Blender 2.7 Tutorial #1 : Navigating in 3D & The Basics #b3d Video Lecture | Learn and Master: Blender (English) - Professional Skills

hello and welcome part 1 of a video
series and how to use blender 2.7 in
this video I'm going to be talking about
three things that you need to know to
start using blender
the first thing we'll be talking about
is how to view and navigate through your
viewport within the main 3d viewport
window in blender choose your interface
the second thing we'll be talking about
is how to move and transform objects
which includes moving objects rotating
objects and scaling objects the last
thing we'll be talking about in this
video is how to add new objects so let's
go ahead and go ahead and get started
you'll notice that in this video I'm
using blender 2.70 a and if you're using
a new version that's totally okay I
guarantee unless I come up with an
update to this video in which case
you'll see a big kind of banner or
notification on this window right now
that everything is exactly the same in
any newer version of blender for the
long foreseeable future let's go ahead
and get started by clicking on the
splash screen now on blogger first loads
up of course you see the buggers default
user interface and the main part of the
screen the biggest part is this 3d View
window when the scene first loads you
get three objects you get a cube you get
a lamp a light source and a camera now
all other 3d programs like Maya or 3ds
max they don't give you these objects
they just give you an empty scene but
when they first made blender they
decided to give you three objects right
away
the first thing we're going to be
talking about is how to zoom in and out
and this is why or one of the reasons
why you need to have a good wheel Mouse
when you're using blender the most
common question I get is do you need to
use your mouse can we use a trackpad
instead and the answer is sadly well you
can use a trackpad but really it makes
it very hard and cumbersome really for
blender or any graphics program in
general you need a mouse with and
blender you need a scroll wheel
because when you scroll in and out
you're zooming in and out that's the
first thing I want to show you when you
scroll up you zoom in when you scroll
down you zoom out now I'm using a Mac in
this video
and so with Mac by default comes that
natural scroll direction which means
that the scrolling up and down is
reversed so actually when I scroll up
I'm zooming out and when I scroll down
I'm zooming in you might have that if
you have a Mac otherwise it's scrolling
up to zoom in and down to zoom out the
reason why you need a wheel mouse
specifically is that if you want to
orbit around your scene in other words
rotate your view to look at the other
side of an object or the other side of
your scene or the bottom or other angles
of your scene you need to press your
middle mouse button in like a button so
pressing your wheel down like a button
and then dragging your mouse in the 3d
viewport will let you change your view
and this is called orbiting okay you can
orbit to see the bottom or any other
side but I'll object and this is how you
can see your scene in full 3d to make
sure that everything is the way it
should be and just look at your scene
from different angles the last thing I'm
going to talk about although the third
way of manipulating you the viewport of
your scene with your mouse is just like
if you were to just to strafe left and
right in a 3d first-person shooter game
in other words when you step left and
step right as a character it's called
strafing in blender it's called panning
and to pan you hold shift down and you
orbit so you hold shift down on your
keyboard and you press your mouse wheel
down like a button and you drag left and
right and you can even drag up and down
and this is in case let's say you zoom
in and you want to see your cube at this
zoomed in level well you can then pan
over and see the cube or you can even
keep going or above or below the cube so
panning with the shift key and orbiting
is there is another way of navigating
through your 3d viewport
now blender is very keyboard shortcut
oriented and a lot of the things I'll be
talking about lunder have keyboard
shortcuts including shortcuts to
different views if you have a number pad
on your keyboard of your computer in
other words one of those number sections
on the right side of your keyboard
able to use those to change to your
front view your right and left views
your top view but if you don't have a
number pad you can go ahead and go down
to the View menu and you'll see
different selections here for or items
here for looking at your scene from the
front and then you can go to the view
and go to the top view but I'll use my
keyboard shortcuts so the one number on
my number pad and unfortunately this
will not work on your number row I'll
show you how to make that work in the
next video when we talk about blenders
using your interface and setup blenders
preferences to work a little bit easier
but for now if I press one on my numpad
only it'll switch to my front view and
you can see up here it says front ortho
if I press three it goes to my right
ortho view and seven goes to my top
ortho view and you want me wondering
well how do I get to let's say if I
wanna see the front how do I see the
back well if you hold ctrl it does the
opposite of any one of those three
