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Blender 2.8 offers several numeric keypad shortcuts for changing the perspective:

NumPad 0 = Camera Perspective
NumPad 1 = Front view
NumPad 2 = Roll scene down
NumPad 3 = Right view
NumPad 4 = Roll scene left
NumPad 5 = toggle Perspective/Orthographic
NumPad 6 = Roll scene right
NumPad 7 = Top Down view
NumPad 8 = Roll scene up
NumPad 9 = Flip current view (Top Down becomes Bottom Up, etc)

I use these (and more) shortcuts all the time, but there is another perspective that I often use: the initial perspective used when opening a new Blender project for the first time. It starts out looking at a default mesh (cube) from about halfway between the X and Y axis, and slightly elevated along the Z axis. I can approximate this original perspective in 'User Ortho' mode by pressing:

[NumPad 1]  one time        (which gives me a side view, along the Y axis)
[NumPad 6]  three times     (which rotates me about 45 degrees, half way to the X axis)
[NumPad 8]  one time        (which gives me a little altitude)

This may not be the exact same perspective as a newly opened project file, but I think it is pretty close. I can't seem to find any way of manually determining or setting precise X/Y/Z coordinates for 'My View' like I can with any other object in Blender (cameras, lights, meshes, etc). I'm certain that 'My View' is not considered an object in Blender, thus it can't be acted upon like objects can.

This 'five keystroke' solution is not very labor intensive, but I use this original perspective about as often as many of the other defaults (Top Down, Front, Side, etc). Therefore I was wondering if anyone knew any other shortcut out there that might already change 'My View' in this way, one I'm overlooking perhaps?

The reason why I'm asking is because I have two Blender projects going right now. Both are of one small building. The first project represents the building BEFORE (how it looks now in the real world). The second project represents the building AFTER (how it should look once proposed projects are completed). I can manually set the camera location, rotation and scale to be the same in both projects, allowing me to render BEFORE and AFTER images with similar perspectives. But when I close a project file, I also like to leave things in this default perspective, or when I'm working on two files side by side I like them both to have the same perspective for quick reference. This is just one perspective I use frequently, and am hoping to find a shorter shortcut for.

And may I also say: "Blender Rocks!" I am loving it, as well as the community support you've all built up around this awesome program.

Thanks in advance for any help...

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1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Just add a new camera and align it to view.
Then you can always switch to it by clicking the green camera icon.

  1. Add a new camera, and make it active by clicking the green camera icon
  2. Align it to view through View > Align View > Align Active Camera to View
  3. Switch between cameras by clicking the green camera icons

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    $\begingroup$ Thanks Jachym. I hadn't thought of adding a camera, but I assume that if I add a new camera in each file, and give that new camera identical coordinates within each file, then I should be able to obtain a similar view for each project. I appreciate the help! $\endgroup$
    – Randy Lavin
    Mar 25, 2020 at 2:22
  • $\begingroup$ Sure, that would work :). You can also 'import' the camera from other files to save time. Just put it in a new collection and append that collection through File > Append. $\endgroup$
    – Jachym Michal
    Mar 25, 2020 at 10:48
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    $\begingroup$ This worked well to reset my default view when it started to behave strangely and seemed to reach some limit of zooming in. $\endgroup$
    – AJP
    Jun 27, 2022 at 20:31
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    $\begingroup$ @AJP Thanks for the feedback. This thread might be related to your situation: Why does the zoom sometimes stop at a point?. I usually switch to Orthographic camera (Numpad5) which has no such limitations. $\endgroup$
    – Jachym Michal
    Jun 28, 2022 at 10:05

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