Difference between revisions of "Introduction to Blender"
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* Refer to the axis diagram on the bottom left corner as well. | * Refer to the axis diagram on the bottom left corner as well. | ||
− | {{Note|Practice moving the object around the scene by dragging it around using | + | {{Note|Practice moving the object around the scene by dragging it around using the arrows. }} |
=== Snap Menu === | === Snap Menu === | ||
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{{Note|Practice moving the Blender Cursor and the object around using this snap menu}} | {{Note|Practice moving the Blender Cursor and the object around using this snap menu}} | ||
+ | |||
+ | === More Essential Shortcuts === | ||
+ | |||
+ | The numbers on the numpad are used to quickly move between views whilst in the 3D view. | ||
+ | |||
+ | {| class="wikitable sortable" | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | ! Key Press | ||
+ | ! Function | ||
+ | ! Type of Function | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | {{key press|1}} | ||
+ | | Front View | ||
+ | | Go to a specific View | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | {{key press|Ctrl}}-{{key press|1}} | ||
+ | | Back View | ||
+ | | Go to a specific View | ||
+ | |} | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | {{key press|1}} - Front View | ||
+ | {{key press|Ctrl}}-{{key press|1}} - Back View | ||
+ | {{key press|3}} - Left side View | ||
+ | {{key press|Ctrl}}+{{key press|3}} - Right side View | ||
+ | {{key press|5}} - Toggle between Perspective / Orthographic View | ||
+ | {{key press|7}} - Top View | ||
+ | {{key press|Ctrl}}+{{key press|7}} - Bottom View | ||
+ | {{key press|9}} - Redraw Screen | ||
+ | {{key press|0}} - Camera View | ||
Revision as of 17:24, 20 November 2016
Welcome to the notes for a 3-hour workshop introducing the basics of Blender, written by Debbie. By the end of this workshop, we'll have covered the basics of: the Blender Interface, Shortcuts, Selecting Objects, Transforming Objects, Moving Objects, Adding and Removing Objects, Adding Modifiers, Creating Diffuse/Specular materials, UV Unwrapping, Lighting, Camera Positioning, and how to render with Cycles (Blender's ray-trace based production render engine). Finally, we will export the image and make it into a 3d pano for google cardboard. ALL IN 3 HOURS. CAN WE DO IT?
Contents
Set up your devices
Ideally, you should have a laptop with a dedicated numpad, but if you don't we can emulate it. It is advisable that you have a three-mouse button.
Keyboard
- If you have a laptop without dedicated numpad, you can emulate the numpad by going to Blender User Preferences > Input.
- Blender User Preferences SHORTCUT is ⌘ Cmd+,
Mouse
- If you don't have a 3 button mouse, you can emulate the three-button mouse by going to Blender User Preferences > Input.
- Blender User Preferences SHORTCUT is ⌘ Cmd+,
- Selecting 'emulate mouse' will mean that you can simulate the middle mouse button if you press the Alt key while using the left mouse button.
- But please get a three-button mouse with a scroll wheel. Anything else is unnecessary self-torture!
Open Blender - It always begins with a box
- Whenever you open Blender, it always starts with a box. And it will probably look like this...
Editor Type: Controlling the Interface
- Let's start by figuring out what we're looking at here.
- When you open Blender, you might see quite a number of different panels.
- The biggest panel on your screen is the 3D view (outlined below in orange), which has a small icon on the bottom left corner, looking like a grey cube.
- If you click on the icon on the bottom, you can see all the available Editor Types.
- Left-mouse button: If you randomly clicked elsewhere with your left mouse button, your screen might look like this:
- The cursor defines where new objects will be placed in the scene. As you can see, your cube has an origin point. If you were to Create a new Cube now, the cube would appear with its origin at the cursor.
- Middle-mouse button: If you click on your middle mouse button and drag around, this is what rotates your view around.
- Right-mouse button: If you click on your right mouse button and drag around, your object moves around, but at this point maybe you don't necessarily want that, so let go and just press Esc to return your cube to its original position.
- Let's take a closer look at how things are positioned in 3D space. Everything is actually placed on 3 axes - X, Y, and Z.
- For easy remembering, RGB is mapped to XYZ, so when you see a red arrow, you know it means to move on the X axis, and so on so forth.
- Refer to the axis diagram on the bottom left corner as well.
Snap Menu
- Blender has a context-dependent interface, which means that the shortcuts and other features depends on what Editor Type (and Mode) you are in.
- In practice, this means that it really matters where your mouse is hovering over when you press any shortcuts.
- Let's try a shortcut for the Snap Menu, which will allow you to do things such as snapping the position of an object to the Blender cursor, or allowing you to reset the cursor back to 0,0,0.
- Whilst your mouse is over the 3D View panel, press ⇧ Shift+s
More Essential Shortcuts
The numbers on the numpad are used to quickly move between views whilst in the 3D view.
Key Press | Function | Type of Function |
---|---|---|
1 | Front View | Go to a specific View |
Ctrl-1 | Back View | Go to a specific View |
1 - Front View Ctrl-1 - Back View 3 - Left side View Ctrl+3 - Right side View 5 - Toggle between Perspective / Orthographic View 7 - Top View Ctrl+7 - Bottom View 9 - Redraw Screen 0 - Camera View
Add Another Mesh
- Let's quickly add another mesh to this test scene
- Shortcut for the Add Menu: Whilst your mouse is over the 3D View panel, press ⇧ Shift+a
See also
- Blender - My master notes for Blender