Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
General Blender tips
Blender employs some conventions that are unique to its environment and as such
getting acquainted with its most common quirks early can avoid frustration.
First and perhaps most importantly, Ctrl + Z for undo works in Blender will undo
a multitude of mistakes. Undo in Blender remembers many past steps allowing
backing up to a point before a grievous error was made. Remembering this when
following along with the blueprints that follow will save the reader much frustration.
Next, the location of the mouse pointer is important when using hotkeys. For
example the T and N keys for the Tools and Properties tabs do not bring up those
tabs if the mouse pointer is not hovering over the 3D View. If the mouse is hovering
over a different panel the reaction could be unpredictable. Pressing the A key with
the mouse over the 3D View will toggle selection of all objects in the scene. Pressing
the A key with the mouse over the Object Tools tab will collapse the expandable
menu hiding all the options of that menu.
Blender uses the right-click on the mouse to select objects by default. This is perhaps
the most counter intuitive thing for first time users, particularly because it will
be encountered so frequently. But not everything has been swapped, just object
selection. This behavior can of course be customized. If the reader would like to
customize selection to the left mouse button then it is left to them to adjust the
instructions accordingly.
Finally, the relation of Blender units to real life units is not by default defined in
Blender. Generally it is just easier to remember that 1 grid point will translate to 1
millimeter in the printed object. As the scale is increased Blender inserts darker grid
lines every 10 grid lines by default which correlate to centimeters. So the default cube
in the default scene would measure 2 mm on each side, which is less than 1/10 of an
inch, which is very small.
Suggested shortcuts
In the projects in this topic, when a new idea is introduced it will irst be introduced
with detailed steps. Once a process is taught the next time the name of the operation
and the shortcut for that process will be all that is given. For instance the first time
the scale operation is introduced in Chapter 2 , Mini-mug , the process is laid out
including how to start, modify, and end the operation, but later an instruction like
" scale ( S ) the object" is all that will be given. This does not mean that the keyboard
shortcuts are the only way to do an operation but they are often the preferred
method for experienced Blender users. The reader is free to accomplish the
operation in any way that is comfortable for them.
 
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