{"id":1077,"date":"2019-07-20T00:00:24","date_gmt":"2019-07-19T23:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/?p=1077"},"modified":"2023-09-07T15:54:34","modified_gmt":"2023-09-07T14:54:34","slug":"align-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/align-view\/","title":{"rendered":"Align View (Centre View)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_83 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-light-blue ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a034efdaa7ca\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a034efdaa7ca\"  aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/align-view\/#align-view\" >Align View<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/align-view\/#frame-selection-vs-local-view\" >Frame Selection vs Local View<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/align-view\/#align-view-to-active\" >Align View to Active<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p>The default layout Blender uses typically has the 3D Viewports camera focused on the <b>Cube<\/b> primitive that essentially acts as a visual proxy for grid\/screen centre such that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/blender-basics\/\">middle-mouse click-dragging<\/a> (MMB) rotates around it as a point of reference. Over time this relationship tends to become discombobulated, the views focus changing based on where the camera subsequently ends up relative to the initial starting point, rather than what it might\/should be looking at. To address this various <b>Align View<\/b> options can be used to refocus the camera.<\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"background-color: #fc0; color: #000;\"><p><b>Important<\/b>: as <b>Align View<\/b> is broadly relative to the 3D Viewport camera and viewport itself, for more control it can be used in conjunction with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/snap\/\">Snap (to elements, objects or selections)<\/a> and\/or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/snapping\/\">Snap During Transform<\/a> to varying effect.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/images\/tutorials\/align-view\/view-discombobulation.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 100%; height: auto;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/images\/tutorials\/align-view\/view-discombobulation.jpg\" alt=\"Blender 2.8's initial view focused on the Cube object\" width=\"900px\" height=\"500px\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<i>The initial view Blender presents (opening a &#8216;General&#8217; project) that has the scenes camera focused on the Cube, rotating the workspace pivots around this point.<\/i><\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"align-view\"><\/span>Align View<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Given Blenders transform flexibility when manipulating each editor, area or view, what the <b>Align View<\/b> options do is refocus or readjust the camera, area or editor so it focuses on different aspects of the active view, which can be a single object, group selections, the 3D Cursor, a median point and more. To access <b>Align View<\/b>, top-left of the <b>3D Viewport<\/b> click the <b>View<\/b> menu then <b>Align View<\/b> (<i><b>View \u00bb Align View \u00bb [option]<\/b><\/i>) to see the available alignment list, primarily;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Center Cursor and Frame All<\/b> | <span class=\"shortcutkey\">Shift<\/span> + <span class=\"shortcutkey\">C<\/span> | <i>3D Cursor repositioned to grid zero (0,0,0) and view reset.<\/i><\/li>\n<li><b>Center View to Cursor<\/b> | <span class=\"shortcutkey\">[n\/a]<\/span> | <i>resets the view to the 3D Cursors location.<\/i><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p><b>Design note<\/b>: the <b>Center Cursor and Frame All<\/b> option is similar in practice to <b>Frame All<\/b>, <span class=\"shortcutkey\">Home<\/span>, but includes the cursor re-centring &#8211; whilst the 3D View generally has more options to re-centre\/reposition the camera, all areas and editors have a similar <b>Frame All<\/b> option, typically accessible from the respective <b>View<\/b> menu (where available) or by pressing the <span class=\"shortcutkey\">Home<\/span> key.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/images\/tutorials\/align-view\/view-menu.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 100%; height: auto;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/images\/tutorials\/align-view\/view-menu.jpg\" alt=\"Align View menu options\" width=\"900px\" height=\"500px\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<i>In the 3D View click the <b>View<\/b> menu to then access the <b>Align View<\/b> options (<b>View \u00bb Align View \u00bb [options]<\/b>).<\/i><\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"frame-selection-vs-local-view\"><\/span>Frame Selection vs Local View<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>For newer versions of Blender the option to focus the camera on a specific selection, <b>Frame Selection<\/b>, accompanies <b>Local View<\/b> rather than replacing it. The latter is functionally similar with the added benefit of being toggleable &#8211; when <b>Local View<\/b> is <b>ON<\/b> the active object or selection within a scene becomes the focus no matter their position within it, when <b>OFF<\/b> the scene reverts to its previous state. To enable, make a selection (single object or group) then click <b>View \u00bb Local View \u00bb Toggle Local View<\/b> or press <span class=\"shortcutkey\">NumPad \/<\/span>, repeat to <i>disable<\/i>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><b>Design note<\/b>: <b>Frame Selection<\/b> is accessible pressing <span class=\"shortcutkey\">NumPad .<\/span>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/images\/tutorials\/align-view\/local-view.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 100%; height: auto;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/images\/tutorials\/align-view\/local-view.jpg\" alt=\"Align the view to the selected object\" width=\"900px\" height=\"500px\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<i>Aligning the view to a selection can be done using <b>Local View<\/b>, which works similar to <b>Frame Selection<\/b> while being toggleable.<\/i><\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"align-view-to-active\"><\/span>Align View to Active<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>What <b>Align View to Active<\/b> does is (re)align the 3D View camera to match the <i>active objects local axis<\/i>, as is typically represented by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/edit-mode-basics\/\">manipualtion widget<\/a> being set to <b>Local<\/b> (rather than Global) <b>Transform Orientation<\/b>. In other words, when an orientation option is selected, <b>View \u00bb Align View \u00bb Align View to Active \u00bb Top<\/b> for example, the viewport camera flips around to match the corresponding axis on the 3D Widget regardless of the selected objects orientation in 3D space (relative to the grid), or continuing the example, looking <i>down the Z axis<\/i> (<i>blue<\/i> handle) of the 3D widget even if the object is rotated non-axially.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><b>Design note<\/b>: the <b>Align View to Active<\/b> options do not specifically reposition the active object\/s to centre-screen but instead simply reorientate the view to the chosen perspective, top, bottom etc., which may offset the item (from screen centre) despite the cameras focus. Align View to Active also behaves similar to <b>Viewpoint<\/b>, i.e. <b>View \u00bb Viewpoint \u00bb Top<\/b> (<span class=\"shortcutkey\">NumPad 7<\/span>) flips the view so it looks down on the scene in similar fashion to <b>Align View to Active \u00bb Top<\/b> (<span class=\"shortcutkey\">Shift<\/span> + <span class=\"shortcutkey\">NumPad 7<\/span>) but without the object or selection focus.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/images\/tutorials\/align-view\/align-view-perspective.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 100%; height: auto;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/images\/tutorials\/align-view\/align-view-perspective.jpg\" alt=\"Aligning the view to an object may not centre it on-screen\" width=\"900px\" height=\"500px\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<i>Aligning the view to the active object in a selection will reorientate the view but may reposition the selection in an odd place because the operation does not specifically centre the item to the viewport.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/images\/tutorials\/align-view\/align-view.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 100%; height: auto;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/images\/tutorials\/align-view\/align-view.jpg\" alt=\"Align view to selected objects axes\" width=\"900px\" height=\"500px\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<i>With a selection made <strong>Align View to Active<\/strong> re-orientates the viewport camera to match the corresponding axis of the active item &#8211; top, bottom, front back, left or right &#8211; as would otherwise be indicated by <strong>Transform Orientation<\/strong> being set to <strong>Local<\/strong>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,230],"tags":[384,530,529,531,533,532,534,483],"class_list":["post-1077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blender","category-tutorials","tag-3d-view","tag-align-camera","tag-align-view","tag-center-view","tag-view-all","tag-view-selected","tag-viewpoint","tag-viewport"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1077"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5153,"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077\/revisions\/5153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}