Fly/Walk Mode

There are cases where it’s preferable to navigate with first person controls, especially for large environments such as architectural models. In these cases orbiting around the view center is limiting. While zoom, pan & dolly can be used, it’s inconvenient.

With walk/fly modes you can navigate around the scene where view rotation is performed from the cameras location.

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View Navigation.

In the Preferences editor select the navigation mode you want to use as default when invoking the View Navigation operator. Alternatively you can call the individual modes from the View Navigation menu.

Common use cases for walk/fly include:

Navigation

This can be a quick way to navigate a large scene.

Camera Placement

When activated from a camera view, this will move the camera too.

Recording Animation

Running from a camera with auto-keyframe and playing animation will record the motion as you make it allowing you to record the walk-through.

Walk Mode

Reference

Mode

All modes

Hotkey

Shift-AccentGrave

Menu

View ‣ Navigation ‣ Walk Navigation

On activation the mouse pointer will move at the center of the view, and a cross marker will appear…

This navigation mode behaves similar to the first person navigation system available in most 3D world games. It works with a combination of keyboard arrow keys and mouse movement.

Shortcuts

  • Move the mouse in the direction you want to look.

  • Arrow keys or W, A, S, D move forwards/backwards and strafe left/right.

  • Teleport Spacebar.

    This moves you to the location at the cross-hair (offset by the camera height value set in the Preferences).

  • Jump V – only in gravity mode.

  • Move up and down Q, E – only in free mode.

  • Alternate between free and gravity modes Tab.

  • Change the movement speed:

    • WheelUp or NumpadPlus to increase the movement speed for this open session.

    • WheelDown or NumpadMinus to decrease the movement speed for this open session.

    • Shift (hold) – to speed up the movement temporarily.

    • Alt (hold) – to slow down the movement temporarily.

When you are happy with the new view, click LMB to confirm. In case you want to go back from where you started, press Esc or RMB, as usual.

If the defaults values (speed, mouse sensitivity, …) need adjustments for your project, in the Preferences you can select a few options for the navigation system:

Fly Mode

Reference

Mode

All modes

Hotkey

Shift-AccentGrave

Menu

View ‣ Navigation ‣ Fly Navigation

On activation the cursor is centered inside a rectangle that defines a safe region. When the cursor is outside this region the view will rotate/pan.

Shortcuts

  • Move the mouse outside the safe region in the direction you want to look.

  • Move the view forward/backward:

    • WheelUp or NumpadPlus to accelerate the movement forward.

    • WheelDown or NumpadMinus to accelerate the movement backward.

      So if the view is already moving forward, WheelDown, NumpadMinus will eventually stop it and then move it backward, etc.

  • MMB Drag to pan the view.

    In this case the view can move laterally on its local axis at the moment you drag the mouse.

  • Shift precision (slow the momentum).

  • Ctrl disable rotation.

    While held, the view rotation doesn’t influence the flight direction, this allows you to fly past an object, keeping it centered in the view, even as you fly away from it.

When you are happy with the new view, click LMB to confirm. In case you want to go back from where you started, press Esc or RMB, as usual.