Introduction to Blender - Blender Master Class: A Hands-on Guide to Modeling, Sculpting, Materials, and Rendering - page 5

Tool Shelf; and the Properties region, the last two of
which can be hidden with the hotkeys T and N while
the mouse is over the 3D Viewport editor.

before we got around to inventing computers and
3D graphics.
To define a point in 3D space, we need infor-
mation about the point's position in each spatial
dimension in relation to a reference point . In Blender,
this information comes in the form of the point's
x -, y -, and z -coordinates, which indicate the point's
position along three axes that run perpendicular
to one another. These are called Blender's global
coordinates . The reference point we use is called the
scene's origin —the point whose coordinates for each
of the axes is zero.
By convention, we generally think of the x -axis
as being the “left-right” axis, the y -axis as the
“forward-back” axis, and z -axis as the “up-down”
axis. (The different viewpoints given by the key-
board shortcuts mentioned above conform to this
convention—the top-down view looks downward
along the z -axis, and so on.)
You can see the x - and y -axes in Blender's
3D Viewport as red and green lines, respectively.
Extending from these lines in light gray is the grid
floor , which we generally use as the ground height of
the scene when placing objects. The divisions of the
grid are all 1 Blender unit apart by default, giving
you a guide to use for placing objects and judging
their size. The x - and y -axes and the grid floor are
also useful when orienting yourself in Blender's 3D
Viewport.

Navigating the 3D Viewport
It's very important to learn to navigate the 3D
Viewport, and there are several ways to do so. The
simplest is with the mouse. Scrolling the mouse wheel
zooms in and out, holding the middle mouse button
rotates the view, and shift -middle mouse button
pans the view. To center the view on the currently
selected object, press numpad . (period), and to
reset the view to center on the scene's origin, press
shift -C.

* Blender treats the number pad keys and the cor-

responding keys on the keyboard differently. For
example, the number pad (numpad) numbers are
used for navigating the 3D view, while the character
key numbers are used to toggle visibility of different
scene layers.

You can also snap the viewpoint to specific
angles using the number pad. numpad 7 snaps to
top-down view, numpad 1 snaps to front view, and
numpad 3 snaps to side view. numpad 5 switches
between a perspective view, where objects in the dis-
tance appear smaller (as in real life), and an ortho-
graphic view, where objects appear the same size
at all distances. When combined with the top, side,
and front views, orthographic view is most useful for
aligning objects precisely.
The 3D Viewport has multiple display modes
that can be selected from the 3D Viewport header
(see Figure 1-5). These viewing modes include the
default solid view; wireframe; bounding box, which
represents objects as simple boxes instead of display-
ing their geometry; and textured view, which can
display shading and texturing. In later chapters,
we'll look at customizing the 3D Viewport for dif-
ferent purposes, including using different textured
shading modes and working with layers and hiding
objects.

The Properties Editor
The Properties editor is where you can define the
settings and properties for a scene or a selected
object. The Properties editor is divided into Header
and Main regions, with the Main region being split
into tabs (as shown in Figure 1-2). Each tab contains
a different set of properties that relates to either
the current scene or the active object. In order of
appearance, the tabs are as follows:

Render The Render tab contains settings for ren-
dering your scene, including render dimensions,
shading options, and output formats. (We'll dis-
cuss this in more detail in Chapter 14.)

Scene The Scene tab lets you set the properties of
your scene, such as the active camera, certain
sound settings, and the scene's units (arbitrary
Blender units, imperial, or metric).

Coordinates in 3D and the Grid Floor
If you haven't dealt with 3D graphics before, you
may not have thought about how to define a point in
space. Of course, 3D models are essentially created
by connecting points in space. Thankfully, French
philosopher and mathematician René Descartes
gave us a solution to this problem several centuries

World The World tab lets you define the scene's
background, as well as the world lighting