it selected from the Quick Tools menu, you can left-click-drag to select multiple objects at once. To deselect multiple objects at once, simply Ctrl-click-drag in the same way. You can also enable the Box Select tool with the "B" hotkey, but in that mode you'll be using middle-click-drag to deselect objects. An alternative to the Select Box is to press "C" for Circle Select, which acts more like a selection brush, and only extends selection by default. You can, however, use middle-mouse-drag to deselect while in Circle Select mode. Another way to select multiple objects is by simply holding Shift and left-clicking objects individually. To deselect using this method, simply Shift-left-click the object again until it's no longer highlighted. You may notice that while you Shift-left-click these objects, the most-recently selected one is always highlighted in a slightly brighter orange outline. This denotes which object is the active object. The active object is the object whose properties will appear in the Properties Editor. Now, just a quick tip: If you have objects or geometry obscured by other objects or geometry, it may be difficult to select them. To help with this, I recommend using Wireframe mode, located here, to see through your objects. This makes things easier to select, and also allows for selection tools like Box and Circle Select to include otherwise obstructed objects or geometry. Now, it's important to know that each of these selection tools can be used for almost every context in Blender, including Edit Mode, Pose Mode, and many of the editors. However, in some editors, you will be required to press "B" before entering Box Selection mode, such as the Outliner. You may have also noticed a Select menu in the top-left of the Viewport. If you open this menu, you'll notice several selction options laid out for you, as well as some viewport-specific selection options such as Select All by Type, Select Active Camera, Select Linked, and more. Feel free to try these out yourself, but it's important to know that Select More/Less only works in Edit mode, which we'll get into in a seperate video. Now that we know how to select objects, let's start transforming them! Transformation refers to moving things, rotating things, or scaling things. So, let's say a want to push or pull my cube to a different location. This will be classfied as "moving" the cube, or "translating" the cube. I can open the Quick Tools menu and select the Move Tool. You'll notice three coloured arrows and three coloured squares appearing on your selected object. This will allow me to click and drag any of the arrows to move the selected object along that axis. If you select any one of the three of the squares, it will move the object along two axes, excluding axis of its corresponding colour. For example, the blue square excludes the blue Z axis movement, but moves your object along the X and Y axes simultaneously. But, you can also left-click-drag anywhere in the viewport to move the object along your viewing plane. Now, in case your change your mind about moving your object after you've already started dragging it, simply right-click before letting go of your left mouse button. This will work for all transformations. For hotkey users, you can press "G" (as in "grab") to initiate the move along your viewing plane. You can then press "X", "Y", or "Z" to move it along a specific axis like the coloured arrows did. Or, you can hold Shift and press "X", "Y", or "Z" to move it along two axes like the coloured squares did. You can right-click at any time to cancel the move, or left-click to apply the new location to your object. Fun fact: If you initiate any transformation with the mouse click instead of the hotkey, you can still use the "X", "Y", or "Z" hotkeys to perform similar axis-specific constraints on your transformation before you release your left mouse button. You can also switch your transformation entirely to a different one, such as rotation or scale, with their respective hotkeys. Please read the display at the bottom of your window while dragging your object around for more information. To reset the location of your object back to its origin point, simply press "Alt-G". Now, what if we want to tip our cube over or roll it around? In order to do that, we need to rotate our cube. Let's check our quick menus for that. A-ha! Yes, it seems we do have a Rotate tool here as well. This will display a gizmo over the selected object, or objects, showing each rotational axis. Just like the Move tool, you can left-click-drag any of the coloured rings to rotate along a single axis. But, you'll notice there are two new areas, the outer white ring and the inner sphere inside the coloured rings which you'll notice if you hover over it. The outer white ring can be used to rotate the object along your viewing vector. Imagine your eyes drilling a hole into the center of the object and spinning the object around that axis of rotation. The inner sphere is what you see if you hover over the space between the coloured