SnapMove — where you aim it, on the axis you choose

Early bird sale: the first 50 copies are $5. Once those are gone the price goes to its normal level, and everyone who bought early keeps every future update.

A move-and-rotate assistant for Blender. Object Mode only, from start to finish.

The problem

• You want to put a bolt on a slanted face, and just getting the angle right is a job of its own.
• All you want is “this vertex, onto that vertex” — instead you are typing numbers and checking the result.
• The origin is in the wrong place, so every rotation throws the object somewhere unexpected.
• And for all of it you keep dropping into Edit Mode and back out again.

SnapMove is a tool for shortening the part of the work that is only ever about deciding a position and a direction.

1. Pick on Surface — the place you click becomes the reference

Click a face, an edge or a vertex, and the object’s origin moves there while its local Z axis aims along that direction. The geometry does not move at all.

• No modifier — face centre, aimed along the face normal
• Shift — edge midpoint, aimed along the edge
• Ctrl — vertex (position only; a vertex has no direction)

Once the origin and the axis are in place, Blender’s own G and R with the axis key pressed twice will move the object along that face. There is nothing new to memorise — and the first press of an axis key still means the world axis, so your existing habits keep working.

You can pick faces on other objects too, which makes “match this part to the slope of that wall” a single click.

2. Snap Session — this point, to that point

Start it and click twice. The first click is the point you are moving from, the second is where it goes.

• Snaps to vertices, edge midpoints and face centres
• The object follows the mouse, so you choose the landing spot while looking at it
• X, Y, Z constrain to an axis; Shift + an axis key constrains to a plane
• Drop Empties as markers in space and clear them all in one go afterwards

3. Reaching a point you cannot see

In a crowded scene the point you want is often behind something else, and there is not always a viewing angle that exposes it.

• Hold B and the surface in front is skipped, for exactly as long as you hold it. Let go and everything is back — nothing is left switched on to surprise the next pick.
• Alt + wheel steps deeper still, one surface at a time, when several things are stacked in one spot.
• Turn on X-Ray and a vertex or edge pick reaches the far side of the object itself — the back corner of a box, the far edge of a slot. You aim at it rather than stepping to it, because the far corner sits at a different place on screen.

All of it works the same whether X-Ray is on or off, except the last, which is what the X-Ray switch now means here.

4. Jog & Quick Rotate — the last bit of adjustment

Drag a button and the object moves smoothly. Roll the wheel during the drag and the sensitivity changes, so a coarse move and the fine adjustment after it are one continuous gesture. Fixed rotations of 15 / 30 / 45 / 60 / 90 degrees are there as buttons.

Everything happens in Object Mode

Picking faces, edges and vertices, and averaging several of them, is all done without entering Edit Mode. (Alt + click keeps adding picks when you want an average.)

Advanced modes, for when you need them

Inside a snap session: three-point rotation, linkage solving for rigs, circle-centre from three points, distance offset, and a CAD-style construction layer with lines and circles you can snap to the intersections of. None of it is in your way during ordinary work.

Requirements

• Blender 4.2 LTS or newer
• Windows / macOS / Linux

Installation

SnapMove ships as a Blender extension. Drag the .zip into the Blender window, or use Edit > Preferences > Add-ons > Install from Disk. The panel appears in the sidebar (N) under the SnapMove tab.

What is included

• The add-on, as an extension .zip
• A full offline manual in HTML (also bundled inside the .zip)

License

GPL v2 or later. Copyright © 2026 hinata_hugu.

Development notes

SnapMove is developed by hinata_hugu. AI assisted with code organisation and review; all design decisions, release decisions, debugging and support rest with the human developer. The full statement ships in the source header of the add-on.