What are N-Gons and Why to Avoid Them N-gons are polygons in a 3D mesh that have more than 4 vertices and edges. Common polygon types in modeling are triangles (3 vertices), quads (4 vertices), and sometimes five-sided polygons. Anything higher than four vertices is generally considered an N-gon. N-gons can cause issues when using…
Definition of N-Gons N-gons are polygons with more than 4 vertices and edges. In 3D modeling, n-gons refer to faces on a mesh that have more than 4 vertices. Some common examples of n-gons are pentagons with 5 vertices, hexagons with 6 vertices, and octagons with 8 vertices. N-gons provide flexibility in 3D modeling by…
N-gons refer to polygons in a 3D model that have more than 4 vertices and edges. The most common polygon types in 3D models are triangles (3 vertices), quads (4 vertices), and N-gons. The structure and flow of polygons in a model is referred to as “edge flow”. Proper edge flow is essential for 3D…
What Causes Zoom and Pan Problems There are a few common causes of inadvertent zooming and panning in Blender that can disrupt your workflow: Accidental Viewport Navigation while Modeling or Animating It’s easy to accidentally trigger trackpad gestures or hotkeys that adjust the viewport camera when you don’t mean to. This can be frustrating if…
Switching Between Perspectives Understanding the differences between orthographic and perspective views in Blender is key to effectively transitioning between them. Orthographic views use parallel projections to produce a visually accurate representation of an object’s dimensions and angles. This makes them useful for technical drawings and architectural plans. Perspective views use a vanishing point system to…
Why Center the 3D View? Centering the 3D view in Blender can save time navigating to objects, make it easier to orient yourself, and enable more precise work. As you manipulate objects and models, the view can shift away from important areas, making it tedious to navigate back. Re-centering reorients your perspective for efficiency. Save…
Understanding Viewport Performance When working with complex scenes in Blender containing many high polygon meshes, materials, textures and effects, the viewport performance can quickly degrade, making editing and navigation difficult. Evaluating the viewport responsiveness by panning, rotating and zooming around the scene can identify areas of sluggishness and lag. Blender provides profiling tools under the…
Understanding the Mirror Modifier The Mirror Modifier in Blender is a powerful tool for creating symmetrical 3D models. It clones geometry across an axis, saving modeling time. However, the modifier can also lead to undesirable mesh overlaps if not used carefully. The Mirror Modifier works by taking the original mesh object and duplicating its geometry…
What the Mirror Modifier Does The Mirror Modifier in Blender is an extremely useful tool for creating symmetrical 3D models efficiently. Instead of having to manually model both sides of an object, the Mirror Modifier allows you to construct only one half and then use symmetry to automatically create an identical copy on the opposite…
Shifting Objects Off-Center With the Mirror Modifier The Mirror modifier is a tool in Blender used to duplicate an object symmetrically across a chosen axis. This allows efficient creation of symmetrical objects and scenes. The modifier works by using the center point of an object, known as the origin, as a reference to mirror the…