Blender Beginner Part 01

Welcome to the the wonderful world of Blender. Blender, like many 3D suites, can be a very intimidating at first. This tutorial has been created to help beginners overcome the steep learning curve involved in understanding blender. Download Room.blend and Table.jpg here:. We will be using these files throughout the tutorial. By the end of the tutorial your final picture will look like this.

Step 01

When opening Blender the user interface should look like this. Good information and a very descriptive picture of this interface is located here: Make sure to look at this website picture because some of the things described in the tutorial will be using that image as a reference.




Step 02

Go to the File>Open.




Step 03

To find the file, select the button underneath the P button.




Step 04

This will allow you to find the proper drive. I had to choose the C: drive.




Step 05

Select a specific folder where you saved the downloaded file. My files was saved in the C:\Blender Tutorial directory.




Step 06

Then left click the mouse on the file and select the Open button(or press enter).




Step 07

You will notice there is a scene with 1 screen in 3D space and a buttons panel below. Most things should look similar to when you originally opened Blender. However there are a number of things that are different that you can't see yet. First of all, turn off the 3d transform manipulator. This can be done by clicking on the hand pointing(next to the red triangle at the bottom panel in the 3d view window or by pressing ctrl + spacebar.




Step 08

Now the 3d transform manipulator area should look like this.




Step 09

If you ever are having difficulty knowing what a specific button or part of blender is hold your mouse cursor over an area. By holding your mouse cursor over a descriptive box will give information. This is what popped up when I held the mouse cursor over the 3d transform manipulator.




Step 10

In the screen selector tab you should see the following SR:2-Model. These screens can be modified for specific tasks. There are predefined screens. Hold ctrl + left arrow or ctrl + right arrow to see the other screens. Try this out.




Step 11

Once back to the SR:2-Model screen. Select the screen selector dropdown(next to Help) and select ADD NEW.




Step 12

Delete the Model .001 name, leaving the 2- part, and add the word Default so




Step 13

The screen name should look like this SR:2-Default




Step 14

To make changes to the 3d window so that we can have multiple views move the mouse cursor almost a centimeter below the top of the screen. Move the mouse directly on the line where the main top menu(that has File, Add, Timeline, etc...) and the 3d view window meet. This should change the mouse pointer to a double ended arrow which points both upward and downward. When the mouse changes to a double ended arrow hit the middle mouse button. A menu will appear with the choices: Split Area, Join Areas, and No Header. Select Split Area with the left mouse button.




Step 15

A vertical bar will appear. Move the vertical bar so it is in the middle of the view area. Hit the left mouse button.




Step 16

Now there are two views from the orthogonal top view. To move the 3d windows to different sizes move the mouse over the divider line, left click and drag the line until the 3d window is at the desired size.




Step 17

So far there has only been the 3D cursor, lamp light(circle object) and the camera(triangle object). These have been in layer 1. Layer 1 is shown in the area to the right of the 3d transform manipulator at the bottom panel of the left 3D window. To switch to the other layers press numbers 0-9. Hold alt + numbers 0-9 and it will select the ten layers available. Almost all the objects used in the tutorial are in different layers. Select the table by going to layer 9.




Step 18

Right click the mouse on the table and it will be highlighted. Also in the Buttons window the Editing Panel Group(F9) Context will show some important information. In the Links and Materials panel(a subset of the Editing Panel Group) the mesh name is indicated by ME:table_mesh and the object name is OB:o.table. I would strongly suggest having a good naming convention for meshes, objects, lights, cameras, etc.... Once a scene becomes very complex it is much easier to find/select certain items when they have good naming conventions.




Step 19

Move the mouse cursor to the right window and press a number 3 on the numpad. 1, 3, and 7 on the numpad change to different viewports. Ctrl + 1,3, and 7 uses the viewport of the opposite side(ie. top would be bottom). 2, 4, 6, 8 rotate the view. 5 toggles between perspective and orthogonal view. Using two different orthogonal viewport we are going to rotate the table so that it is upright.




Step 20

Press R in one of the views to rotate the table and left click to confirm the rotation. Use the other viewport as a guide.




Step 21

We will take a closer look to see whether the rotation was perfect. To use the whole viewport in the screen move the mouse cursor in the side view and press shift + spacebar or ctrl + up arrow(or ctrl + down arrow).




Step 22

To zoom in scroll the middle mouse button or press ctrl + holding the middle mouse button.




Step 23

To pan the view hold shift + MMB(middle mouse button). By comparing the edges of the table and the background grid I can see the the table is aligned to the different axis.




Step 24

Press shift + spacebar again to get out of full screen mode.




Step 25

To show more than one layer hold shift + 1 while your mouse cursor is in the 3d viewport window. Now the lamp, camera, and table are all together.




Step 26

Select on the camera and press . on the numpad. This will center the selected object in the viewport(similar to aim in wings3d).




Step 27

To see all of the objects again press home.




Step 28

Select the 9 layer again and select the table




Step 29

Press m, press 1, and select OK while the layer box is displayed. Note that you can also select the layer by clicking the LMB(left mouse button) on the box for layer 1. This will move the table to layer 1.




Step 30

Now layer 9 is empty.




Step 31

Select layer 1 and now the lamp, camera, and table are together in the same layer.




Step 32

Go to the File>Save As.




Step 33

You should be in the same directory where the original file was opened. Change the name to Room01.blend. Press Save As button or enter.