Blender Basic Interface

Blender Basic Interface

Basic Blender Interface

This picture is a rendering of a spaceship created with Blender. It started out as (mostly) spheres or cylinders. Using various features of Blender, these got resized, distorted, painted, and otherwise transformed into the 3-D object below. The interface includes a bewildering array of tools for transforming these kinds of basic options. So many, in fact, that it's almost impossible for a beginner to negotiate the interface and get started. This is a VERY basic introduction to the rudimentary aspects of the interface.

Selecting an object.

On startup, that's pretty easy. Just position cursor over an object and right-click. In the picture below, you will see a cylinder highlighted--it's the middle portion of the bigger, central element of the 3-D bject

Changing the Viewpoint

The x-y-z symbol in the pink circle lets you change the viewpoint.

For example, I used the tool to rotate the 3-D object to look at it from above. Notice how the x-y-z symbol has also rotated. To get a full-on view from the front, press x on the keyboard, from the side, press y, and from the top, press z. Notice this changes how you look at the entire collection of objects. Moving individual objects around within the 3-D grouping is next.

Changing the Geometry of the selected object

The pink circle encloses a whole set of tools for manipulating the geometry of the selected object--the one you clicked on. You can which object is selected because it has an orange outline.

The first element in the circle (in the blue box) controls how you select things--tweak (to select a single part), box, circle, or lasso. The latter three are controlled by the mouse. (In the current view--more on views in a moment--you probably only need the tweak mode.) You change methods by holding down the left mouse button, which brings up a menu that lets you select how the selection will work.

These controls change the geometry of the entire selected object: including its position, rotation, and scale.

You can also change parts of an object, but not from this screen.

Changing what you see in the viewport

You can change how an object is displayed with the tools in the pink circle.

If you really squint hard at this, you'll see that the third sphere from the left is highlighted in this screen, while in the prior screen the last sphere was highlighted. Clicking on one of the three end spheres--solid white, black, and mostly black--will show all the objects as solid with no materials applied, as solid with materials previewed, and as solid with materials and other features (like lighting) fully rendered. There also are other display options in this row, for example to show wire frame only, or to see through the object (toggle x-ray on and off). Again, none of these change the objects, just what you see in the viewport.

Component Properties

Every 3-D project in Blender has many components, each with an array of properties. The column of the display under the pink circle below lists the many components (they are the entire column, not just those in the circle). The orange square at the top of the pink circle is for "object" components. When you have selected an object and click on the orange square in this column, you access its properties.

Objects (like all components) have many properties. The little globe at the bottom lets you apply a material to a component. You can see in the green circle that I've applied a material called "MetalPlates002_1K-PNG" to the selected object. What's in the yellow circle tells Blender--in part--how to apply that material to the object.

However, most materials are themselves three-dimensional objects and include information on things like depth, roughness, and "metalness." Managing these nuances requires using something called the "shader," which is beyond the scope of this intro.

The good news is that you can import materials for free from https://ambientcg.com/ Downloaded materials from this site include a .BLEND file which you can APPEND to your Blender document. When you append it, it will automatically configure the shader properties for the material so you don't have to.

Each material from this website material comes in a ZIP file containing several image files anda .BLEND file. Unzip the contents of the ZIP file to its own folder in a place you can find it on your system.

To append material, you must first be in "Object mode" in Blender (so far, that's where we've been). Use your windows file manager to open the folder you just unzipped and then use your mouse to drag the .BLEND file to your Blender workspace. A pop-up in Blender will appear. Choose "Append." In the next pop-up, choose "material," and finally choose the material name--something like "MetalPlates002.png," for example. Once that's done, you can assign the material to any object in your project.