Snapping is an important tool in Blender that allows you to easily align objects and components. By default, Blender uses a 1 meter grid for snapping. However, you may want to adjust the snapping increments to gain more precise control over object placement and modeling. Changing the snapping increments in Blender is easy to do once you know where to look. In this article, we’ll cover what snapping is, why you may want to change the increments, and the step-by-step process for adjusting the snap settings. Whether you need to align objects more precisely or model components that require finer increments, adjusting the snap settings can speed up your workflow in Blender.
What is Snapping in Blender?
Snapping refers to automatically aligning elements like vertices, edges, and faces to a grid or other predefined intervals when you move or transform them. For example, when snapping is enabled in Blender, if you move a vertex close to a grid line or another vertex, it will jump and snap precisely to that point.
Snapping helps ensure precision and makes it easier to line up elements as you model or position objects. Without snapping, it can be difficult to properly align components by hand. The snap increments determine how far apart the snapping points are.
Why Change the Snapping Increments?
Here are some common reasons you may want to adjust the snap settings in Blender:
- The default 1 meter grid snap is too coarse for detailed modeling.
- You need to precisely align objects and components.
- You want objects or mesh components to snap to specific intervals like every 5 cm rather than 1 meter.
- Your scene uses real world units that don’t fit the default snap settings like inches or feet.
- You want a custom snap increment for a particular object or task.
Having control over the snap increments allows you to work more efficiently and accurately for a given object or scene. The default snapping may be too coarse for detailed models or scenes that use smaller real world dimensions. Custom snapping gives you this extra precision.
How to Change Snapping Increments
Adjusting the snap settings is easy to do in Blender. Here is a step-by-step walkthrough:
Step 1: Open the Properties Panel
Start by opening the Properties panel. You can do this in a few ways:
- In the 3D Viewport press N to toggle open the Properties panel
- At the top menu click View > Properties
- In the Outliner, click the drop-down and select View > Properties
This will open the Properties panel in the 3D Viewport.
Step 2: Go to the Snapping Section
In the Properties panel, you’ll find a section called Snapping. Expand this section to expose the snapping settings.
Step 3: Adjust the Snapping Increments
Here you will see the different snapping controls available:
- Increment – This sets the basic snap interval or grid spacing.
- Vertex – Snap to vertices.
- Edge – Snap to edges.
- Face – Snap to faces.
- Volume – Snap to volume bounds.
The Increment setting is what we want to change. The units here are in Blender Units. Simply change the increment value to your desired snap interval.
For example, to change the snap to every 0.5 BU, set Increment to 0.5. For a 5 cm interval in a metric scene, set it to 0.05 (5 cm = 0.05 BU).
Step 4: Adjust Other Settings as Needed
In some cases you may want to enable/disable other snapping modes like Vertex, Edge and Face snapping depending on your needs. The Volume option can be useful to snap objects to their bounds.
You can also adjust the snapping behavior with the following settings:
- Project Individual Elements – When enabled, each component snaps individually.
- Nearest – Only snap to the nearest point.
- Center – Snap to the center of components.
- Median – Snap to the median of components.
- Active – Only snap components of active objects.
Enable or disable these options to get the desired snapping behavior. The Active option is useful to isolate snapping to a particular object.
Step 5: Save as Default (Optional)
Once you have your snapping settings configured, you may want to save them as the default behavior for your Blender projects going forward.
To do this, right click on theIncrement setting and select Copy as New Preset. Give your preset a name like “0.05 Snapping” and click the + icon to save it.
Now whenever you want these same snapping increments, you can select the preset from the presets dropdown in the Snapping panel.
Snapping Keyboard Shortcuts
In addition to changing the actual snap increments, there are a couple of handy keyboard shortcuts to enable/disable snapping on the fly:
- Shift + Tab – Temporarily enables/disables snapping
- Ctrl + Shift + Tab – Temporarily disables all absolute grid snap locking
So you can quickly toggle snapping on and off with Shift + Tab rather than having to change the snap settings. The Ctrl + Shift + Tab shortcut is useful for freeing objects from any absolute grid snapping.
Snapping Add-ons
While the built-in snapping tools in Blender are quite robust, there are some handy add-ons that extend the snapping capabilities even further:
- Mesh Snap Utilities – Adds extra object snapping tools.
- Snap Utilities – Enhances built-in snapping with more options.
- Precision Snapping – Lets you snap components based on distance rather than grid.
These add-ons can provide advanced snapping tools for certain workflows. They are available via the Blender Add-on catalog within Blender.
Conclusion
Learning how to change the snapping increments opens up new precision and control in Blender. By matching the snap settings to your particular scene and object scales, you can model and position elements more efficiently than the default settings allow.
The basic process involves accessing the Snapping panel in the Properties, changing the Increment value to your desired spacing, and optionally enabling other snapping modes or saving a preset. Additional snapping shortcuts and add-ons can augment the built-in tools.
With the right snapping increments for your use case, you’ll gain flexibility for efficiently putting objects and components in precisely the right place. Snapping is an indispensable tool in any Blender user’s toolkit.