Simply Fast

Introduction

Simply Fast is a context based collection of shortcuts as well as some operators mainly useful for mesh editing and rigging. All shortcuts and tools can be found inside the N-Panel.

There is also a Popup panel triggered by pressing F1 or Mouse5 which will show up near the mouse cursor inside 3D View window. It has less functionality as all functions I know the Blender shortcut for are missing there.

Why?

While predominantly utilizing Blender for modeling hard surface objects, some interactions within the user interface prove time-consuming, detracting from the overall enjoyment of the experience. Frequently accessed properties are often buried inside tabs or panels, requiring a lot of effort to display the desired UI elements.

As an illustration, I prefer to quickly rename an object without having to search the outliner and without loosing focus of the currently visible material property window.

Simply Fast tries to remedy this by providing a limited number of tools and shortcuts.

Warning

This addon is built on bad personal habits and workflow experience developed over the years and may not align with everyone's preferences.

Overview

Features

N-panel UI
Additional popup panel
Two sets of custom icons, light and dark

Installation

Open Blender and go to the Addon preferences under Edit > Preferences > Add-ons
Press the Install... button, find and select the downloaded .zip
Activate the addon

Usage

General

The UI is context sensitive and displays different controls depending on the active object as well as its current editing mode. Supported objects are meshes, armatures, lights and cameras. With unsupported objects active only the objects name is displayed.

| Mesh | Object Mode |

Object Properties

Object name property
Shortcuts for 'Shade Smooth' and 'Shade Flat'
Material properties
Object transform properties
Apply transform operators (active object)

Fast Tools

Mirrorize Objects

Adds mirror modifier to selected objects, bisects meshes and deletes redundant geometry by default. Also applies rotation by default, scale and location can be enabled in the operator panel.

It is also possible to use the mirrorize operators in sequence for mirroring multiple axes, the objects will still have on mirror modifier with multiple axes enabled.

Fast Rotate

Increases or decreases object rotation on given axis by 90 degrees. Hold down ctrl key while pressing button to rotate in 45 degree steps.

Harden Objects

Enables auto smooth property, adds bevel and weighted normal modifiers with specific settings for hard surface modelling. Bevel weights are set based on sharp angled edges per default. Bevel width can be adjusted in the operator panel along with the other default properties.

Depending on the object scale the operator result might not be immediately visible, adjust the bevel width in the operator panel to the desired value.

Set Modifier Bevel Segments

Allows to quickly set the segment count of bevel modifiers on selected objects.

Hardshell

Creates solid plates from object geometry by adding edge split, solidify, bevel and weighted normal modifiers. Before using this operator it is recommended to define the the plates by marking the surrounding edges sharp instead of splitting the mesh into separate parts. (non destructive)

Adjust plate thickness, bevel width and other settings in the operator panel.

Object Tools

Apply modifiers on selected objects
Remove modifiers from selected objects
Remove materials from selected objects, keep slots
Remove material slots from selected objects
Nuke materials (Unlink and delete all materials in blend file)
Objects to blend (Save selected objects to single blend file)
Objects to blends, (Save each selected object to individual blend file)

Analyzer

Show stats in 3D view
Show face orientation in 3D View
Show wireframes in 3D view

| Mesh | Edit Mode |

Bevel:

Set bevel weight to preset value from 0.0 to 1.0 in 0.25 increments
Show and hide bevel overlay
Select beveled edges
Shortcut for Select Sharp Edges operator
Slider for setting bevel weight on selected edges
Set Weight on selected edges, the value ist taken from the Weight slider

When a bevel and weighted normal modifier are present in the modifier stack additional settings are displayed: - Keep Sharp, setting from weighted normal modifier - Amount, set main bevel width in bevel modifier - Toggle clamp overlap in bevel modifier - Set profile of bevel modifier - Set segment count of bevel modifier

Fast Edit

Selection to Zero: Scales selected vertices along chosen axis to zero in relation to transform pivot point
Shortcut for bevel operator
Shortcut for shear operator
Shortcut for subdivide operator
Shortcut for un-subdivide operator
Shortcut for shrink/fatten operator
Shortcut for bridge operator
Select random edges

Hardshell from Selection

This works like the Hardshell operator in object mode except it sets previously selected edges automatically as sharp.

