Proportional editing in Blender allows you to transform a selection of vertices, edges, or faces, and have those changes smoothly fall off to surrounding geometry. This is incredibly useful for creating organic shapes and subtle edits. Here's how it works, based on the video reference:
Enabling Proportional Editing
- Locate the Proportional Editing Icon: In the 3D viewport's header, you'll find a dropdown menu next to the snapping options, identified by the symbol of a circle with a dot in the middle.
- Activate: Click this icon to enable proportional editing. You'll see several options within the dropdown:
- Disabled: Proportional editing is off.
- Connected: Affects only connected geometry.
- Enabled: Affects all geometry within the influence area.
Using Proportional Editing
- Select Elements: Choose the vertices, edges, or faces you want to transform.
- Start Transformation: Initiate a transformation (e.g., move, scale, rotate) using the appropriate hotkey (G for move, S for scale, R for rotate).
- Adjust Influence:
- Mouse Wheel: While transforming, scroll the mouse wheel to change the radius of the influence, increasing or decreasing the area affected.
- Page Up/Down: You can also use the Page Up and Page Down keys to adjust the area.
- Number Keys: Directly type in numbers to define the radius of influence.
- Observe the Falloff: As you adjust the transformation, observe how the surrounding geometry is affected by the falloff, which creates a smooth transition between the transformed part and the untouched parts of the object.
Example: Scaling with Proportional Editing
As shown in the reference video, if you have several cubes and want to scale one, using proportional editing will affect neighboring cubes as well, rather than just the selected cube. The strength of the effect weakens the further away from the selected part.
Practical Tips
- Experiment with Falloff: Blender offers different falloff curves such as Smooth, Linear, Sphere, Root, Sharp, and Inverse Square within the proportional editing menu. Try these to achieve various effects.
- Connected Option: If you wish to only affect the connected vertices and not others in the area, toggle Connected for more precise changes.
- Object Mode: Proportional editing also works in object mode, allowing you to move, scale, or rotate multiple objects based on their proximity.
Summary
| Function | Description |
|---|---|
| Enable/Disable | Use the icon or hotkey to turn proportional editing on or off. |
| Radius | Controls the area of effect using the mouse wheel, PageUp/Down keys, or number inputs. |
| Falloff | Select different curves to control how the influence falls off. |
| Connected Option | Toggle to affect only geometry that is connected to the selected element. |
