Blender use for beginners
HeadingLearn how the powerful software Blender works
Premise
We all know that Blender is a world apart, full of keyboard shortcuts and famous for swimming against the current, especially if we come from any other modeling software.
But aside from this, it is a very powerful software in which we can do millions of things.
The Mission
In this guide, we will focus on how blender works, how to use it, keyboard shortcuts and the general layout of this program.
Process
#1 User interface
Workspaces
Workspaces are essentially predefined window layouts. It is often useful to quickly switch between different workspaces within the same file.
Blender's default startup shows the "Layout" workspace in the main area.
It also has several other workspaces added by default:
- Modeling → Modification of geometry by modeling tools.
- Sculpting → Modification of meshes by sculpting tools.
- UV Editing → Mapping of image texture coordinates to 3D surfaces.
- Texture Paint → Tools for coloring image textures in the 3D Viewport.
- Shading → Tools for specifying material properties for rendering.
- Animation → Tools for making properties of objects dependent on time.
- Rendering → Viewing and analyzing rendering results.
- Compositing → Combining and post-processing of images and rendering information.
- Geometry Nodes → Modify geometry by Geometry Nodes.
- Scripting → Programming workspace for writing scripts.
In "Layout" workspace we can see diferent Editors:
Yellow → 3D Viewport
Green → Outliner
Blue → Properties
Red → Timeline
This Editors are distributed in Areas, this zones can be Resized, Splitted and Joinned.
Toolbar
- By default, Blender don’t show the Gizmo, but we can locate it at the Top-Left of the screen, on the Toolbar system.
- The Annotation Tool is available in multiple editors. It can be used to add notes.
Properties Tab
This panel will help us to work with the Active object transforms(1) and with the Active Tool(2) and General View settings(3).
Transforms Settings
On the upper part of the screen, we will see several toggles that shows different settings:
- Transformation Orientation. Align the transformation axes to world space.
- Transformation Pivot Point. Pivot center for rotation/scaling.
- Snap. Snap during transform.
- Proportional Editing Objects. Fallof type for proportional editing mode.
Viewport Settings
The viewport settings will help us to manage how the model and environment look like, as well as handle the different shadings.
- Object Types Visibility. Change the display of object types in the scene.
- Viewport Gizmos. Show gizmos of all types.
- Viewport Overlays. Display Overlays like gizmos and outlines.
- Transparent Scene Display. Allow selecting through items.
- Viewport Shading. Method to display/shade objects in the 3D View.
There is four types of Shading:
- Wireframe. Display the object as wire edges.
- Solid. Display in solid mode.
- Material Preview. Display Materials Preview mode.
- Rendered. Display the render preview with our selected render engine.
#2 Basic movement controllers
However since Blender is very hotkey based. So in case you want to learn the default settings, we're going to post small guide of the basic movement controllers:
#3 Editors
The editors are so usefull, they are divided by tags (General, Animation, Scripting and Data) the most important editors that we could use frecuently are:
- Image Editor
- UV Editor
- Compositor
- Geometry Node Editor
- Shader Editor
- Dope Sheet
- Timeline
- Graph Editor
- NonLinear Animation
- Outliner
- Properties
- 3D Viewport
#4 Properties
We have the Properties Editor, this will help us in so many cases.
Here we can modify most of all the properties from our scene, word, object, etc.
- Active tool → Workspace and current tool Settings.
- Render → Modify Render settings from the current Scene (we can choose between two Render Engines, Eevee or Cycles).
- Output → Before export a render, we can modify the output settings like the range of the image, aspect, resolution, compression, color depth,...
- View Layer → Here we can check the passes from the render to modify them in the Compositor Editor.
- Scene → We can change the Units of Scale, Rotation, Lenght and the main camer (used for render).
- World → Change the parameters of our word.
- Collection → Change the parameters of our word.
- Object → All the properties of the selected object.
- Modifier → This could be the most important tool, there you have modifiers to apply for the objects you have selected. Ex. Mirror, Array, Remesh, Subdivision, Solidify, Decimate, Smooth and more interesting tools.
- Particles → Settings of particles and hair.
- Physics → Here we can add physics to the object selected like Soft bodies, Rigid bodies, fluid, cloth, force fields (wind, heat, vortex,...).
- Object Constraints → We can add constraints to our object like Copy Transforms, Copy Location, Solvers, Tracking,...
- Object Data → We can create groups of vertex from an object, this gives more facilities to modify the mesh or do Shape Keys.
- Material → We can add as materials to an object as we want, choosing the mesh or masks to change the material.
- Texture → Usually used to create textures for example, bumps, clouds, noise, etc.
#5 Modifiers
Modify
These are tools similar to the Deform ones, however, they usually do not directly affect the geometry of the object, but some other data, such as vertex groups.
Generate
These are constructive/destructive tools that will affect the whole Topology of the mesh. They can change the general appearance of the object, or add new geometry to it…
Deform
Unlike Generated ones, these only change the shape of an object, without altering the topology.
Physics
Those represent physics simulations. They are automatically added to the modifiers stack whenever a Particle System or Physics simulation is enabled. Their only role is to define the position in the modifier stack from which is taken the base data for the simulation they represent. As such, they typically have no attributes, and are controlled by settings exposed in separate sections of the Properties.
#6 Keyboard Shortcuts
Dragging Shortcuts
Modeling Shortcuts
Object Shortcuts
Viewport Shortcuts
Animation Shortcuts
#7 Add-ons
There is several add-ons that you can activate in Edit → Preferences → Add-ons, they could make you happy.
Try to get the following addons:
- Import-Export glTF 2.0 Format
- Mesh: LoopTools
- Node: Node Wrangler
- Object: Texel Density Checker
- Rigging: Rigify
- UV: UV Toolkit
- Add Curve: Curve Tools
- Add Curve: Simplify Curves+
- Add Curve: Extra Objects
#How to Render
There is more documentation that can help you with Render settings and technical issues.
#Export for Maya (freeze transforms)
If we are working with blender and our partner is working with Maya, we have to touch a couple of settings so that when we export it in Blender and import it in Maya the transformations are freeze and the scale to 1.
We only have to set the Unit Scale to 0.01 and in the “Export Window” change the scale to 100.
#Export FBX to GLB
Select all objects to export and go to file, export, export to glb. Before exporting, activate limit to: selected objects on the right side.
‼ If you have any problems with the textures, select the shading icon at the top of the screen. Go to file, external data and find missing files. By this way, you can manually search for the path file.‼
Remember, if you work at different brunches, make sure you're at the right one.
If you still don't see the texture, select the model and enter the material properties on the right side.
To the left of the base color select the icon and expand it, select the file icon. By this way select manually images too.
If the alphas don't work, go to the “Shader Editor” at the top and join the alpha nodes if needed. Make sure in settings on the material properties, Blend mode is correct.
#Delete duplicated materials
When you import an fbx with the same materials that you already have in the blender scene, they are imported as duplicate materials (e.g. Material, Material.001, Material.002, etc).
To avoid this, we will open a new Tab with the “Text Editor”.
Click on “+ New“ Text Editor and paste the following code into the New data block.
Click on the Play button to run the script.
This script merge all materials that are EXACTLY the same.
Conclusion
As we have seen, blender is a fantastic program in which we can have a linear workflow from 3d sketch through blockout, modeling and texturing, to animation and rendering without having to leave the program.
The only requirement is to have 6 fingers on each hand, just to have more fluidity with the keyboard shortcuts.
