BLENDER BASICS

The CAD Academy Permission to Copy or Modify

Blender can be used for animation, games and also for business or architectural and

mechanical animations. The same skill set applies. So students can have fun learning

this product and also put the skills learned to use in applications they would not have

thought of.

In this tutorial we will learn some basics, meet Suzanne and have FUN!

Click on the Blender ICON to launch the program.

Like other gaming and animation packages the Blender

interface has lots of functions and animators learn to use short cuts in

the form of “HOT KEYS” so we will be taking advantage of hot keys in this tutorial.

Blender opens up to some defaults and we will take advantage of these defaults. There is

a sample box and default light and camera (not shown).

Let’s go ahead and take a good look at the box by rendering it.

Go to the RENDER pull-

Down and SELECT

RENDER CURRENT

FRAME.

Page – 2

The RENDER screen should show you

something like this. CLOSE the RENDER

screen and let’s go make the cube a bit more

interesting.

Go to the PULL-DOWN menu

and select MATERIAL, which

sets up an environment for

adding materials and special

Effects to an object.

Materials brought up

Several screens, which

Help in editing and the

MATERIAL EDITOR.

Try using the SLIDERS

To change to a color

You would like the

Cube to be. And then

Press HOTKEY f12 or

Function key 12 to check

It out and close the render

Screen.

Page – 3

Try some EFFECTS. Select WIRE and

render to see what that looks like.

UNSELECT WIRE by picking on the

ICON and try out HALO. This is what a

RENDER of HALO looks like.

Uncheck HALO.

I think it is time to introduce you to

SUZANNE. Go to the ADD PULL-DOWN and

Select MESH and then MONKEY.

Page – 4

It looks like SUZANNE is just

a pretty face waiting to be seen.

SELECT the BLUE ARROW

and keep pressing on the PICK

button GENTLY pull Suzanne

out of the box. If she is not in

the box we will move

her around anyway!

If you would like to move her to the

RIGHT use the GREEN ARROW or

FORWARD check out the RED ARROW.

There she is!!

Now try ROTATE.

Hot Key is R.

Press R on the keyboard and

then select the RED, GREEN

or BLUE arrows and

ROTATE Suzanne around.

Using the MOVE and ROTATE

Try to get SUZANNE into

The POSITION shown. I

Had to select the other screens

To make it happen. That is

Why MULTIPLE screen are

awesome to animate with.

Page – 5

I think Suzanne could use a

Little dressing up. Go to

SR-3-MATERIAL and select

MODEL.

Go to VIEW and then

SELECT camera

You can use the ROLLER on your MOUSE

To zoom up SUZANNE or you can use the

PLUS (+) on the 10-key pad to ZOOM UP

and the MINUS (-) to ZOOM OUT.

(more hot-keys)

Page – 6

Now we see her closely we can

clearly see she needs fixing up.

A lot of women would appreciate a

SET SMOOTH switch, so press SET

SMOOTH and make Suzanne look

Good.

The CUBE could look a little better, too.

To SELECT the CUBE move the

MOUSE to the cube and then RIGHT

MOUSE click to SELECT the CUBE.

Using what you learned about use SET

SMOOTH on the box.

Move the cursor back to

SUZANNE and

RIGHT MOUSE click to

SELECT Suzanne.

Then select the ICON shown

And then select ADD NEW.

Page – 7

Use the SLIDERS to pretty up

Suzanne.

Suzanne looks so good

She deserves to be in

The movies. Go the

The SR-2-Model pull-

down and select

ANIMATION.

Page – 8

The type of animation we

are going to do is called

“KEY FRAME”

Set the VIEW to the CAMERA

By choose as shown at right.

The DEFAULT is wire-frame for animation

because it uses less memory. Since we just

have two objects we can go ahead and set

the animation preview to SOLID as shown.

We will be working with

FRAMES and using what we

Have already learned to make

A short animation.

Page – 9

Move your cursor into the

SCREEN as shown and press

The i key to bring up the

KEY FRAME dialog BOX

Select LOC to set current

Screen to frame #1.

Select and PRESS on the GREEN BAR to

MOVE up FRAMES. Move to FRAME 0.5

Now move Suzanne up and type or press i

and select LOC to KEY this FRAME.

Page – 10

Move up frames and then move

Suzanne and type in I when finished

To LOC the frame.

You can use R to rotate and S to scale

Suzanne. Do several more frames .

Move the green bar back to the

Beginning of the animation

and select the cube and go

through the same process to animate

The cube.

Page - 11

When you have completed the animation

Press the PLAY key to check it out.

Stop the animation and

Go to the RENDER pull-down

And render the current frame.

We could use some more

Lighting.

Go to the ADD pull-down and add SUN.

The sun will give us overall or ambient

Light.

Page – 12

Do another render. Now we can really see our girl.

Go to SR and select MODEL

Select the WORLD button as

Shown

This is the BACKGROUND of our animation

Select BLEND and see how it changes and makes the background more interesting.

Select STARS and make Suzanne a space Traveler.

Page – 13

Select RENDER and she the difference in the

Background.

Render animation will combine our key

Frames with the background

As we send Suzanne into outer space feel great about completing Blender Basics

Lesson is complete.