Object and Animation Basics - Blender Foundations: The Essential Guide to Learning Blender 2.6 - page 29

Chapter 3
Object and Animation Basics
Finding Your Way in 3D
This chapter is here to get you familiar with the very basics of working in Blender. Now that you're
familiar with the different types of on-screen controls and the way that Blender organizes and works with
windows, panels, and screens, we can actually start to do things in 3D. We'll begin by just navigating
around in 3D space and changing the way that the view is displayed. After that, we'll add some objects,
move them around, and animate them. Finally, we'll discuss some of the ways that objects can relate to
one another, and how that affects them.
Begin a new Blender session with Ctrl-N . You will see the default cube, a lamp, and a camera object. A
grid floats in space, passing through the center of the cube.
3D space in Blender is measured along three axes: The x axis represents left and right, the y axis represents
forward and backward, and the z axis is up and down. These axes are also consistently color coded, as
you can see in Figure 3.1 : x (left/right) is red, y (forward/back) is green, and z (up/down) is blue. While
you may run into the axis in the figure in other places in Blender, you can always find it in the lower
left corner of the 3D view, oriented appropriately, so you never lose your bearings.
There are three ways to change the orientation of the 3D view, all based around the middle mouse button
(MMB). Right now, click and drag in the 3D view with the MMB. It spins! MMB rotates the 3D view.
Holding down the Shift key, click and drag with the MMB again. This time, the view pans—it slides
along with the motion of the mouse. Finally, roll the mouse wheel forward and back. The view zooms
in and out. Simple, and intuitive.
You can control the entire view with the MMB and Shift key. I actually don't even need to tell you to
commit these three controls to memory. You will use them all the time. If you end up somehow not
committing them to memory, then it is quite possible that 3D isn't for you. Crayola makes some nice
Model Magic stuff that is really cool to work with.