Knife tool tricks and tips for Blender

[@whynotanyting]

I don't use the knife tool all that often, but when I do... boy was this helpful

[@ArtisansofVaul]

😁😁😁 Thanks

[@Mylifeisawsome1010]

Your videos are god sends for beginner 3d modelers like me, Its frustrating at times when you cant do the correct way of modeling something, Your content really helps out

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Thanks so much man. Really appreciate that comment and glad I can help out 😁

[@mikejaques4702]

Try Shapr 3D, really easy and straightforward

[@vasylvoina6663]

Man, you unlocked in my brain this simple and useful tool. Thanks a lot!

[@ArtisansofVaul]

My pleasure 😁

[@deaderontheinside6871]

As a survivor of 3ds max, im amazed at how blender has far better tools

[@hupchik]

i spent over 10 years in 3ds max and then switched to blender - i have zero moments to regret about it

[@ArtisansofVaul]

🤣 I love the "survivor of" comment 🤣🤣🤣

[@evilotis01]

haha i did the opposite-i learned modeling w Blender and then tried to use 3ds Max. i was pretty amazed at how awful and unintuitive some of the latter's tools and processes were. it really has the sense of being legacy software that has decades' worth of accumulated issues that no-one ever quite got around to fixing. (and i say that as someone who played around w very early versions of 3d Studio back in the day.)

[@TheInfiniteAmo]

Axis constrained knife tool as an alternative to a loop cut on complex geometry is honestly INSANE

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@TheInfiniteAmo I find it really helps for a variety of purposes. You might like the dice tool from Hard Ops too as that can do some great things along a similar idea. kzbin.info/www/bejne/e3zblol7eL2nq5I

[@mipe7755]

I got fooled by the thumbnail, thinking that with knife tool you could actually split the mesh in two separate, manifold parts, and the inner cut faces would actually be filled. Silly me! But for real, is it possible with any other tool? Maybe some addon 🤔

[@ArtisansofVaul]

That's completely my fault. I'm going to change the thumbnail. The easiest way to do that is with boxcutter, it is a paid for addon but it can do SO much. I've got a playlist on it here: kzbin.info/aero/PLnqmLZKRm5CajsNlyFbieVyGxzdbBN-jo

[@mipe7755]

@@ArtisansofVaul Fantastic, thank you! I mean, the thumbnail looks good but is indeed a little confusing :D

[@norm_olsen]

The closest thing I can think of regarding cutting through and making capped meshes is by selecting all faces and go to Mesh > Bisect. You will need to select the faces of one side or the other after the bisection and separate it into its own mesh. Been a while since I used this. It is limited to simple straight lines though. Would be nice if the knife tool had the ability to do all this, as it can have multiple clicks to add cut line kinks and such. Nice to dream I suppose...

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@@norm_olsen imagine if it could work from a curve....!

[@norm_olsen]

@@ArtisansofVaul I'm imagining! I like what I'm seeing lol ;)

[@hupchik]

i always like your content about basic and native tools, and every time i found something new, even here i totally miss shortcut C (what a shame :D)

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Oh the cut-through is such an awesome feature. But now you know 👍🏻😁

[@anjonde4086]

I also always to love to learn about new things and have a great day

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@anjonde4086 😁😁😁 Thanks man. 😉

[@richardokeeffe8375]

Great tips dude. Have an algorithm cookie!

[@ArtisansofVaul]

😅😅😅 Thanks, delicious 😉

[@EPeltzer]

Would love to see video from you of an in depth comparison of advanced hard surface in Blender vs Plasticity. It seems like using Machin3 Tools, Mesh Machine, HardOps, Box Cutter etc in skilled hands gets you a comparable power of creation and speed, as using Plasticity. So what are the advantages of going one way or the other. I mean I use Blender already so lean towards staying within that framework. On the other hand, assembling and learning all these separate tools and maintaining a bunch of addons is actually pretty complicated and messy. Maybe Plasticity rolls all that into something that's actually simpler or more intuitive . . . Would appreciate your take on all that.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Sorry for the delay replying, I've been working through a backlog of comments. I have done a video discussing Plasticity (if you haven't seen it I'll link below) but it doesn't go into depth. Personally I would say for the cost you'll get more from Blender and you'll only have to pay that cost once, the versatility of Blender and its functions isn't going to get beaten any time soon. Now if you use a lot of fillets/bevels then I would say Plasticity may save you time there but at this point I just don't think it's worth the (continuing) costs vs the one off payments for Blender addons.

