intro blender 1

7/29/2019 Intro Blender 1

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/intro-blender-1 1/11

© Blake Ketchum 2011. Use and distribute freely. Please retain attribution. 1

Lesson 1: The Layout and the Monkey

Basic LayoutThe window consists of 5 main panes: the toolbar, 3D viewport, timeline, outline, andproperties panel. When the default screen in Blender is opened, we are in the mode whereobjects can be selected, moved, scaled and rotated. This mode is called Object Mode.When you open it Blender, it should look like this:

Recommended online tutorial: http://www.blendercookie.com/getting-started-with-blender-navigation-and-interface/




3D ViewportIn order to work, you will need to navigate the universe inthe 3D Viewport. You’ll need to use a numeric keypad* (not the numbers on top of the letters) and a mouse with 3buttons. Below, you will find a table of navigation shortcutsfor the 3D Viewport. Practice manipulating the view for afew minutes using the controls in the table, below. It willsink in with a little practice, although it may seem awkwardat first.

Before you manipulate objects, you will need to selectthem. To select an object, RC on the object. To selectseveral SHIFT + RC. To select all objects, type A, then toselect none, type A again. Selected objects have orangevertices or edges.

* About numeric keypads and laptops. My Macbook did not immediately recognize my USB numeric keypad. I then tried it through a USB

hub. The device was then recognized as an unidentified type of keyboard. I was asked to press a certain key that did not correspond to oneon the numeric pad, so I just pressed several random keys on the numeric pad until a new set of radio buttons popped up saying “Invalid

input, choose among these.” I was given a choice of keyboards: Japanese, European, or US. I entered US. Now it works with or without theUSB hub.

Keyboard ShortcutsYou may have just noticed that you had to execute a keyboard shortcut. Blender uses a tonof these. They can make learning difficult, but once you get the hang of the shortcuts, theyenable you to work very quickly. Be patient with yourself. Drill your self a little bit on practiceprojects so if you mess up it does not matter. It does take practice, but you will soon be

moving around the 3D Viewport with ease!

On the next page, I have included a table of shortcuts. You will find it very useful while youare getting started. There are more, but these will help get you going for now.

SCREEN CAPTURE: The3D viewport with a leftside orthographic POV.




Blender Critical Shortcut Table• RC, LC, MC = mouse: right, left, or middle click• RH, LH, MH = mouse: right, left, or middle hold• cmd, alt, ctl, sft, fn = command, alternate, control, shift, function• POV = point of view

Function Shortcut Alternate Shortcut Tablet

Select Object RC alt + LC ctl + lasso stylus

Select All/None A (toggle)

Zoom scroll alt + ctl + LH + drag alt + ctl + drag stylus

Gimbal MH + drag alt +LH + drag alt+ drag stylus

drag view sft + MH + drag alt + sft +LH +drag alt + sft + drag stylus

Camera POV 0 on numeric pad

top POV 7

bottom POV ctl + 7

front POV 1

back POV ctl + 1

right POV 3

left POV ctl + 3

Rotate view 2, 4, 6, and 8

Ortho/Perspective 5 (toggle)

Shaded/Mesh Z (toggle)

Select/Deselect RC (toggle) ctl+ LC or ctl +LH + drag toselect a group

ctl + lasso stylus or B + stylus box

Select/Deselect RC (toggle) ctl+ LC or ctl +LH + drag toselect a group

ctl + lasso stylus or B + stylus box

Add to selection Shift + RC alt + sft + drag alt + sft + stylus

Select All/None A (toggle)

Selection box B, white lines appear,then RC and drag tomake selection box

B + stylus box

Lasso Select Control + LH and drag ctl + lasso stylus

Translate or Grab G G then X; G then Y; G thenZ (constrains transform toaxis)

Rotate R R then X; R then Y ; R thenZ (constrains transform toaxis)

Scale S S then ; S then Y; S then Z(constrains transform toaxis)

Loose current workand restore defaultcube

ctl + N (Mac and PC)This will not resavewhat is on the screen!

(Mac) cmd + N

Extrude alongNormals

E

Free Extrude Control + LC E then Z




Adding and Deleting Objects

So that we can see what we’re doinga little better, we will add the stockmonkey object (aka Suzanne) and

delete the cube. LC on the screen tomove the red, white, and black 3Dcursor away from the cube. On thetop title bar, click ADD > MESH >MONKEY. The monkey will appear where you places the 3D cursor. Themonkey will have an orange outlinenow. Delete the cube by RC on thecube to select it (orange border),then X or Delete to delete the cube.You will have to verify the delete.

The Blender monkey as she appears upon adding.




Transforms

Grab, Rotate, and Scale are the three transforms. All canbe done freely, or constrained to one axis.

GrabThe Grab tool is the default transform tool. When an objectis selected the Grab transform tool is represented by thearrow in the transform tool bar above the timeline (aboveleft), and the red, green, and blue arrows in the 3DViewport (below, left). LC on one of the colored arrows inthe 3D Viewport and drag the monkey along the axis. LC again to release the monkey in her new position. You canLC inside the white circle to move freely, LC again torelease. Toggle the view by pressing the numbers 1, 2, 3,4, 6, 7, and 8 to see where the monkey appears in 3-space.The shortcut for Grab is G (to Grab freely) and if you wantto constrain movement to an axis, press X, Y, or Z, after you enter G. To undo a transform, click ctl + Z. It is veryhandy to understand which axis is X (red, left to right), Y(green, front to back), or Z (blue, up and down).

