Topic: Some Help with twisting.

[Zachary1234]

I have a box prism which has had several extrusions <e> done to its roof, to make it a rectangular box.
I have locked all z values under the <n> area.  I have enabled <proportional editing>, I have enabled <linear falloff, I have <shift> selected the four vertices that are an end face on the height of my big box/column, and have pressed <5> on my number pad to look at it from the side.  I have a 5 button bouse, so when I start by pressing <r>, I can scroll the select points white circle that I get to include the relevant destination points.

-However, this still doesn't stop rotation through the Z axis when I move my mouse.  I am not sure that compensating for this alone will not control the wild twisting that I do observe when moving my mouse.  What do I do to twist prismatically, with relative following points, around one axis propogating along, through the other 2 dimensions, and in a controlled way?  Is there a way to type in the amount of twist as a number?

[kat]

Your post is a little confusing, are you wanting to manipulate a selection incrementally (instead of 'freely' where the rotation is arbitrary)?

Using your example, after pressing "R" to "Rotate", press and hold the "Ctrl" key to snap to "5°" increments. Or hold "Ctrl+Shift" whilst moving to snap to "1°" increments. You can also type a value say "20" to rotate clockwise 20°, or "-20" to rotate anticlockwise. Either way you can also use "X", "Y" or "Z" to constrain the axis of manipulation.

Also make sure your mouse cursor is not too close to the center or manipulation otherwise the result will tend to flip out (go crazy).

[Zachary1234]

-How do I zoom the white select region in and out only using the keyboard?

I find that locking any of the (x,y,z) dimensions having selected my object, before <tab> editing, doesn't
seem to lock things when I go rotate.  I find that when I start <r> rotate, I can rotate with the mouse, or numerically, side to side relative to the editor's view.  The kind of twist I need is done from the number pad's <7> point of view.

-I can increase the depth number of sections selected by going <<ctrl> + <+>>.  However, this only controls which section through my rectangular box prism, being loop cuts horizontally, I start from.  When I do the horizontal turning, it only include 2 or 3 adjacent ones.  How can I tell it to forcedly include more particular loop cut sections, and to turn less throughout?

[kat]

The white selection area associated with each Selection Tool can't be 'zoomed' in the sense you're thinking - that would be done beforehand (and after depending on selection difficulty) - see below. However, their size can be changed, but it depends a great deal on the tool itself - "MMB+Scroll" or "NumPad+" and "NumPad-" to increase/decrease Circle Select for example.

If you meant Zooming the Scene, that can be done using "Ctrl+ '+'" (plus) and "Ctrl+ '-' " (minus) (the keys to the immediate right of "Backspace" - location may differ based on your keyboard layout though).

The axis of manipulation is locked after the particular function is initiated. To rotate a selection around "Z" (that's "Top" view, or "NumPad7") you would do this; press "R" to initiate "Rotate", then press "Z" to lock the axis. Moving the mouse will then result in the selection rotating specifically around "Z". This works similarly when Scaling ("S") or Translating ("G") said selection.

There isn't a one button "include this" feature as that assumes Blender knows what you're trying to do. This basically means complex selections (relative to the relationship between selectable elements and which element item was/is active [the last to be selected]) are often facilitated through using different selection mode types. For example, with a single vertex selected, using "Ctrl+Numpad +" or "Ctrl+NumPad -" additional elements can be included. This might then mean using "Shift+RMB" to manually deselect particular elements in the middle, resulting with the desired final selection that can then be worked on.