[@styloo_]

actually didn't knew that you can lock by degree , i tought it was locked at 30 forever :) thanks i'm gonna change it rn , knife tool is so usefull when you retopo

[@ArtisansofVaul]

It's a lovely trick to have. I'm curious how you'd use that to help retopologising? (That's far from my area of knowledge)

[@styloo_]

@@ArtisansofVaul i meant for clean up the topology when you retopo , like when you have a triangle somewhere , you can't add loop cut sometimes , can't explain it properly cause my english is too poor haha

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@styloo_ that makes sense. I thought you meant wanting a specific angle. 👍🏻

[@Khontadhondato]

Thank you so much! Thank you for the beginner friendly tutorial. My blender though just doesn't allow me to cut through the whole object when clicking C; instead, it aligns the cut to one of the axis or at 45 degrees, do you know what the cause might be. Edit: Went through the whole tutorial to figure out that C for me, does what A does for you; plus figured how to access the keymap to find which key does the cut-through thing for me, which ended up being Z; and it had a specific order in order to work, which was: Z > K > cut as you please.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@ghhungyaaaghjust.6819 Glad you got a solution. I was about to say that snapping should be a not c. Interesting yours seems backwards.... I wonder why.

[@CosplayZine]

At the end it seems you are saying hold control but it's actually showing that you are holding shift. Was this a mistake or did I miss something? Thanks for the info.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Damn, that was a mistake. Sorry about that, what I initially said and you spotted was correct, it's shift. This is the issue with muscle memory, you kind of forget what you're hitting.

[@ProfessorVector]

As always great nice educational videos. But how do I start the knife tool say 1 inch from the vertex? It's nice and artsy but not very CAD precision like.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

You're right. You can justbolace a vertex there first as it will snap to it in a similar way you'd measure in CAD. Or use Construction Lines which brings that all in. blendermarket.com/products/construction-lines/?ref=834

[@SewerTapes]

You have no idea how many times I've rotated and knifed all the way around an object just because I didn't know about "C". Thank you. .............EDIT........... Didn't know about Shift to cut in center either. I was making Loop Cuts just to snap to a vertex, then deleting unnecessary edges. Cheers.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

My pleasure. And thanks for commenting, its always nice to know that these videos are helping people.

[@english_breakfast_014]

after cutting it through how do you select the either one of parts easily(*without selecting each and every faces that I'm meaning to remove or move) and separate ?? I'm subbing and following for this tutorial> THanks !

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@english_breakfastwo The easiest way is to either click off the object entirely so nothing is selected (or select one of the faces on the part you want) then hold your mouse over a face of the side you want and press L. That will select everything connected to that face so it should select all of the half/part you want. Thanks for the sub 😁👍🏻

[@english_breakfast_014]

@@ArtisansofVaul Thank you. I just tried it but if I select one face after cutting and then press L, it selects all faces. Even though there is the cut line. I asked about it because I was having this problem the whole time. I don't know which step I'm missing🤔

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@english_breakfastwo In that case you have only cut that face, not cut through the whole object. You need to press "c" as part of the cutting process. You then need to actually separate the parts. There are several options for that. Select all the vertices on the cut line, have the mouse to one side of the cut and press "v" , move the most to the side so you know it's worked and cancel click. Then you can use the "l" select trick.

[@english_breakfast_014]

@@ArtisansofVaul sorry! I want to say it worked but for some reason it didn't. I made sure I 'cut through' and then when I select a face it only works as grabbing part of the object and the shape just stretches not separated. Basically it appears as though I just created a cut line around a shape, not actually cut anything. I'm trying to solve this for once after trying it for many times..

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@english_breakfastwo I've edited my comment with something to try. Hopefully it helps. You want to rip the vertices on the cut first

[@Smansteel]

For some reason my snap to mid point is set to the ctrl key instead of the shift key and it’ll snap to the mid point but it won’t cut. Any suggestions?

