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In blender you can press shift+R in edit mode and repeat the last action. What if I wanted to repeat a set of actions similar to a macro?

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3 Answers 3

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One way is the repeat history F3. You can select the other object and redo the steps in the list one at a time. It's a bit tricky since the actions aren't numbered and repeating one changes the order.

What you could do is open a text editor, create a new textblock and type

import bpy

Then pull the info editor on top of the screen down. The lonely header up there is actually a full window/editor. In ancient times, the preferences were hidden in it. There are all the actions you performed in python form.

info window and operators

Just do what you wanted to do once with any object.

Then right click the commands you want to use in the info editor. They should turn blue. CTRLCCTRLV them into the text editor below the import statement.

Now you can perform the copied list of actions, provided they're compatible, with any selected object simply by pressing ALTP in the script window or using 'Run Script'.

There might be an addon for macros, but this is one way of creating your own.

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There are a few other ways to accomplish a repetitive task in Blender:

  1. Shift+R to repeat the last command. This works on any tasks invoked as an operator. But actual usefulness depends on what you are trying to do.

  2. Use multi-object editing by pressing the Alt key with multiple object selected as you are editing a value. You can use this to set the value for multiple objects at the same time.

  3. Use the Copy Attribute addon to propagate settings to multiple objects.

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An easy way to repeat the last e.g. four separate different steps (possibly on a different selected object) is to use the keys

F3, 4, F3, 4, F3, 4, F3, 4

I.e. this is not restricted to always repeating the most recent action and it does not involve python code (for those out there who are afraid of it ;-).

This works because F3 opens the list of recent actions and normally allows to select one of them via mouse. But as with most menues, choosing one of them with a simple digit key is also possible.

So F3 4 will redo the fourth-last step, instead of the most recent.

Each time, the third-last step then becomes the new fourth-last step.
Altogether repeating F3 4 four times times will redo the last four different steps.

This way it is easy to for example duplicate the selected object, rotate it, translate it along its local axis and rotate it again. Do that several times with the standard cube and you get something of a stone-henge by just pressing two buttons alternatingly.

  • Select standard cube
  • Shift + D, Right-Click
  • R, Z, 2, 0
  • G, Y, Y, 4
  • R, Z, 2, 0
  • F3 4, repeat until stone-henge

This is not very elegent, just to demostrate the repetition of 4 steps.

A more elegent version, with more direct control over the center of the stone-henge, is the following. It just has the disadvantage of boringly only using two different steps repeatedly...

  • select standard cube
  • G, Y, Y, 5, Left-Click
  • Shift + Ctrl + Alt + C > To 3D cursor, with 3D cursor at $0,0,0$
  • Shift + D, Right-Click
  • R, Z, 4, 0
  • F3 2, repeat until stone-henge

(Done with Blender 2.79.)

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