things so I press hold ctrl and press
one it goes to the back view press
control and press three it goes to the
left instead of the right view and hold
control press seven it goes to the top
or bottom view in this case top of seven
control seven is bottom and so those are
three really good useful keyboard
shortcuts whenever people are starting
off in 3d I recommend that they use
these three views exclusively when
they're doing any animation or doing any
positioning or modeling of an object
because things seem less distorted from
these directions now I want to quickly
talk about what the v key does the v key
in that number pad toggles between
perspective view and orthographic view
perspective view is how you're seeing
the scene right now and how you see the
real world when things get farther away
I'm just going to drag this cube back
with my y-axis or green arrow when
things get farther away they get smaller
as you can see the cube is small because
it's far in the distance I move it
closer it gets bigger smaller bigger
smaller bigger but if I press v it
toggles over to orthographic view and as
you can see I'm just going to toggle
kind of back and forth when you're in an
orthographic view it says ortho
and things do not get smaller smaller
when they get farther away and this is
more like a video game like The Sims or
Sim City which use a similar sort of a
view there are other games like that as
well especially lots of those strategy
games on the iPad views that you know
you're seeing a lot of things at the
same time so I dragged this cube back
into the distance you'll notice that you
know it is going far back but it's not
getting any smaller and it's actually
this you that I recommend for at least
beginner users because things seem less
to store it this way things look more
like they should or at least they give
you a better sense of scale or a better
sense of shape with this believe it or
not you would think that maybe
perspective does but actually
orthographic keeps things simple when
you're viewing from a front and side and
top you always want to be using
orthographic and I believe now it does
switch to orthographic automatically as
soon as you press 1/3 or 7 so that's
navigating your viewport you can use
your mouse to orbit around like I am
right now with your middle mouse button
pushed in you can zoom in and out
you can pan with the shift and orbit
buttons that you can use 1 3 and 7 and
that's all good and great but what about
moving objects and transforming objects
this is number 2 in this video moving
and transforming objects so when you are
moving in scaling and rotating those are
the three ways that you can transform an
object you can translate it
which means move it you can rotate it
and you can scale it there's a few
different ways of doing that and again
blender is very keyboard shortcut
oriented if I go to one of my three
views one three or seven I'll go to my
front view if I want to grab this object
and move it around all I have to do is
have it selected in which case you would
right click on things and that's another
weird thing about blender selecting
objects is with the right mouse button
which is the opposite of most programs
which confuses people right away but I
show you you get used to it if you have
an object selected and you want to grab
it and move it around you can just press
g4 grab and as soon as you tap G the
object that's left it gets kind of stuck
to your mouse and you can move it
you can click let us how when I'm
looking from the front I can only move
things side to side and up and down
I can't move things perpendicular to my
view in other words I can't move things
forward and backwards towards me or away
from my view so I can only move things
with G that's right up and down or in
this case on the X and I'll need z axes
if I view from the side or the right I
can then move things with a grab towards
where I was just looking from and then
go back to that front view if that makes
sense hopefully it does ok so the G key
is for grab and that's a very handy tool
what if I want to rotate well if G is
for grab then it makes sense that R is
rotate so the R key when you tap it
again from the front or side or top
views you can then rotate your mouse in
a circle and it'll rotate that object
and again you're rotating perpendicular
from your view in other words you cannot
rotate in this manner towards you or
away from you only side to side in both
directions so moving your mouse in a
circle all right so we've talked about
moving by grabbing we've talked about
rotating with the are key to scale
things is again pretty obvious I'm going
to quickly undo that rotation so
everything's kind of flush again scale
is the S key and the S key if you tap it
once will let you scale an object bigger
or smaller by dragging your mouse away
in the middle of the object or closer to
the middle of the object now this is
where things kind of get interesting
because this is reliant on where your
mouse is you want to not have your mouse
kind of right in the middle of the
object when you press s because that
makes it very difficult to make it
smaller or control it because your mouse
distance away from the center is how
you're scaling it in proportion to the
distance the most travels so what I
suggest is that you have your mouse
before you press s you put your mouse
