Blender 3D: A Beginners 15 Step Exercise Book Thomas Mc Donald Copyright © 2016 Thomas Mc Donald All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the author. Reviewers may quote brief passages in reviews. Disclaimer No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitter in any forms by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, or transmitted by email without permission in writing from the publisher. While all attempts have been made to verify the information provided in this publication, neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibility for errors, omissions, or contrary interpretations of the subject matter herein. While all attempts have been made to verify the information provided in this publication, neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibility for errors, omissions or issues that may arise from using the information. The views expressed are those of the author alone, and should not be taken as expert instruction or commands. The reader is responsible for his or her own actions. Adherence to all applicable laws and regulations, including international, federal, state and local governing professional licensing, business practices, advertising, and all other aspects of doing business in the US, Canada, or any other jurisdiction is the sole responsibility of the purchaser or reader. Neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibility or liability whatsoever on behalf of the purchaser or reader of these materials. Any perceived slight of any individual or organisation is purely unintentional. Blender 3D: A Beginners 15 Step Exercise Book Introduction This book is designed to guide new users of the Blender 3D software through the interface and as the book progresses we take on some practical exercises the reader can follow along to. The exercises provides a “learn by doing approach” that is fundamental to understanding and mastering Blender. The first section provides information on the different areas within Blender when you first open the program. Here we quickly cover the main areas and their functions. The secret to Blender is gaining an understanding of the process, and theory, and by putting that understanding into practice, practice, practice. You can quickly go through this book in a day and the reality is most people don’t have a whole lot of time to spare. If you assign 30 minutes to an hour a day and follow the exercises, then repeat those exercises until you no longer need the book. This will give you a strong foundation in understanding the fundamentals of Blender. Visit https://blenderzen.com/ for more resources. Getting Started You may already have a copy of Blender installed on your computer. To get the latest version of Blender visit www.Blender.org and click the Download button. This will bring you to the download page. Here you can simply select a Blender suitable for the operating system you have installed on your computer. There are three supported, Windows, Mac and the Linux operating system. Choose between 32bit or 64bit, this will depend on your system hardware, go to your system settings and check the system type if you are unsure. BlenderZen.com @2016 All Rights Reserved Blender 3D: A Beginners 15 Step Exercise Book Blenders user interface When you start Blender the program will display the current splash screen. The splash screen allows you to open a recent project, link to useful resources or copy saved setting from a previous version. If you are coming from Maya or 3Dsmax you can chose the button configuration of either program. To exit the splash screen you can simply click into the 3D view or hit the Esc key. BlenderZen.com @2016 All Rights Reserved Blender 3D: A Beginners 15 Step Exercise Book Getting Set up Blender uses add-on, a feature that extends its functionality through the use of scripts. These pieces of software code written in python can be enabled or disabled by going to: File > User Preferences > Add-ons > Enable the Add-on by clicking and placing a check mark inside the box. The Add-on will now be activated once you select Save User Settings. Some Add-ons are switched on by default but please note the following add-ons need to be enabled to follow along to the exercises in this book: Go to File - User Preferences - Add-ons: Enable Mesh: LoopTools User Interface: Pie Menus Official: Enables short cut keys for efficient workflow. BlenderZen.com @2016 All Rights Reserved Blender 3D: A Beginners 15 Step Exercise Book Input Devices and Add-ons The basics requirements to use Blender successfully are a 3 Button Mouse with scroll wheel and a Keyboard with Numeric Keypad. For keyboards without Numeric Keypads please follow the instructions below. Blenders default mouse select mode is with RMB (Right mouse button). To switch this to LMB (Left mouse button) go to: File > User Preferences > Input > Select with > Left. For keyboards without a Numeric Keypad go to: File > User Preferences > Input > Emulate Numpad > Enable this option by clicking and placing a check mark inside the box BlenderZen.com @2016 All Rights Reserved Blender 3D: A Beginners 15 Step Exercise Book Another Add-on that needs to be enabled for the exercises that follow in this book is the Auto Run Python Scripts. To enable this add-on go to: File > User Preferences > File > Enable > Auto Run Python Scripts Note: After making changes in User Preferences always Save User Settings before exiting to update those changes. BlenderZen.com @2016 All Rights Reserved Blender 3D: A Beginners 15 Step Exercise Book The Default screen layout Blender’s default screen layout (pictured below) is highly customizable and is arranged into 5 areas containing 5 editors. The Areas form the screen layout and contain the Editors. They can be dragged out or squeezed into an arrangement that best suits the user’s workflow and interface needs. Editors consist of a header and one or more region. Headers are horizontal panels top or bottom containing menus and commonly used tools. Regions contain buttons, menus, and checkboxes. These can be rearranged to the user’s preferences. BlenderZen.com @2016 All Rights Reserved Blender 3D: A Beginners 15 Step Exercise Book The Editors The Outliner Editor lists alphabetically by default every object within your scenes. Here you can easily maintain control of an objects visibility in the scene or during rendering. Here you can double click an object to rename, select it or delete it. In a large scene with many objects press the period key to quickly bring the outliner window right to that object. To avoid accidently selecting or modifying an object in a scene you can make it disable its selection option. The Info Editor by default is displayed horizontally across the top of the screen. This editor contains the main menu bar displaying your current screen layout, current scene, current engine and resource information. BlenderZen.com @2016 All Rights Reserved Blender 3D: A Beginners 15 Step Exercise Book The Timeline Editor runs horizontally along the bottom of the screen and provides a visual display for the placement of key frames. These key frames store an object’s properties (position, scale etc) at a moment in time, allowing for interpolated animation between a second key frame. The Properties Editor stores data for the active object and current scene. We will take a closer look at each tab on the Properties Editor later in this book. The 3D View is your view to the virtual environment controlled with a combination of short cut keys and mouse button inputs to model, composite, animate, and edit within. You can select an object inside the 3D View with the LMB (Left mouse Button) unless you have chosen the RMB (Right Mouse Button) as the selection method. Press and hold the MMB (Middle Mouse Button) to rotate the view or roll the MMB to zoom in and out. The RMB places the 3D Cursor at a point in 3D space. The default 3D view contains the objects pictured below. These include the Camera, Lamp, 3D manipulator, 3D Cursor and the default Cube. BlenderZen.com @2016 All Rights Reserved Blender 3D: A Beginners 15 Step Exercise Book The Objects within the 3D View The Camera object within Blender acts much like a real world camera. The rendered scene displayed from the cameras view can be outputted as images or video. With the Camera selected the properties editor Header contains the Camera’s settings. The lens type, focal length and depth of field settings etc can be adjusted here. Everything created in the 3D view will be displayed with the camera either as an image or image sequence. For this reason it is important to understand how the camera is controlled. The default Cube is a mesh object and one of a number of primitive mesh shapes you can begin modelling with. Press Shift + A (Add menu) to view or add the other primitive mesh shapes. 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