rings. This can be left-click-dragged to enter a free rotation mode which opens all three axes to rotation kind of like a trackball on a trackball mouse. This is my favourite mode of rotation, as it's the most flexible. For hotkey users, simply press "R" (as in "rotate") to initiate the rotation along your given vector. You can then, once again, press "X", "Y", or "Z" to rotate along the specific axis like the coloured rings did. But, you can also hit "R" again to initiate a free rotation like the inner sphere trackball. And again, you can right-click at any time to cancel the rotation or left-click to apply the new rotation to your object. To reset your object's rotation at any time, simply press "Alt-R". Now, let's say we want to make our cube much bigger or much smaller, which can be the difference between, say, a tissue box and a house. This would be known as scaling our cube. So, lets go check our Quick Tools menu again, and yes, a Scale Tool. Selecting this Scale tool displays a gizmo very similar to the Move tool, except instead of coloured arrows, it's like coloured arrows with cubes of cheese stuck on the tips of them. Mmmmmm...cheese. These work exactly the way you might expect. Simply left-click-drag any of the coloured axes to scale the object along that particular direction, big or small. You can also left-click-drag the coloured squares to exclude one axis from the scaling process. But what if you want to scale the entire object evenly? Just like moving, you simply left-click-drag anywhere in the viewport. For hotkey users, press the "S" key (as in "scale") to initiate the size change evenly for all axes. Press "X", "Y", or "Z" to scale along only along a single axis just like the coloured arrows with cheese on them did. Or, press Shift-"X", "Y", or "Z" to exclude an axis from the scaling, just like the coloured squares did. You can right-click at any time to cancel the resizing, or left click to apply the new size of your object. To reset the scale of your object back to its original scale, simply press "Alt-S". Now, you may have noticed that during the rotation and scale procedures, there was a definitive center, or pivot to the transformations. This is usually what the orange dot on your object signifies. However, what if you don't want to rotate or scale based on the object's pivot point? What if you want to rotate from the world origin, or scale upwards relative to the floor level? That's where the 3D cursor comes in. This red-and-white circle is called the 3D cursor. It can act as the pivot point of any object as long as you click this drop-down menu here, and select 3D Cursor. Try it out with rotation and scale modes. You can move the 3D cursor throughout your scene by selecting the 3D Cursor in the Quick Tools menu and left-click-dragging anywhere in your scene or pressing Shift-right-click. You can change the pivot back to the default median point at any time with the same menu as before. The 3D cursor can also be used for moving your object. I personally love this feature for quick-moving your object to a specific point. Simply move your 3D cursor to where you want your object to go. The go to Object>Snap>Selection to Cursor. For hotkey users, you can simply press "Shift-right-click" and then "Shift-S" and use the pie menu to select "Selection to Cursor". Just a friendly reminder, if you ever need to re-center your 3D cursor, "Cursor to 3D Origin" is also in the same snap menu. Okay, now let's say I've run into the issue where I've rotated my object, but now I can't move the object along its own upward axis. I'm stuck moving directly up and that's not helpful. Don't worry. All you have to do is change this drop-down menu up here from Global to Local. This will change all gizmos to display the object's local axes instead of the global axes for all transformations. For hotkey users, you can access local axes simply by pressing "X", "Y", or "Z" twice, instead of once after initiating your transformation. Another helpful tip for transforming your objects is to hold Shift when trying to be more accurate. Holding Shift while moving, rotating, or scaling your object will reduce the sensitivity of your cursor affecting the transformation values. In other words, it'll change slower as you move your cursor, giving you more nuanced control over the end result. In fact, holding Shift will achieve the same effect for cursor-dependant values in most other editors as well. For example, dragging a number along a slider. Alright, but what if I have a bunch of boxes that need to be perfectly aligned? Eyeballing it isn't very practical or helpful. This is where you can use the snapping options located at the top here. This magnet icon toggles snapping on and off, but you can also press Shift-Tab. The drop-down menu to the right of it allows to snap to increments, vertices, faces, volumes, or edges. This way you can align your boxes perfectly to each other without relying on guesswork. Selection and transformation are the foundation of manipulating your 3D scene in Blender.
