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By Roland Hess
It won't be taking a huge gamble to say that the Blender interface is different
from anything you have worked with before. Some people seem to get it intuitivel
y; others, not so much. The bad news is that it is not the kind of thing you can
enter without instruction - the interface was not designed to allow a new user
to sit down and be able to guess their way through a major project.
But really, that's the good news. Blender was designed by professional animators
for professional animators. Many of the things that can make a program simple f
or beginners end up constraining even intermediate users. So you should know thi
s: the time spent learning the core principles of Blender's interface will pay y
ou back many times over.
Clear your mind of what you think you know, and let's begin.
The Most Basic Blender Interface Advice Possible
One hand on the mouse. One hand on the keyboard.
Blender was designed with this in mind. The interface is flexible. There are con
trols built in so that if you want to skip learning most of the keyboard shortcu
ts and rely on the mouse, you can. But in most situations, you will work more ef
ficiently with a mouse/keyboard combination approach.
Launch Blender. (You already have Blender, right? If not, go to Chapter 0: Insta
lling and Running Blender).
Mac OSX and Linux users will see the application start up and fill the screen. W
indows users will too, but they will see an additional window and item in the ta
skbar. Don't close this extra window (which some people mistakenly call the "DOS
" window, because it resembles the black Windows command line utility), as it wi
ll cause Blender to close as well. Since you're just getting started, think of i
t as Blender's annoying kid brother and ignore it.
The main Blender window:
Figure 2.1: The main Blender window.
Figure 2.1.Key: 1. 3D View
2. Window Headers
3. Buttons Windows
Sidebar: Is Your Mouse Mighty Enough?
Blender works best with a three button wheel mouse. It is useable with a two but
ton mouse, or without a scroll wheel, but it's not recommended. Likewise, you ca
n use the touch pad or control-stick solutions on a laptop in a pinch, but an ex
ternal mouse will be better. If you need to use a mouse with only two buttons (a
nd forget about using the one-button mouse bundled with older Macs), holding dow
n the Alt key and using a left click will simulate the Middle Mouse Button. Of c
ourse, you can quickly find yourself doing a spider crawl around the keyboard if
you use this technique. That's why we recommend getting a three button mouse.
Throughout this book, we will use these abbreviations for the different mouse cl
icks:
LMB = Left Mouse Button click
Of course, you could use the iconic dropdown menu in the header to do this too.
Figure 2.4: The Shading mode menu on the 3D header.
Yes, you could use that menu. But you won't. Why not? Because at first, 95% of t
he time you'll be working in either Solid mode or Wireframe mode (the one with t
he edges). Often, it is useful to quickly switch between the two modes to make s
ure you have the correct edge selected, or to check the overall look of somethin
g you've done, and if you rely on the dropdown menu for this most basic thing, i
t'll be your first step on the road to sloooooow Blending. Use the Z-key. Ohomoh
ok.
Changing the Way the View Deals With Distance: Orthographic and Perspective
The other view toggle we'll examine for now is Numpad-5. Numpad-5 toggles the 3D
view between orthographic and perspective modes (and if you don't know what tha
t means, you can check out the Orthographic and Perspective sidebar). Press Nump
ad-5 to toggle Perspective. Now, use the controls you've already learned -- zoom
, rotate and translate --to move around. The controls feel a bit different in Pe
rspective mode.
As an exercise, you might want to try to get Blender to show you a nice view of
the bottom side of the default cube that's there when you run Blender, zoomed to
fill most of the screen. Try it in both Orthographic and Perspective modes. If
you get lost or disoriented, use Numpad-1 to set you back into a front view and
try again.
Sidebar: Orthographic and Perspective Views
Figure 2.5: Two shots of the same street model in different perspective modes.
"Perspective" refers to the way you see things in real life. Objects close to yo
u look larger than objects which are far away. This is just the way you see thin
gs. Blender can display 3D views to look like this as well. In fact, if Blender
couldn't display things with perspective, it would be fairly useless as it would
never be able to produce images that gave the illusion of reality.
It turns out, though, that many modeling and animation tasks don't work so well
in perspective mode. It can be difficult to align items in perspective mode, or
to visualize the true shape of a large object when it is constantly distorted by
the effects of perspective. For that reason, most modelers and animators work i
n Orthographic mode.
"Orthographic", or "Ortho" removes the shortening due to distance that is found
in perspective, making things appear "flat". If you're not familiar with the eff
ect, a few minutes of toggling between the modes and observing your models from
different angles will acquaint you with it.
