Before you start creating a model, you should learn the basic modeling functions and tools. This will make the modeling process more efficient and faster.

Main Dock panel

This is the main panel where all the main functions of BDEngine are located.

Dock buttons

Let's look at the purpose of each button:

• Catalog: Opens the built-in model catalog, right in the editor. The button is available only after authorization.
• Blocks: A list of all objects belonging to the Block Display entity category.
• Items: A list of all objects belonging to the Item Display category.
• Heads: Large Player Head library with skins of different categories. For example characters, monsters, symbols, numbers, food, decorations.
• Add Head: Quick Player Head creation. Refers to Item Display. It has a wide range of features, which you will learn about below.
• Text: Quickly create a Text Display.
• Head Paint: Starts the drawing mode for Player Head. Its capabilities will be discussed in the section "Custom textures for models".
• Screenshot: Activates screenshot creation mode. Allows you to select the background color or remove it altogether.
• Duplicate: Duplicate the selected object.
• Group: Group/Ungroup selected objects.
• Delete: Delete selected objects.
• Learn: Opens an embedded window with this guide

Context menu

This is an additional panel that is invoked on the right mouse button. It contains a minimalistic copy of the main Dock panel, as well as additional functions such as Flip and Head Size.

The context menu also contains: Copy, Paste, Select all, Invert selection, Camera to the scene, Camera to selected, and Camera mode.

Let's look at the purpose of the special buttons:

• Save to Assets: Allows you to save the selected group to the Asset Library. Available only when the Asset Library panel is open and the group is selected.
• Import Command: Allows you to import a copied /summon command from Minecraft. Import is also possible on [Ctrl + V].
• Flip selected: Allows you to mirror selected objects, along a specific axis. For example X, Y or Z.
• Head size: Allows you to quickly resize the Player Head, based on how many pixels you need. That is, for example, if you need a piece to be 2 full Minecraft pixels tall. Choose 2 on the axis you want. This is useful for working with Head Paint, which you'll learn about in the Custom Textures for Models section.

Bottom panel

A panel that allows you to open the Asset Library; change the editor mode, such as for modeling or animation; export a model or animation to Minecraft.

• Asset Library: opens the local asset library.
• Editor / Animator: switches the editor mode.
• Export to Minecraft: opens model or animation export.

Asset Library

A panel that allows you to conveniently locally save frequently used parts of your models by sorting them into folders. To add a new Asset, go to the folder where you want to add it, then select the group and by opening the Context Menu, select Save to Asset. Use the Export/Import Assets button, you can back up all your assets to restore it in the future or use it on another computer. Note that assets are stored in the browser itself and are not synchronized, so clearing the browser data, may clear the assets themselves. You can move assets/folders to other folders as well. To do this, pinch the desired asset/folder and drag it to the folder you want to move it to.

Reference image: bde_img_asset.webp.

Side panel

This is the main place where the auxiliary panels are located. They will allow you to see a list of objects, edit object properties, change the transformation, and more. You can change the width of the panel by grabbing the “tab” at the top left of the panel.

• Scene: A panel displaying all objects in the scene.
• Transforms: The panel that allows you to manually change object position, rotation and size. Also, here you can specify Snapping. This is the step with which moving, rotating and resizing occurs. And you can also choose the resizing mode. For example, normal or as in BlockBench. Try it out to see the difference.
• Properties: This is the panel of all properties of the selected object. Here you can change both standard Minecraft-NBT object properties. As well as properties within the editor. If you cannot find the property you want, you can specify it in the Advanced NBT field.
• Head Paint: This is the panel with all the functions of Head Paint mode. You will learn more about it in the “Custom Textures for Model” section.
• Screenshot: This is the panel with all the functions of the screenshot creation mode. Enable screenshot mode in the Dock panel to see the settings.
• Editor: This is the control panel of BDEngine. Here you can find additional tools and learn about the features of the editor.

In addition, you can customize the editor, change the appearance and hotkeys. You can also get information about the statistics of your project, such as how many Block Display and Item Display items it has. You can also customize the volume of the editor interface. If you find a bug in BDEngine, you can report it.

Reference image: bde_img_side.webp.