Written by: Daniel Sefton
Time: N/A
Difficulty: Beginner
Requirements: Blender 2.37a+
Introduction
Hundreds of people download Blender every day, but a fair percentage of those do not use it. Even I didn’t for quite a while, this is because of its daunting interface. In this tutorial you will learn about the interface of Blender.
If you are wanting to convert from another 3D application, then I must warn you to think fresh. I can guarantee you will be pressing the buttons on your keyboard that you are usually used too. With Blender you must always have one hand ready on your keyboard, you can access almost every of Blender’s functions with using hotkey’s (or shortcuts).
Can I also stress that you have the latest version of Blender installed, some of the features described in the tutorial have just recently been introduced. You can check what version you have installed by either opening the ‘About’ dialog (Help > About Blender…) or checking the green strip on the user preferences bar at the top.
Once you know how this program works, you will be on your way to becoming a Blender pro!
The interface
First off, let me introduce you to the interface:
The top row is the user preferences bar, the coloured strip is the program version and to the right of that are some stats about the scene or the object that’s selected.
The next section is the 3D view, here is where you will be doing all your 3D work. In the center there is a cube, this is just placed by default everytime you open Blender. The reason why it is pink around the edge is because it is currently selected.
In the center of the cube there are red, green and blue arrows (introduced in Blender 2.37a) these are called transformation widgets, these give you the ability to quickly move, rotate or scale an object.
You may not be able to see it too well, but also in the center is the Blender 3D cursor, it’s used to determine where new objects are placed and also can be used as a guideline for rotating and scaling.
The yellow dot just to the right of the cube is a lamp. This is used as a source of light for the scene.
The triangle shape in is the camera, which you will be able to see in the bottom right of the view. The location you have the camera will be where you render your view.
Finally, the hatched lines in the background is just the 3D alignment grid.
The third part is the settings for the window view, each window has one of these. Here you will find view modes, object options, widget transformation triggers and the layer panel. The most important part is the button at the far left. This is the view mode. With it you can switch between what you are viewing in the window, at the moment it is in the ‘3D view’ mode.
The final part is the main buttons menu, at the top of it is the settings for the button window view, it’s the same as described previously but with the different button modes for example object, material, rendering etc. Below that is all the buttons where you will be toggling, activating and changing settings for just about everything.
Now you know what everything does and is for, we can start to go deeper and begin to use Blender.
Screen splitting
First let’s go through how to split and join windows. You may think this is pointless, but it saves a lot of time without the need to cycle through all the modes. To split a window, you place your cursor over the window’s edge, top or bottom will split the window vertically and left or right to split the window horizontally, right click and select ‘Split Area’ as shown in the following image:
Once you have selected it, a black line should appear, move your cursor over to the window you wish to split and click, hey presto, your window is now split into two parts. If you have chosen to split it vertically, it should look like this:
To join windows, simply place your cursor over a window border, right click and this time select ‘Join Areas’ from the menu. The two windows should now join and make one. Note that the window that was active is the one that takes the place.
To enlarge a window, select the window you wish to enlarge and press ‘Ctrl + Up/Down Arrow) then do the same again to restore your window. You can also cycle through different window alignment sets using ‘Ctrl + Left/Right Arrow’.
Next we’ll learn how to use the open and save dialogs which are slightly different to the ones you are used too.
Opening files
To open a .blend file, first of all we need to bring up the open dialog by pressing F2 or ‘File > Open…’ from the main menu. Directories are shown in white, files are shown in black and .blend files have a small yellow square at the left of them. The numbers at the right are how large the files/directories are in bytes.
To select a file to open, either click on a file and press Enter, click on a file and press the ‘Open’ button or use the middle mouse button to open a file immediately.
To move to the parent directory, either select the ‘..’, click the ‘P’ button at the top left of the dialog or press ‘P’ on your keyboard.
Finally, to refresh the file list, click on the ‘.’ right at the top of the list.
Saving files
Saving files in Blender is pretty much the same as opening them. Just choose the directory you wish to save your file in, enter the name and press enter or click ‘Save As’:
Conclusion
That’s just about it for the interface basics. Hopefully now you will have a lot more confidence in understanding the program. In the next tutorial, you will learn how to use and navigate around Blender.