End Sidebar
In Blender, new 3D views default to Ortho mode, making them easier to work in. C
amera views (cameras are detailed in Chapter 13) default to Perspective mode, to
aid with final visualization.
A Practical Example: Viewing Hidden Items in Solid Mode With Perspective and Zoo
ming
Sometimes when working in one of the solid modes in Orthographic 3D views, you w
ill find that there are objects you cannot see. If you are creating an interior
room scene, for example, which is constructed of a cube for the walls, ceiling a
nd floor, entering solid mode will make your furniture and other interior object
s impossible to see.
Figure 2.6.1: A wireframe view of a room in Ortho mode
Figure 2.6.2: A solid view of the same model. No matter how far you zoom in, you
won't see the interior.
One way to take a good look around in such a situation is to use Numpad-5 to ent
er Perspective mode. Center the room in the 3D view, then start rolling the scro
ll wheel to zoom in until your viewpoint has passed through one of the walls of
the room.
Figure 2.6.3: Using Perspective mode, zooming now takes you "inside" the model.
With careful control, and the use of Perspective mode, you can see objects that
would normally be obscured in solid view.
Callout: 3D View Navigation Basics Summary:
Figure 2.7 (same as Figure 2.2):
Numpad-1, 3 and 7 show front, right side and top views.
Ctrl-Numpad-1, 3 and 7 show back, left side and bottom views.
The Z-key toggles between wireframe and solid views.
Numpad-5 toggles between orthogonal and perspective modes.
The Toolbox
Figure 2.75: The toolbox contains almost any command you can use in Blender.
When working in the 3D view, the toolbox is one of your best friends. Place the
mouse over the 3D window and press the Spacebar. The toolbox pops up under the m
ouse cursor. It functions just like any other hierarchical menu you've ever used
.
The toolbox contains almost any command or tool you would care to use in Blender
. In fact, to get a good idea of the kinds of things you can do with Blender, it
is instructive to use the Spacebar, bring up the toolbox, and begin to browse.
There are controls there for creating objects of all kinds, moving into differen
t modes, grouping, selecting, rendering, transforming and generally everything e
lse you can do.
One little hint for using the toolbox: if you find yourself going to the toolbox
more than twice for the same item, see if the command has a keyboard shortcut l
isted beside it. If it does, drag your mouse away from the toolbox to close it,
then use the keyboard shortcut. Sure, you can be the kind of user who always goe
s three levels deep into the toolbox to find "Apply Scale/Rotation", but then al
l of your friends will laugh at you, because they realized it was better to simp
ly press Ctrl-A, just like it said in the toolbox. Of course, you don't have to
learn every keyboard shortcut, nor should you try. But for commands that you fin
d yourself using again and again, the small amount of effort you spend to make y
ourself use the keyboard will save you time and help your workflow.
The Buttons Window
Figure 2.8: The default Buttons window and its major components.
A Buttons window shows a series of panels and tabs that are populated by various
controls. Depending on which Context you have selected, these controls can affe
ct objects in the 3D view, set options and properties (like Materials), and trig
ger procedures (like Rendering).
What is a Context? That's just the technical name for the different groupings of
Doing this quickly cycles you through the different Shading subcontexts. In fact
, this technique holds true for all contexts, allowing you fast keyboard-based a
ccess to different sets of controls.
Note: Naming shortcuts
It would become tedious and probably confusing to always be talking about contex
ts and subcontexts when referring to different sets of controls. For that reason
, most Blender users simply refer to different sets of controls by more common n
ames. The Materials subcontext is commonly called the Material buttons. Likewise
, the Editing context and Texturing context are called the Edit buttons and Text
ure buttons, respectively.
These sets of controls are grouped in panels and tabs. Use F5 to get yourself to
the Material buttons (or just LMB click on the Material button) and take a look
at the layout.
Figure 2.10: The Material buttons.
The panel/tab interface is quite flexible. You can LMB-click and drag a tab into
a different panel if you don't like the current organization. You can drag tabs
out of a panel, dropping them into the background to become their own panel. Al
so, you can drag and drop entire panels, causing their neighbors to shuffle asid
e and rearrange.
As an exercise, try dragging all of the tabs in the Material buttons into only t
wo panels, then drag some of those tabs off again, creating their own panels. Th
at's not the way you would want to work, but it will give you the idea of how pa
nels and tabs operate.
Figure 2.11: Panels and tabs can be dragged and joined.
