The background image will come into the scene as an empty object. This operation will constrain the movement to the local X and Y axis so that the image won’t come closer or end up further away from us. We can also grab the middle of the background image and drag to move it. We can hover any corner to scale the image while conserving the ratio of the image. The usual G, R and S hotkeys will move, rotate and scale. We can transform the reference image object just like any other object in our scene. Instead of deleting them, go to the right view and drag them in again we can reset the rotation with “alt+r”. Therefore, they mostly end up at the wrong angle.

I am always a bit quick to bring in my reference images. Get your background reference image into the 3D viewport But there is a lot more settings and features that can make your background reference life so much easier, and that is what we will further explore in the rest of the article. Now you are ready to start modeling from reference. Then drag and drop your reference image into your scene from your file browser. How to set up a background image in Blender? Go to front view with number pad 5 or press the green dot without the Y in the navigation widget in the top right corner of the 3D viewport. Instead, we use objects in our scene to act as the background reference image. However, in 2.80 and beyond this system has been removed. In earlier versions of Blender there was a system for setting up backgrounds in your 3D from the right side properties panel in the 3D view.

Blender cheat sheet 2.9