Part of the technique consists of canceling the transformation for the

duplicated object with the ESC key. That creates the new objects in the

same location from the initially selected faces. It also works for copies of

edges and vertices. However, in Figure 3.21, the new object is in a

higher Z coordinate to make it easier to visualize the outcome.

There is also an option in the Mesh → Separate menu to call the

Separate options without the shortcut key.

Tip: Later you will also be able to separate objects by Material as it

appears in the Separate options.

3.5.1 Joining models

After separating elements from a 3D model, you might want to turn them

back into a single object. That requires an option to turn multiple

individual objects into a unified entity. To merge two meshes in Blender,

we can use the Join option. Select two or more objects and press the

CTRL+J keys.

The join is also available in the Object → Join menu with multiple

objects selected. Unlike the Separate option that required you to be in

Edit Mode, you must trigger the Join option in Object Mode.

Using the Join option is useful when you want to connect parts of two

different objects. The F key won't work on two separate objects, and

also the Bridge Faces. With the Join tool, you can easily make a new

object based on two or more shapes.

If you don't want to keep models as a single object, you can do all

modeling tasks and separate them again with the P key.