Now, let's look at the actual controls. Press F7 with the mouse over the Buttons
Window to bring up the Object buttons.
Figure 2.12: The Object buttons.
Most of the controls in Blender function like their counterparts in any other pi
ece of software, but since Blender uses its own visual scheme, we'll go over the
m to alleviate any confusion.
Note: The color references in this section only apply if you are using the basic
Blender theme. You can find out how to change the look of Blender in Chapter 14
: Customization with Options and Preferences. Almost all tutorials, including th
e ones in this book, show Blender with the standard interface, so you should pro
bably leave it as it is for now.
1.
Toggle button: Aqua buttons that have two settings: On and Off. In certa
in parts of the interface, they can toggle through three different settings, the
third looking like On, but with the button's label appearing in yellow. Toggle
buttons are usually used to indicate settings.
2.
Button: Pink buttons are used to initiate actions. They will not stay pr
essed.
3.
Text Block: These controls allow you to type text - usually the name of
an object or other Blender element. If there is a group of related Text Blocks,
you can usually use the Tab key to move between them for faster text entry.
4.
Drop Down Menu: Grey controls that have an up/down arrow widget on their
side. These function mostly like dropdown menus in any other program, allowing
you to select from a predefined list of options. There are times, though, when
you will see something like this:
Figure 2.12.1: The dropdown menu for managing links.
In these types of dropdown menus, selecting "Add New" will create a completely n
ew item appropriate to the menu (for example, it creates a new Material instead
of selecting an existing one). Also, clicking the "X" to the right of the menu w
ill clear any selection from the menu, basically telling it that you want to sel
ect "nothing."
5.
Spinners: Darker gray controls with left/right arrow heads on either sid
e. Spinner controls are a little more complex than the others. They are used for
setting numeric values. Clicking on the label or the actual value in the Spinne
r will temporarily turn it into a text box, allowing you to enter a value direct
ly from the keyboard. Clicking on either arrow head will raise or lower the valu
e, respectively. And finally, clicking and dragging anywhere within the Spinner
will "spin" the value up or down, depending on whether you drag to the right or
the left. Try it on one of the Spinners in the Object buttons to see how it feel
s. Some keyboard modifiers can help with Spinners, too: holding Shift while you
drag makes the values advance more slowly, while holding down the Ctrl key makes
the value advance by a different increment (usually 10). So using the click-dra
g method on a Spinner control while holding down Ctrl-Shift would slowly advance
the values in increments of 10.
Over time, the Blender interface has seen a lot of growth, as well as some wear
and tear. You may find toggle buttons that are not Aqua. You may find dropdown m
enus that appear at first to be standard buttons. If you're the picky type, you
can make a list of such irregularities and send it to the developers so they can
unify the whole thing. If you're not, don't worry about it. Just hit the button
and see what it does. You won't blow up your computer or anything (that'll be o
ne of the cool 3.0 features!).
Callout: Buttons Window Basic Summary:
A Buttons Window contains controls for settings values, triggering actions and t
oggling modes. The controls are grouped in Contexts, the more popular of which a
re accessible by hotkeys.
Within each context, controls appear on tabs and panels that you can rearrange t
o suit your workflow.
Headers
Each window in the Blender interface can have a header.
The interface is always the same, though, and playing with it until you have the
hang of it will be worth your time.
End Sidebar
Open Recent...: shortcut: Ctrl-O. Pops up a list of recently saved files for you
to choose from.
Save: shortcut: Ctrl-W. While many applications throughout the world use this sh
ortcut to Close a document, Blender uses it to Save. Under most conditions in Bl
ender, you can also use the traditional Ctrl-S to save, but due to conflicts wit
h hotkeys in certain modes, it's not guaranteed. Ctrl-W will always work.
Quit: shortcut: Ctrl-Q. Pressing Ctrl-Q brings up the "OK? Quit Blender" popup,
which must be confirmed by a mouse click. Once again, a reminder is in order tha
t Blender will not prompt you to save your work in progress. The best way to avo
id quitting without saving is to drill into your reflexes that the Quit command
is really Ctrl-W, Ctrl-Q. That'll be a Save, followed by a Quit.
Other menus in the headers will contain sets of commands relevant to their parti
cular window type. For example, the header menus attached to the 3D Window conta
in many of the same controls that are available from the spacebar toolbox. Brows
ing these menus is a great way to go Easter Egg hunting for undiscovered, unpubl
icized features.
For now, though, don't worry about the individual controls on the different head
ers. We'll go over the useful items in them in their specific chapters.
