How To Change Origin in Object Mode

Sometimes you may need to change origin in Blender. This may be the case, for example, if you want to change the pivot point of an object. There are naturally other cases when you may want this feature. Regardless of why you may want to do it, it’s quite a common operation, so it would be great if it were easily accessible in Blender. And so it is. Although you can still do it in edit mode, as has been the case so far, in the latest versions of Blender don’t have to go to edit mode to something as trivial as that.

Change Origin in Edit Mode…

So, as just mentioned, if you want to change the origin of an object, you typically do it in edit mode. Let’s take the default cube as an example. When you create a cube (or any other object, to be precise), you will notice the origin point in the center of it, which is visible as a little orange dot. Now suppose you want to move the origin to one of its corners. It’s advisable to enable snapping and now we can go to edit mode and move the cube so that the origin comes where we want it. Now, with the origin point moved, try rotating the cube by hitting R on your keyboard. You will immediately notice that now the cube rotates around the new origin point.

… and in Object Mode

And now how do you move the origin in object mode? First you should open the Properties panel, which you can quickly do by just hitting N. In the Transform Options there’s a Tools tab. If you click on it and check Origins, only the origins will be affected during transformations. If you now press G to move, the origin will be moved. You can enable snapping as well. After you move the origin point you can try rotating the cube again. It will work just as if you had done it in edit mode.

Here’s the video version: