Basics of Blender

When you first open blender, the interface is quite intimidating. There are a lot of options that fill up the screen and it is hard to know where to start. I am hoping to explain the basics of navigation, how to use the interface, and how to work with objects. Blender is a very useful program that allows you to create 3d shapes that can be implemented into engines such as Unity. You can also create 3d introductions to videos on Youtube and other video sharing websites.

Navigation:

The first thing that you have to understand is that you can move anywhere, there is 3D depth and size. To rotate the viewpoint, you press the middle mouse button and drag the mouse, and to shift the window, you hold shift, click the middle mouse button and drag. To zoom in and out, you scroll on the wheel. These are the basics of navigating the view window.

Objects:

By default, there are 3 objects on the screen. There is a cube (mesh object), a lamp (light source) and a viewpoint ("sets the scene" for the angle, distance, and composition). When you select the object you want to move by clicking on it, by default with the right mouse button, there are 3 colored arrows. The blue arrow moves the object up and down, assuming you are looking at it from the front. In that case, the red arrow moves it on 1 axis sideways and the green arrow moves it on the other axis sideways. The yellow dot in the center of the object allows you to free move. You can select multiple items at once by holding shift and clicking on as many objects as you want. To remove a object from being selected, you shift click the object twice. To rotate objects, you have 2 options. You can either go to the toolbar to the left hand side of the screen, press on the “Tools” tab, and select rotate. If this is too long, you can also press the “R” key. You can also scale objects, making them bigger or smaller. You can do this by pressing the scale button in the toolbar, or selecting the object with the “S” key.

Adding/Deleting objects: There are two ways that you can add objects. You can either duplicate it by pressing duplicate in the tool bar, or using the “D” key. You can also add new objects by going to the create tab in the tool bar and selecting the object you would like. You can also do this by pressing shift and the “A” key. In this adding menu, you can add mesh objects, lamps, and viewpoints.

Interface: The interface for blender is quite abundant. The bar to the left is the tool bar region. This is used for the modeling, animation, and physics of the project. On the right side of the screen there is a plus sign, this is used to view the properties of the viewport. In the right region, there is a portion of the bar dedicated to the “Scene”. This is where all of the mesh objects that are being used are. The properties window is where you can change the color and properties of objects. The top bar is the info bar. This bar tells you the name, render type, file menu, and more. The bottom bar is the timeline where you can view your animation. The smaller menu above the timeline interacts with the viewport. In the view tab, you can change your view on the object. You can also access these via hot keys: 7 is the top view, control and 7 is the bottom, 1 is the front, control and 1 is the back, 3 is the right, and control and 3 is the left. You can also change to orthographic mode. The hot key for this is 5.

Conclusion: In conclusion, when you first open Blender, it is very confusing and intimidating. However, as you begin to dissect the different parts of the screen, you begin to understand that it isn't as complex as it looks. Blender is a very useful program that allows you to create 3d shapes that can be implemented into engines such as Unity.