Making Changes: How To Adjust the Layout of What You See
If shuffling tabs and panels was the extent of the configurability of Blender's
interface, it would be kind of sad. Fortunately, it is not.
Hover your mouse over the border line between the 3D window and the Buttons wind
ow. When you have it just right, it will display as a little double-headed arrow
.
Figure 2.14: The double arrow, ready to change the interface.
LMB click and drag. The border moves up and down, and when you release the mouse
button, the windows resize to adjust.
Now, put your mouse over the border again, and this time click with the MMB. A s
mall menu pops up asking you whether to Split or Join the areas, and also gives
you the option of "No Header". Choose Split.
Blender makes a vertical border line that follows
you place the cursor in the 3D window, the border
or the Buttons window. Move the mouse over the 3D
ows it. Put it near the center of the screen, and
You've just divided the 3D view into two separate windows. Each window functions
independently of the other. You can place your mouse over the left window, pres
s Numpad-7 to put it into top view, then jump over and use Numpad-1 to put the o
ther window into front view.
Here's the cool part. Click on the grid popup menu icon at the far left of eithe
r 3D window's header.
Figure 2.15: The Window type menu. Any window can be show any type of informatio
n.
The menu that comes up shows you the sixteen different window types available in
Blender. From this menu, choose "Buttons Window" since you're already familiar
with that. Bingo. The 3D window is now a Buttons window. Use that same menu agai
n and change it back to a 3D window.
This is how deep the Blender interface goes: you can subdivide the interface int
o almost any configuration of windows you find useful by using the Split/Join to
ol on window borders. Any of those created windows can be set to any of the wind
ow types you just saw in the menu. You can create several windows in a row, each
showing a Buttons window set to a different context, so that you can work on, s
ay, materials and textures at the same time without constantly switching window
contexts.
That's actually a lot to take in, and your odds of coming up with the Best Blend
er Configuration Ever on your first trip through are pretty slim. So try this in
stead:
Figure 2.16: Selecting a different screen configuration from the Screens menu.
Click on the dropdown control that reads "SR:2-Model". From the dropdown menu th
at appears, click "1-Animation". A whole different configuration of windows and
controls appears, helpfully optimized for animation. Check out the other choices
from that menu: Material, Sequence and Scripting. Lots and lots of buttons, huh
? Don't be scared. You can learn all of that stuff later. For now, it's good eno
ugh to know that Blender offers you different Screens, accessible through that d
ropdown menu, that allow you to create and organize any set of window and contro
l configurations that you come up with.
Although you won't need it for any individual tutorial in this book, using diffe
rent Screens is one of the things that divides Blender pros from ones who reconf
igure their workspace by hand each and every time they want to do a different ta
sk. Experienced users generally have a set of Screens they have developed, often
based off of these default ones, but sometimes entirely of their own creation,
that they rapidly jump between during the course of their work. Of course, there
is a set of hotkeys for switching between Screens, and although you'll most lik
ely forget it due to lack of use until you are doing more involved Blender proje
cts, we'll tell you anyway, just for the sake of completeness. Ctrl-Left Arrow a
nd Ctrl-Right Arrow move to the previous and next Screen, respectively.
So, remember how we mentioned the hotkeys for switching to different types of b
uttons windows (F5, F6, F7, etc.)? If you start to use the different screens for
different parts of your work, you'll find that you won't have to switch between
different kinds of buttons windows as often. So, instead of memorizing a number
of function keys, you can begin to work by using Ctrl-Left Arrow and Right Arro
w to switch to a screen that is already pre-configured with the tools that you n
eed.
Saving Your Configuration
After your first major Blender project, you will probably have configured the in
terface to really fit your workflow. You may have gotten rid of the Scripting Sc
reen, and seriously restructured the Animation and Material Screens to better fi
t the way you work. You would like to use this configuration on all of your futu
re work. What do you do?
Ctrl-U. Ctrl-U saves the current Blender workspace, Screens, Objects and all, as
the startup default. The next time you run Blender (or do the New/ Ctrl-X comma
nd) this exact configuration is what you will see.
TATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE OC "AS I
S" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICU
LAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK OF USE OF THE OC IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE OC PROVE F
AULTY, INACCURATE, OR OTHERWISE UNACCEPTABLE YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSA
RY REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
5. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL
ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MIRROR AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE
OC AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPEC
IAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO
USE THE OC, EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILI
TY OF SUCH DAMAGES.