Important Keybindings

Efficient animation with The Violence Tool relies on a combination of tool-specific shortcuts and standard Blender navigation.

Essential Blender Shortcuts

Fred recommends mastering these native Blender shortcuts for a smooth workflow:

Shortcut

Action

Context

Ctrl + Tab

Open Mode Menu (Draw/Edit/Sculpt)

Any Mode

Z

Toggle Viewport Shading (Rendered/Solid)

3D Viewport

Numpad 0

Toggle Camera View

3D Viewport

Ctrl + MMB

Zoom In/Out

3D Viewport

Tab

Toggle Edit Mode

Grease Pencil Object

W

Cycle Selection Modes (Vertex/Line)

Edit Mode

1 / 2 / 3

Select Vertex / Line / Intersection

Edit Mode

Alt + S

Change Stroke Thickness

Edit Mode

Shift + Alt + S

Make Stroke Uniform (Circular)

Edit Mode

F3

Search Operators (e.g., “Adaptive”)

Any Mode

I

Insert Keyframe

Timeline / Dope Sheet

Shift + Space

Play/Pause Animation

Timeline / Dope Sheet

Fred’s Tip

Erasing: Avoid the Eraser tool in Draw Mode. Instead, press Tab to enter Edit Mode, select the unwanted points, and press X to delete them. This offers greater precision.

Tool-Specific Shortcuts

These keybinds are specific to The Violence Tool.

The Layer Switcher Menu

The most important keybind. Opens a popup menu at your cursor with all layer options.

  • Setup: Bind wm.call_menu to a key (e.g., Tab or Space).

  • Menu Name: OBJECT_MT_Fred_Custom_Layer_Menu

Quick Actions

Keybind

Operator

Action

Alt-F

fred.op3

Join and smooth two selected strokes

Alt-R

fred.op8

Randomize line art (small pass)

Shift-Alt-R

fred.op23

Randomize line art (large pass)

Shift-Alt-F

fred.op24

Smooth the selected stroke

Ctrl-F

fred.op18

Toggle Fade Inactive Layers

Ctrl-Alt-Shift-X

fred.op19

Toggle Onion Skins

Fred’s Tip

If you forget a shortcut, hit F3 and type the function name. It shows you the shortcut and lets you search for it.

When switching tasks, always check these three settings:

  1. Layer (Is the correct layer active?)

  2. Tool (Is it Draw, Fill, or Sculpt?)

  3. Material (Is the correct material selected?)

Optimizing File Size

If your file becomes too large due to too many vertices:

  1. Select all strokes (or use Multi-Frame Editing).

  2. Press F3 and search for “Adaptive”.

  3. Set the threshold (e.g., 0.001) to simplify strokes.

Material Efficiency

Remember that changing a material in a slot updates every frame using that slot. To change a color globally, edit the material in the slot rather than refilling frames.