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X
Most people have experienced this: you create or select an object in a scene, and then select one of your Transform tools, Move, Rotate or Scale.
Instead of seeing the Transform Gizmo that makes it easy to constrain movements to an axis or two, you get a simplistic red ui element.
If you start wondering what's wrong with your system, Don't fret.
When this happens, chances are you accidentally tripped over your keyboard's "X" key.
X is a toggle that controls the visibility of the Transform Gizmo.
If you lose it, just press X again and you should be able to retrieve it.
But why this hotkey? Why would anyone want to turn off a tool that makes working with constraints easier?
Well, in some situations, the Transform Gizmo can actually impede your work.
This is mostly true with objects that have Bezier Handles such are patches or splines.
When you have Bezier handles that are aligned with a constrained axis, it is very difficult to move in any other direction than that of that axis.
In this case the Bezier handle lies on the Y axis and you cannot move in X for example.
So you have a couple of solutions: One is to use the - and + keyboard keys to make the gizmo smaller or bigger so you can freely move the handles.
Use the main + and - keyboard keys and not the ones on the numerical keypad.
The other method is to turn off the Transform Gizmo by pressing X.
You can then control axis constraints using hotkeys: F5 for X,
F6 for Y,
and F7 for Z.
To work on two axes simultaneously, use F8. F8 is a toggle between the XY,
YZ,
and XZ planes.
When you are done editing Bezier handles, you can enable the gizmo again by pressing X.