Rotate and Scale

Similarly, you can rotate an object using theletter R or Scale (S) the object freely or alongaxes by following the transform letter with anX, Y, or Z. You can also change the transformtool by clicking the arc (Rotate), or knob(Scale) in the transform bar above thetimeline. Take five minutes and practicescaling the Suzanne the monkey, rotating her,and moving her using both the tool, theshortcuts G, R, and S, and constraints. Adjust

your view as you learned using Zoom (scroll),Rotate (2,4,6,8), and so on to help you seewhat you are doing to the monkey.

Recommended Tutorial:http://www.blendercookie.com/getting-started-

with-blender-modeling/ (first half)

SCREEN CAPTURE: Stretch or squashusing scale along an axis, and rotate themonkey. Capture a Camera POV.

The transform tool above the

timeline. Grab arrow is selected.

The Grab transform tool as itappears in the 3D Viewport




Saving your work

Even though your squashed monkey may not be important, now’s a good time to learn howto save your work.

1. Set up a folder on your computer for your Blender work. Call it something like“BlenderProjects.”

2. Open Blender 3. To save your session, go to the top menu bar click FILE.4. Then select SAVE AS (cmd+ sft + S )5. A gray navigation window will open up. Navigate to the folder that you set up.

Navigate by clicking on the white arrow to go up in the hierarchy or the folders to golower until you get to your new empty folder.

6. Above the white arrow, you see the words unititled.blend . Change the word untitledto your new filename. Be sure to leave the .blend part there.

7. Now you can save it by clicking on the Save as Blender File button.

Once a file is saved, as you work just use the Save shortcut, cmd + S or the Save As

shortcut shift + cmd + S to save efficiently and frequently. I usually sequentially rename myfiles after a half hour of work so I have a progression in case I mess something up, I can goback in half hour increments.




Edit Mode

Opening a New FileStart up a new file (cmd + N, or file > new).Duplicate the cube: Select the cube and then sft + D, and drag the new cube so that it isn’t

touching the first one. We’re now going to edit one of the cubes.

Switching between Object and Edit ModeYou have been working in Object Mode so far. Enter edit mode bypressing tab or by bringing up the mode menu in the bar abovethe timeline (as seen on the right). Editing mode is where you canchange the shape of a selected mesh object that you see in the3D Viewport. In this case, the cubes are editable mesh objects.Tab will toggle you back and forth between Object mode and EditMode.Recommended Tutorial: http://www.blendercookie.com/getting-

started-with-blender-modeling/ (second half)

Your new cube is automatically selected.To select the other cube, tab to enter object mode, RC on the other cube, andtab to go back into edit mode with theother cube selected.

By switching the selction in Object mode,

you can edit either cube in edit modeone at a time. Select the one that youare interested in working on and enter edit mode (tab).

Vertices, Edges, and FacesNotice that the cube not only has a glowing out line, but all thefaces, edges and vertices are orange cast. You can change the

shading to wireframe if you have a preference by toggling Z.Press A to deselect everything. In Edit mode, there is a smalltool above the timeline at the bottom of the 3D Viewport for selection. You can select vertices, edges or faces. The defaultis vertex . In the image on the right, edge selection is activated.If vertex is selected, you can still select an edge or a face byselecting all the surrounding vertices. Activate vertex selectionor leave it activated.

A scene in edit mode with a newly added cube.




The object that can be manipulated still has an orange dot in the middle, indicating that it isthe selected object. Select one of the vertices by using RC near it. You can see that thecorner glows. The familiar transform tool opens up.

Transforming VertexYou can apply the Grab tool (G or use

the transform manipulator tool) to movethat vertex. Rotate has no effect onvertices.

Transforming an Edge

Toggle A until no vertices are selected. Toselect an edge, select two adjacentvertices. You can do this by sft + RC oneach edge, or use the box select (sft + B and drag, LC to release) or Lasso select(ctl + LC and drag, LC to release) or usethe edge select button and RC. Near left,the shape has an edge selected. Far left, arotate transform has been applied. Grab, rotate, and scale can be applied to edges. Try themout.

Transforming a Face

To select a face, select all the verticesaround the face of interest. Alternately usethe face selection menu above the timeline.Grab, rotate, and scale the face to differenteffects. Below, you can see a selected face,and the same object after a scale transformhas been applied to the face.




Extrude ToolThe extrude tool will be very useful to you. It can be applied to a vertex or several, an edge or a face. Let’s start with by extruding a vertex.

Extruding a Vertex

Tab into Object Mode and select your un-deformed cube, then tab back into Edit Mode. A todeselect, then select one vertex by RC very near it. Type E you will now be able to extrudean edge and another vertex from the original. This extrusion is usually constrained to an axisthat appears as a white line (below, left), if you do not want this constraint, type Z or MC for an unconstrained extrusion (below, right).

A very useful technique is to use the shortcutctl+LC (ctl+ tap sylus on a tablet) to extrude along series of points. In the image on the right, Ihad a vertex selected; then held control while ILC where the new vertices should line up,bypassing the E and Z routine). This is a veryuseful technique. Please give it a try.

A constrained extrusion by typing E anddragging a vertex.

After typing E, Z was pressed to freethe constraint. LC confirms the




Lesson 1: Project

Wrap UpCongratulations! That concludes Lesson 1! Practice the techniques that are explained here

to get around the interface and to do basin edits to mesh objects.There are numerous online resources for working in Blender and it’s a good idea to look at avariety of tutorials.

Enjoy!

Build a scene with two mesh objects. Try adding different objects to see what they are.Manipulate one of the objects by at least extruding points and edges. Manipulate theother object by at least extruding faces. Use Grab, Scale, and Rotate functions to shapeyour objects in edit mode or arrange them in object mode.

If you are adventuresome, you can make the objects look like real or imagined objects!

intro blender 1

Documents