Fast Cloth

Adds cloth panels to selected faces. Several settings like: pinning, pressure, gravity, collision and stiffness can be adjusted to user needs at the beginning.

Then Blender switches to object mode and the cloth simulation is played. Settings can be tweaked further inside the operator panel.

Inside the Fast Tools section an sub panel (Cloth Settings) pops up, with properties for further tweaking and an Apply Cloth operator to make changes from current frame permanent.

Edge Tools

Show and hide seam, sharp and crease overlays
Select seam, sharp and crease edges
Set seam, sharp and crease to 0 or 1 on selected edges
Select Bounds: Selects non manifold edges
Clear all edge data (bevel, seam, sharp and crease) from selected edges

Vertex Colors

Allows to assign vertex color directly to selected mesh parts without painting. These can be used to create ID maps or as color input in materials.

Mode setting

When set to vertex, each vertex will be colored with the selected color. This will lead to smooth transitions between two vertices with different colors. In face mode, only the vertices belonging to the selected face are colored which results in hard transitions between colors.

Note that selecting a mode also switches blenders select mode accordingly between vertex and face select.

Pick: Picks color from active vertex or face, depending on prior selected mode
Color picker stores picked color or lets user choose a color
Set Linked: Assigns picked vertex color to all linked geometry of current selection
Set Selected: Assigns picked vertex color to current selection
20 color presets that will be assigned to selection by clicking
Quickly change viewport shading between Flat, Studio and Matcap
Shortcut to choose Attribute as color input for viewport preview

| Armature | Object Mode |

Object, Edit, and Pose Mode

Toggle switch for object, edit and pose mode
Toggle switch for Rest and Pose mode
Bone display type selector

Object Mode

Display bone names
Display bone axes
Show bones in front
Display custom bone shapes

When action are assigned to armature: - Select action - Set render range to current action length

| Armature | Edit Mode |

Set bone name
Set bone parent
Set custom bone shape
Set connected to parent
Set bone to use deform
Set bone to use local location
Set inherit rotation and scale
Set bone segments

| Armature | Pose Mode |

Set bone name
Display bone parent
Set custom bone shape
Display if connected to parent
Set bone to use deform
Set bone to use local location
Set inherit location and scale
Set bone segments
Reset constraints on selected bones

| Camera | Object Mode |

Set camera name
Set camera look direction. (front, back, left, right, top, bottom)
Switch camera type
Set FOV and focal length
Set camera shift
Set near and far clipping

| Light | Object Mode |

Set light name
Set light look direction. (front, back, left, right, top, bottom)
Set light type
Set light energy and color
Some light type specific settings

| FAST | nothing to operate on |

This panel is visible when nothing is selected. To fill up the empty space some general settings are placed here.

Set render engine
Set render resolution
Set scene units

Tip

When using the popup panel sometimes it happens that the object to be edited is active but not selected, so we end up here. Just press the | FAST | nothing to operate on | label to select the active object without leaving the popup.

This only works in the popup panel!

Tip

This only works in the popup panel!

Hidden Operators

3D Cursor Snapping

For users of the Blender 27x keymap there is an operator which overrides the default behavior of the 3D cursor placement when clicking the left mouse button. Instead of placing the 3D cursor to current mouse position it snaps to the active Object origin in object mode or to the active selected mesh part in edit mode.

This can be disabled in the addon preferences, just disable the Snap 3DCursor to Selection mapping.

Suzy

Search for ape_append in the operator search field to append a modernized Suzanne.

Preferences

Property to select bright or dark icon theme
Keyboard and mouse shortcuts