AHH HAA! moments

[deate]

As I've had several of these lately, I thought I'd ask what are your biggest Ah HA! moments.. and perhaps it might help others who are new, and learning in finding places to look....
AH HA #1: Who knew you could do that with the IPO editor?
AH HA! #2: Head modeling tutorial...I'm totally un-interested in this...but AH HA! I can now see how to make the model I've been struggling with since I first started to use Blender...
these are just two of mine... hope to see some of yours...you know... the moment that the light bulb went off in your head, and and there was some glint of clarity as to what you were actually doing

[zyzzy]

Ambient Occlusion!

I remember when I first discovered it... Wow, what an awesome button.

[BnBGobo99]

This is a good topic!

1. Ray Traced shadow "Soft Size" and "Samples". Using these makes the shadows feel more realistic.
2. Edge Loop and Edge Ring selection (edit mode > select > edge loop/edge ring) . These save a lot of time selecting things.

[Nixon]

ctrl-clicking on the render this window button to see proxys of animations from the 3d view, either box, wire, solid, shaded or textured...that wqas my latest lightbulb over my head...tho its in the toolttip

[Yodaman921]

Ctrl + E -> Edge slide. It makes moving edge loops so much easier than having to make a new edge loop and deleting the old one, etc etc.

[jimtuv]

Nodes Nodes Nodes

[radialronnie]

Nodes, Loop select, and Loop cut. Last two both thanks to Jim!!

[chapel]

Apart from finding and learning Blender, which totally changed my life, I'd have to say the latest AHA-moment was align view to selected (Numpad *), which I've used continously since that moment. I know it's in the view menu, but I've never used it before. It's proven very valuable in my sax-project.

[fastman50]

I would say the most recent AHH HAA moment was when I really got into the head modeling. Actually with the help of unhurdof and Corban I have had many of them.... Projection textures was so cool just need good images for it to work properly. I was use to box modeling everything until the AHH HAA came on loops. Changed everything for me...

[Unhurdof]

Thanks for the kind words Fastman50.

Hmm...coming from other 3D software, the 3D cursor and right clicking was a mystery for me. I really didn't get modeling in blender till I watched Kernon's tutorial on the 3D cursor and pivot points. There's many more I could name, and I hope there are many more to come, but that is one of the first and the biggest for me.


Ohhhh Yeaaaahhhh! The smooth tool. select some geometry in edit mode, w > smooth. So awesome!!!

Man, there's many ah ha moments for me. Just stick around here, and read the forums.