Blender 3D: Tips, Tricks, & Infographics
Edge Types
Chamfers and Fillets are often referred to as Bevels, but they have a few differences as outlined in the infographic.
A bevel is simply a slope which breaks the harshness of a 90 degree angle, a chamfer is the splitting of an edge
into two edges, and a fillet is a smoothed edge which gives curvature.
A chamfer may be necessary for bolting or welding parts together, whereas a fillet may be the edge of a table so
it does not have a dangerous 90 degree sharp edge. A bevel could be an aesthetic choice or a practical choice.
For the sake of ease I’ll refer to all three as simply “bevels” here. A bevel has various use-cases, but typically you use one
for safety or aesthetic. In cases where the model is being utilized in production, bevels can ensure edge stress is reduced in cases
such as with machine parts which connect.
In Blender, the Bevel Modifier or the Bevel Operation refers handles all three edge types. Typically a bevel in this case is used for
design aesthetic or to ensure the Subdivision Surface Modifier is controlled as desired.
More on Bevels
You can apply a Bevel Modifier to your object in the Modifiers Menu in the Properties Panel.
(Right side of the screen in the Properties Panel under the Outline; the blue wrench icon.) You can
set up vertex groups to control it, and it’s non-destructive meaning you can adapt it in real-time.
Another way to bevel is to simply use the Bevel Operation, which is accessible pressing Ctrl + B.
You have various controls which show up at the bottom of the screen, two of the more important
controls are the ability to change the profile or flatten the bevel. To change the profile, simply press P and
either type a factor or move the mouse to adjust by eye. A profile of 0.00 is a concave fillet, while
a profile of 0.50 is a convex fillet. You can also achieve a chamfer by pressing Z, which flattens your bevel.
Notably, a profile of 1.00 removes the bevel entirely.
You aren’t limited to beveling just edges, you can also bevel vertices. To bevel a vertex, simply press
Ctrl + Shift + B. This will allow you the same controls as with the standard Bevel Operation.
Common Modifiers
The Subdivision Surface Modifier, or Subsurf for short, is one of the most common modifiers seen in 3D.
You can increase the detail of a mesh with the modifier, and control the smoothing via “control loops.”
Control loops are just edges added to tighten the relaxation of geometry, which in many instances are
temporary and must be removed after the modifier is applied when the model gets optimized. Each level
of subsurf multiplies the polygons of your mesh by four, or in other words divides each face into four faces.
This modifier is extremely common due to the adaptive, non destructive nature of Blender’s modifiers. It is
often paired with a bevel modifier placed after the subsurf modifier in the modifier stack in order to sharpen or
control the relaxation of the subdivisions.
The Mirror Modifier does exactly as the name suggests, it mirrors geometry along the specified axis/axes.
You can see in the infographic above that we have 3 faces which have all been mirrored along all
three of the axes to form a full manifold cube. On the right, we have Blender’s Suzanne model where we
have modeled one ear and applied a mirror to get the second ear. In order to have the ear mirrored correctly,
you need to target the object (Suzanne) that we want the second ear to be mirrored off of. You can choose the
mirror target with an eye dropper on the mirror modifier’s parameters.
The Boolean Modifier allows for the removal or welding of mesh from two or more objects. There are three
types of Booleans in Blender: the Difference, Union, and Intersect booleans. In this infographic the sphere is our
target object and the cylinder is our boolean object. In other words, we are using the cylinder object to do things
to the sphere object.
The Difference Boolean cuts the cylinder out of the sphere, or takes the difference of the two and removes it.
The Union Boolean combines both objects into a manifold singular object.
The Intersect Boolean takes the combination of both objects and removes any portion in which does not intersect.