Drag to Rotate HDRI — Documentation

Requires Blender 5.2 or later.

1. In Blender, open Edit > Preferences > Get Extensions.

2. Click the dropdown arrow at the top right of the window and choose Install from Disk…

3. Select DragToRotateHDRI-1.0.0.zip. Blender asks for no permission: the add-on reads and writes nothing on disk and never accesses the network.

4. The extension installs and enables itself. There is no panel or menu to look for: its shortcut, Shift + right-drag in the 3D Viewport, is already active.

To update later, install the newer zip the same way; it replaces the previous version. Disabling or uninstalling the add-on removes its shortcut immediately. The nodes it adds to your World are standard Blender nodes, so your .blend files open and render exactly the same without it.

1. Hover a 3D Viewport and hold Shift. The status bar shows Rotate HDRI next to the right mouse button.

2. Press the right mouse button and drag sideways. As soon as the mouse has moved a few pixels, the HDRI starts turning — drag right and the environment follows to the right. Only horizontal movement counts.

3. Keep dragging while you watch the light. The viewport header shows the current angle, and the cursor wraps around the edges of the viewport, so you can keep turning as far as you like.

4. Release the right mouse button: the new rotation is kept.

A Shift + right-click without moving the mouse still places the 3D cursor, see section 6. The distance before the rotation starts is Blender's Mouse Drag Threshold, and the cursor wrap is Blender's Continuous Grab, both in Edit > Preferences > Input > Mouse.

The add-on turns the HDRI that the viewport you drag in is actually showing — the light on screen is the light you move.

Scene World is in the Lighting section of the Viewport Shading popover, in the viewport header. A studio HDRI rotation belongs to its viewport — it is the Rotation value shown there — so dragging in one viewport never changes another. Turn off Rotate Studio HDRI in the preferences to always rotate the World.

On the first drag, the add-on starts from the World Output and follows the links back to every Environment Texture that reaches it — through Mix Shaders, Light Path setups and reroutes. Each texture needs a Mapping node to turn, and the add-on only adds what is missing.

Rotation Z is kept between -180° and 180°. Environment Textures that do not reach the World Output, or that sit inside a node group, are ignored. New nodes are added unselected, with Blender's default names.

The rotation runs at the pace of Blender's own orbit — about 0.4° per pixel at the default Sensitivity, adjusted to your display scale. The status bar lists the keys you can use.

A modifier held to start the drag is ignored until the drag ends. With the default Shift + right-drag, Shift precision is therefore unavailable, and with a shortcut that includes Ctrl, so is snapping.

Shift + right-click is also Blender's shortcut for the 3D cursor. The add-on only takes over once the mouse moves.

Blender's Shift + right-drag, which normally slides the 3D cursor with snapping, is replaced by the rotation. To keep it — or to rotate HDRIs in Sculpt Mode — give the add-on a shortcut that Blender does not already use there. If your new shortcut also places the 3D cursor or selects, a click keeps doing that too.

Nothing changes until the mouse actually moves, and a drag of the World HDRI is recorded as a single undo step.

Since a studio HDRI drag adds no undo step, Ctrl+Z right after it undoes the action you did before.

Open Edit > Preferences > Add-ons and expand Drag to Rotate HDRI. Every change applies from the next drag — no restart, no need to reopen the file.

The shortcut is a regular Blender keymap entry: it is saved with your preferences and also listed in Edit > Preferences > Keymap, under 3D View, as Rotate HDRI.