Introduction to Blender - Blender Master Class: A Hands-on Guide to Modeling, Sculpting, Materials, and Rendering - page 8

.blend file, click the + icon to the right of the current
scene's name. Blender will ask you whether you want
to create an empty scene or copy data from the cur-
rent one. Although it can be useful to create extra
scenes when working with more complex projects,
we'll use one scene per .blend file for each project in
this topic.

as rotation and scaling, to use the 3D cursor as the
pivot or origin point for the operator.
By clicking within the 3D Viewport, you can
move the 3D cursor to wherever you click (the cur-
sor's distance from your viewpoint will remain the
same). You can also move the 3D cursor by chang-
ing its location values in the 3D Cursor panel of the
Properties region of the 3D Viewport. (If you lose
the 3D cursor or simply want to reset it to the scene's
origin, press shift -C to reset the 3D Viewport's view
and place the 3D cursor at the scene's origin.) Figure 1-8: The current scene is displayed in

the info header.

Selecting Objects
To select an object, right-click it. To select multiple
objects, shift -right-click them. Selected objects are
outlined in orange by default. The most recently
selected object is called the active object and is out-
lined in brighter orange than the rest of your selec-
tion. The properties of the active object are the ones
that will appear in the Properties editor. Most opera-
tors use or act on the active object, though some act
on your whole selection.

The Default .blend File
When you first open Blender, you are presented with
a single, simple scene (as shown in Figure 1-1). By
default, this scene contains three objects: a cube,
a lamp, and a camera. These objects are all that is
required to get a simple render of something more
than a blank background. The camera tells Blender
what viewpoint it should render, the cube provides
something for the camera to view, and the lamp illu-
minates the cube and makes it appear as more than
a simple black silhouette.
However, a gray cube on a gray background
doesn't make for the most interesting of renders.
To create something more interesting, we need
to create our own objects to replace these rather
dull ones.

Manipulating Objects
There are several ways to manipulate objects in the
3D Viewport. Perhaps the simplest way is to use the
keyboard shortcuts: G to move, R to rotate, and S to
scale. You can also use the manipulator widget (see
Figure 1-10) to manipulate objects by clicking and
dragging one of its three handles to manipulate one
axis or by clicking and dragging the white circle in
the middle to manipulate the object on any axis.
By default, the manipulator appears as three
colored arrows. Click and drag on the arrows to
move your selected objects in the directions they
point (along the global x -, y -, and z -axes by default).
Use the icons in the 3D Viewport header to have the
manipulator widget let you rotate or scale objects
instead of move them (see Figure 1-10).
By default, when in Object mode, Blender uses
the object's local coordinate origin (see Figure 1-11)
as the position of the manipulator widget. To change
the pivot center of an operator, use the Pivot Center
option in the 3D Viewport header. You can switch
between using the median point of the selected
objects origins (the default), the origin of the active
object, the individual origins of each object in your
selection, the 3D cursor, and the center of a hypo-
thetical bounding box drawn around all selected
objects. This not only moves the manipulator wid-
get but also uses the selected pivot center for any

Adding Objects
To add an object to your scene, place your cursor
over the 3D Viewport and press shift -A to bring up
the Add menu. Here, you can add any object type
that Blender supports, including meshes, curves,
empties, lamps, cameras, and so on. (We'll discuss
these object types as we progress through the topic.)

The 3D Cursor
New objects will be added at
the location of the 3D cursor,
which is Blender's easily con-
figurable way of quickly defin-
ing a point in space. The 3D
cursor (shown in Figure 1-9)
is where new objects will be
added by default. You can also
set transform operators, such

Figure 1-9: The 3D
cursor