Intro to BlenderAlex Hawker

First Steps

Download Blender @ www.blender.org

Important Settings for Laptops

If you don’t have a middle mouse button (mouse wheel), enable this so that shift+leftClick = middle mouse click

If you don’t have a numpad, enable this so that you can use the numbers above your keyboard instead

Initial Setup• Hit the 5 button on your numpad (or on the number row if you have

‘emulate numpad’ enabled) to get rid of perspective. Then save this as the default startup file so you won’t have to do this again.

Perspective:Can’t tell if outer top vertices lie directly on top of bottom, inner vertices

Orthographic:Can easily see that top and bottom vertices don’t match up

Why this is important:

This makes the current file replace the blank initial file

UI Overview

• In Blender, all of the UI is modular, and can be moved and

switched to different views as needed.• Even the file menu at the top is a view (Info view)

•We will be using the “3D View” view and “Properties” view

the most during today’s workshop – the “UV/Image Editor”

view will likely also be helpful for later works.

3D View Overview

Moving the Camera: Fixed Viewpoints

• Numpad: Fixed camera angles

• “Num 1” = Front View

• “Num 3” = Side View

• “Num 7” = Top View

• CTRL + “Num 1/3/7” = opposite side

• (“Num 0” = Camera View)

Moving the Camera: Free Movement

•Middle-mouse button (or ALT + Left Click) = Rotate Camera

•Middle-mouse + SHIFT = Pan Camera

•Middle-mouse + CTRL = Zoom Camera

3D Modeling

Object Mode

• Object Mode is for interacting with complete parts or objects as a whole• Use *Right-Click* to select (Left-Click isn’t used that often in

Blender)• Notice the different transform buttons at the bottom of your

screen, these allow you to manipulate objects:• Arrow – Translate (can also use “g” on your keyboard”)• Curve – Rotate (can also use “r”)• Block – Scale (can also use “s”)

Transforms in detail

•When transforming, there are a few extra things you can do for more precision:

• SHIFT: slows down change.• CTRL: makes change occur in regular intervals• Typing in a number: causes a transformation of that value.

• X, Y, Z: constrains transformation to that axis

Edit Mode : Switching Modes

• Edit Mode is for editing or even creating these finished parts and objects.• Click here and select “Edit Mode” to switch to this mode.

Edit Mode : Selection Type

• Inside edit mode, we can see the vertices and faces of an object and edit them.

• To change whether vertices, lines, or faces are selected, use these buttons

Edit Mode : Selection

• All elements in edit mode can be transformed and selected in the same way as objects in object mode.• To deal with the number of elements we could select, here

are some methods to select things:• “a” = selects everything, or deselects everything if something is selected.

• “b” = bounding box select: left-click, then move mouse, and left-click again.

• “c” = paint brush select: left-click to select, middle mouse to deselect, right click to finish.

• (ALT + right-click = selects loop of elements)

Edit Mode : Creation (Extrusion)

• To create objects, one of the most common ways is through extrusion.• Select a face (or two) and hit “e” to extrude them.• Immediately Right-Click (to make things simpler), and then

move/transform the new region.

Edit Mode : Creation (New Objects)

• To create more objects, make sure the left tools tab is open (press “t”), go to create, and click the object you want to make.• New objects will be placed at your 3d cursor.

• To move the 3d cursor, left-click where you want it. Sometimes you need to do this from different views (e.g. from “Num 1” and “Num 3”).

• To re-center the 3d cursor at the origin, use SHIFT + “c” [note: changes view position as well].

Edit Mode : Creation (Manual)

• To manually insert an edge or face, use “f”• Select two vertices and hit “f” to make a line.• Select 3+ vertices or 2+ lines and hit “f” to make a face.

• Advanced stuff:• With the tools tab open (“t”), you can use [Knife] and [Loop-Cut and Slide]

to easily add new cuts to your mesh ([Subdivide] also works).• Use ALT+”m” to merge together vertices into one

Edit Mode : Creation (Manual)

• To manually insert an edge or face, use “f”• Select two vertices and hit “f” to make a line.• Select 3+ vertices or 2+ lines and hit “f” to make a face.

• Advanced stuff:• With the tools tab open (“t”), you can use [Knife] and [Loop-Cut and Slide]

to easily add new cuts to your mesh ([Subdivide] also works).• Use ALT+”m” to merge together vertices into one

Viewport display types

• Hit “z” to toggle wireframe view on or off.•While wireframe view is off (solid view is on), you can click

this to toggle seeing only front faces vs. a semi-wireframe

•WARNING: SHIFT+”z” toggles rendered view on – this can crash blender – make sure to save!

Smooth Shading

• Switch to object mode in the same way we did for edit mode.• Notice in the tools tab, it should say “smooth” and “flat” – these

toggle between smooth and flat shading.• Generally want smooth, but for 3D printing you need to use flat.

Modifiers

• In the properties view on the right side of you screen, click the wrench icon.• This allows you to add modifiers to the currently selected object.• Important modifiers:

• Mirror – mirrors the object, so you only need to do half the work! (or less)• Edge split – allow sharp edges while still have smooth ones• Subdivision surface – quick way to make things smooth (eventually, can use

multiresolution instead for use in sculpting)• Bevel – creates a nice bevel on the object – alternative to subdivision in some

cases.

Rendering

Cycles vs Blender

• Blender’s default renderer, “Blender Renderer” is a scanline renderer that produces results slightly better than those in a game.• Blender includes “Cycles Renderer”, a ray tracer, that produces much

more realistic results.• To toggle between them, use the button at the top of the screen in

the info view.

Materials

• In the properties view on the right side of you screen, click the checkered sphere icon• This allows you to add materials to the currently selected object.• Note that materials will be different depending on if Cycles Renderer

or Blender Renderer is selected.• In edit mode, can assign selected faces to a new material

Add new materialto object

Make selected faceshave selected material

Textures

• While in edit mode with all the vertices selected, you can hit “u” to unwrap it.• To view the unwrapped texture coordinates, switch to UV Image

Editor (You may need to hit the X next to “Render Result”)• There are a lot of different ways to unwrap an image for texturing,

which are beyond the scope of this workshop.

Lights

Point Sun

Spot Area

RenderSettings• In the properties view on the right side of you screen, click the

camera icon• This allows you to change resolution and other render settings• In particular, inside “Sampling”, you can change the sample number

to control how detailed (and long) the render will be.

Add new materialto object

Make selected faceshave selected material

Utah Teapot?

Potions!