[@josefkasal5994]

You have ui and shortcut settings set on Industry Standard. Just my bet. :)

[@Atomic-toons00]

But how to remesh for good triangles after using knife

[@ArtisansofVaul]

I personally wouldn't bother but then I use Ble der for 3D printing where it isn't a requirement. But if the surfaces are flat it also shouldn't cause an issue. What are you trying to do?

[@Atomic-toons00]

@@ArtisansofVaul i import png image as plan then and when i cut around my art using knif it cuts edges nicely but the art who left in good shape and when i need to rigg my art with deformation bones it tells me i need geometry inside my art but i cant make it... why bcs my art become a bad ingones so plz how do i fix geometry without trashing my art

[@hybridphoenix7766]

Just curious, but is there a way to effectively array objects along a surface? So for example I have a beam, and I want to array it across an organic curved surface, what would the best option be? The only option I have in mind is making a loop cut and using that curve as the object reference to array along, but sometimes that doesn't work because the surface might have multiple complex level differences. Rhino can do this easily, but I haven't found something in Blender that makes this task easy.

[@tigerag29607]

is it like rotation your having an issue with?

[@ArtisansofVaul]

A curve is the only real way. But it shouldn't have an issue with anything in the way you have mentioned. Is the issue with the rotation of the object?

[@9whiteandnerdy9]

You could use geometry nodes for maximum control. Add a line with a high level ofsubdivision, shrinkwrap it to your surface along where you want the objects to go. Add a Geometry nodes modifier Add the following nodes: - Mesh to curve - Resample curve (How many instances do you want) - Instance on points - Drag the geometry of the beam into the instance node - Align euler to vector into the rotation of instance on points - Normal (or Tangent) into the vector input of align euler You should get the beams to follow your original surface and you can control the number and distance of the beams with the resample curve node.

[@tigerag29607]

@@9whiteandnerdy9 Yea.. I usually do the simple old method, but I've been trying to learn geo nodes for this reason. So flexible.

[@ourlistingpro117]

Now how do you separate the cut parts??

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Sorry, that wasnt the best choice of thumbnail. I was trying to demonstrate the idea of cutting but that doesn't really match the function. So to separate the pieces there are quite a few choices. Either select verts on the cut (they should automatically be selected after the cut) and use the rip verts function on all of them. I show it being used for a different purpose here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bnyypWx_otWSkNksi=pr4fK8pw0-elrq6Q Or you could use something like split edges, and you can see that in a video here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/r2qlmYF-hbt1sMUsi=3YvTfqLaWfx3sCro Basically theres lots of options. It depends what suits you.

[@chrish1645]

2 doesn't seem to work for me while in Vertex mode, instead it just does the normal thing of switching to faces. I do have machin3tools.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

You need to turn on the "Smart" tools in the addon preference menu

[@chrish1645]

Haha yep, I caught this while rewatching your "everything I use in Machin3 tools explained" video. Thanks again for the excellent content. I'm coming from a straight CAD background and so am having to relearn a lot of workflows. Cheers.

[@CR-io3xw]

in my opinion sketchup has more easy to model than blender but your tutorial is good

[@ArtisansofVaul]

It depends what you're trying to model. For architecture I probably agree but for other things (especially curved geometry like bevels) I'd take Blender any day. And I learned 3d design on Sketchup so did love it.

[@BestHakase]

Sketchup is mega cool, but have a lot of limitations

[@Starflight_Miniatures]

Awesome thank you!

[@ArtisansofVaul]

My pleasure. Thanks for commenting 😁

[@anfygames1428]

why doesnt my direction keys work on the knife tool? congrats on 40k btw

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Thanks. Hmm... not sure why your direction tools wouldn't work. Are you on Blender 4?

[@quanta-aurealiz]

Quick question. Yesterday at night i drew a square on a cube mesh with the knife tool, but it made 2 extra lines when i pressed enter. How do i fix that??

[@ArtisansofVaul]

You can't. Any internal geometry must be connected to the outer part by at least two edges. You shouldn't need to remove them though as they shouldn't have any negative impact.

[@quanta-aurealiz]

@@ArtisansofVaul Oh, alright!

[@ramalshebl60]

is this a re-upload or smth?? i could've sworn ive seen this before.. could be deja vu

[@ArtisansofVaul]

It isn't from me.... I'm sure videos have been made from other people on the topic but I haven't seen one that included everything together.

