Navigating The Model Workspace

 

The model workspace is the central part of your screen where the model of your character is located. Learning how to navigate the camera in this space is crucial to creating a model, especially for detail work.

There are both keyboard quick keys for adjusting the camera and mouse controls. 

Mouse Controls

Pressing and holding the left mouse button while moving the cursor in the workspace will free rotate the camera around the central focal point.

Pressing and holding the right mouse button will zoom in on the model and pull back from the model. You can zoom in on a specific part of the model by hovering over that area prior to depressing the right mouse button. Depressing the right mouse button while the cursor is in a blank area of the work space will zoom or pull back from the current centre point. Using the scroll wheel to, well scroll, currently functions in a similar way to the right mouse button.

When zoomed in depressing the middle mouse button (scroll wheel) and dragging pans the model.

Take a moment to try these functions with the mouse, remember you can left click the Reset Camera button in the toolbar to reset the camera to the default location.

Try zooming in on the head of your model. Now using the toolbar buttons alter the view by clicking the Front, Back, Right, Left, Top and Bottom View buttons. Now try depressing the left mouse button and dragging around the screen. You can see that you have excellent control over the view of your model with the mouse. Again the Reset Camera button will return you to the default view at any time.

You will notice when rotating the model the grid disappears. 

Keyboard Shortcuts

There are default keyboard shortcuts to rotate, pan, zoom, select standard views and return to the default camera.

Move Type	Button
Rotate Up	8
Rotate Down	2
Rotate Left	4
Rotate Right	6
Pan Up	Up
Pan Down	Down
Pan Left	Left
Pan Right	Right
Zoom In	+
Pull Out	-
Front View	1
Right View	3
Top View	7
Back View	Ctrl+1
Left View	Ctrl+3
Bottom View	Ctrl+7
Reset Camera	.

The controls you use to navigate the workspace come down to personal preference, I like to use both methods depending on what I am doing to my model. I find the mouse can get me to a general position very quickly and the keyboard shortcuts allow me to make fine detail changes to the camera location.