Blender's Modes
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In this section, we will learn about Blender's modes and what they are used for. It is essential to be aware of them, as they are a crucial aspect of working in Blender.
When we open a new Blender file, delete everything (A to select all, X to delete) and add a Monkey, we have six modes to choose from (there are more, but these are the most common). They are:
- Object Mode = default mode allows simple transformation and viewing the model
- Edit Mode = allows changing the "topology" into complex shapes
- Sculpt Mode = allows more organic manipulation of the model, useful for characters
- Weight Paint Mode = mostly used for rigging to assign values to bones, more on this in the rigging chapter. But it can also be used to determine where to add hair, grass, and rocks using a particle system
- Vertex Paint Mode = can be used for shading
- Texture Paint Mode = allows adding complex image based details
In this chapter, we will mainly focus on Edit Mode and how to create more complex models using various tools and techniques.
Optional: How does Sculpt, Texture, Weight, & Vertex Paint work?
Sculpt Mode
Using Ctrl + Tab will open a pie-menu, just like the snapping options in the previous chapter, but with different functionalities. First Sculpt Mode. Notice how the Toolbar changes and a new "Asset Shelf" at the bottom pops up. You can select brushes in the Toolbar or in the Asset Shelf. Using a "Grab" brush (G) we can stretch out Suzanne's ears or change the mouth. For this video, we are working with a drawing tablet that makes it easier to do this. In the "Sculpting" chapter, we will go in-depth.
Texture Paint Mode
We can change our brush to any color to add texture detail to our model. The painted texture is saved to an image like a .png.
Weight Paint Mode
This creates a gradient from blue (true zero value is black, but blue is zero too) to red. This data is saved on the mesh and not to an image like Texture Paint Mode.
Vertex Paint Mode
This allows for painting with any color and is mainly used in shading, but can also be read with Geometry Nodes. As you can see, it has the same "resolution" as Weight Paint Mode since this is also stored on a mesh-level. In older video games, they would color different parts of the world using Vertex Paint.
Visit this page to see all the modes and what you can do with them.
That was the end of the lesson. We have learned:
- That Blender has different modes to build/refine the appearance and function of a model.
- Sculpt Mode allows for organically manipulating the model.
- Weight Paint Mode is mainly used for rigging.
- Vertex Paint Mode is mainly used for shading.
- Texture Paint Mode is to create image-based textures.
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