[@ramalshebl60]

@@ArtisansofVaul then deja vu it is

[@cubodeneon3547]

good video

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@@cubodeneon3547 😁👍🏻 Cheers.

[@darrennew8211]

I spend a lot of time doing geometry stuff that I should be going to the knife tool for. Sheesh. :-)

[@ArtisansofVaul]

I think we all do. It's assumed it's quite a "basic" tool but actually you can do a huge amount with it. Something I just realised I didn't test or think about is if you draw a line is the next angle snapping relative to the just drawn line or the world.... and can that be changed.... 🤔

[@rlentzification]

so when you use knife cut you can't really remove the piece you wished to cut off so whats is the purpose forgive me as I am noobe thanks

[@ArtisansofVaul]

It's designed to add geometry so you can do things like fix topology but also create a face to potentially extrude/etc.

[@marksmanaz]

Your thumbnail showed that you sliced the cube in several pieces but you did demonstrate how that was done :(

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Sorry, that's using other functions so I just wanted to discuss the knife and otherwise the image would just show a cube with lines on. To do it select the faces you want as a seperate piece, click p, then separate by selection. That will make that piece a separate object.

[@marksmanaz]

@@ArtisansofVaul Thank you

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@@marksmanaz It's a good question. I'll do a video on it as there are a huge number of options available to do this 👍🏻

[@humbleraider6343]

Thanks alot!

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@humbleraider6343 😁👍🏻 No problem. Glad it's helpful.

[@thefutureisnow8767]

It does not work. After clicking a next point, the line vanishes. The green marks do not show in my Blender.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Try doing it from one of the side/top/bottom views and see if there is still an issue.

[@vatablue]

Tanks a lot.太感谢了

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@@vatablue 👍🏻

[@laufeylvrr]

Mine keeps disappearing when i try to cut iot

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@@laufeylvrr Not sure why that would happen 🤔

[@TitusKrakenDesigns]

🤟👌

[@ArtisansofVaul]

😁😁👍🏻

[@eitantal726]

The video thumbnail is a bit misleading. Knife *only* adds geometry. it does Not split the mesh to different mesh islands, or even separate the mesh to different meshes. Knife is the opposite of Dissolve (Ctrl+X)

[@eitantal726]

The only thing that comes close to the thumbnail picture, is bisect. Long-click on the knife tool, select bisect

[@ArtisansofVaul]

That's fair. I'll have a think how I can change it without it just being a cube with some lines 😅

[@eitantal726]

​@@ArtisansofVaulBetter yet, show how you can make this separation happen, with knife (Not bisect). It's not as simple as just separating with 'P'. This topic deserves a deep dive in my opinion.

[@eitantal726]

I'm asking, because I had a similar situation: I needed to do a separation, and it wasn't a simple line, or else I used bisect. What I ended up doing was: I knifed where I needed, then I hit 'H' to hide. As a result, I ended up with two islands, which is what I wanted. Then I selected the entire island with 'L', and then separated it. This was wrong because I forgot to to Alt+H before separating

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@@eitantal726 That's a good call. Though my simple answer to get as close to the knife tool would be boxcutter....

[@squarerootof2]

The knife tool has been demonised and made illegal in Britain.

[@NotSoMuchFrankly]

I'm an American. Where's the gun tool?

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@@NotSoMuchFrankly 🤣 This is the closest I can get: kzbin.infoxS3lwTuyKLo

[@ArtisansofVaul]

🤣🤣🤣

[@NotSoMuchFrankly]

@@ArtisansofVaul Ah, yes! The bazooka tool. Noice.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@@NotSoMuchFrankly 🤣

[@RuiManuel]

The thumbnail is pretty stupid because the tutorial doesnt separate parts after cutting them.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@RuiManuel I've mentioned this in a number of comments. I don't disagree on reflection, at the time I was trying to take the knife idea as a "slice" across an object in how it creates a line but as you have said that's not accurate to how it works in the program.

[@shekiba.646]

Hurry.. tallk much but please one time cut .. I will know.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@@shekiba.646 ?

[@finelarme]

Very bad software.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Only if you don't know what you're doing with it 🤦‍♂