somewhere between the edge of this of
that window and the middle of the
objects all right about there and then
tap s and I've got lots of control I can
really fine-tune how I'm moving things
and I can even you know keep moving to
the right as you can see my mouse cursor
is looping so I can make that object big
by having my mouse go off one side of
the screen and on
other automatically alright so that is s
let us how its scaling things
proportionally it's not stretching the
cube at all in fact I can switch out to
kind of a user view here I can scale
things and it's staying a square Q but
it's getting bigger and smaller the next
way to transform objects is by using
what's called the gizmo and it gives
more of these three arrows that are
coming out of the object that you have
selected
notice how if I have my lamp selected it
has those arrows coming out of it - same
thing with the camera but we'll just
keep on using the cube if I drag on any
of these one arrows it'll move that
object in only that one direction so
this is a good tool to use if you're
looking from some sort of a user
perspective view or user orthographic
view to move your objects around on any
of the three axes now this brings me to
the other thing that's in this window is
your axis display down at the bottom
left of your screen you'll see your axis
displayed and as you orbit in your scene
you'll see those axes kind of follow the
global axes of your scene or your
viewport and you'll notice your gizmo
also always follows your axis or your
three axes so if you rotate around
you'll see the axes kind of follow the
main our red and green ends and blue
lines okay so I can give any of these
things I move it don't get in have a
place of dragging from the middle of
that white circle if you do that you're
you're moving things in a not very
predictable way it's hard to tell right
now but I'm not actually moving this
this cube directly up and down I'm
actually moving it sort of closer to me
or closer
yeah closer towards me as we move down
and farther away from me as I move it up
because I'm viewing my scene from a kind
of an up diagonal view downwards so
always use your arrows to move with the
gizmo but that's only one kind of gizmo
you can also rotate and scale with the
gizmo I'm just going to quickly blank
you back to where it was and maybe scale
it back down again put it back down in
the middle there so this is the move
gizmo and to switch over to the rotate
or scale gizmo you can look down here on
the
header bar of your 3d viewport into the
3d viewport largest program of the
screen the header is actually at the
bottom of it by default and this section
here next the word global is your gizmo
section I can turn that gizmo off and on
with this gizmo button that hides it so
if you ever lose it you know to go back
there
and click it to make it show up again
your first gizmo is the Move gizmo or
translate gizmo the second gizmo is your
rotate gizmo and this gives you what I
like to call my hula hoops so if I grab
any one of these hula hoops and again I
don't want to grab just the middle of it
I want to grab one of the three colours
that got the blue hula hoop it'll rotate
it or they rotate the cube as if there's
a pole going up and down on that z-axis
through my cube and then I just rotate
my or drag my cursor in a circle
directly a circle on my screen I don't
have to move it in like a perspective
circle I can just move it in a round
circle on my screen and let go when I'm
happy with it again I can grab the red
hula hoop and it'll rotate this cube as
if it were there a pole rang for the
cube on that red x-axis and then I just
move my mouse cursor in a circle on the
screen and let go when I'm happy and of
course I can control Z to undo all right
the scale gizmo is very similar I can
switch to it just down here and I can
scale or stretch my cube in any
direction I can squash my my cube flat
on the z axis and that's all good and
great do notice here though that when I
press s to scale unlike with this gizmo
S transforms proportionally that's what
I was looking for and so with the s key
everything scales fortunately and so
we're not stretching that cube at all if
I use my gizmo it's for what I want to
scale you know only in one direction on
one axis so that's the difference there
the last time third thing I'll talk
about in this video is how to add and
delete objects if I have an object
selected I don't want anymore in this
case I'm going to get rid of my cube
when it's selected you need to press
either the Delete key not to be confused
with the backspace key
the key is different or the X letter X
on my keyboard and then I'll bring up
the little confirmation ok yes delete
window and then you just click and it'll
get rid of that object and so now let's
talk about adding objects before I do
that though what the heck is this little
crosshair thing on my screen and notice
that when you left-click when you're
normal
click on your window this little
crosshair thing gets put wherever you
click and you'll notice that if you
orbit around your scene that little
cursor actually moves with your scene is
actually in 3d space this thing is
called your 3d cursor as opposed to your
mouse cursor this 3d cursor is actually
part of your scene it doesn't actually
show up when you make a movie but what
it's used for is wherever this 3d cursor
is is where new objects can put in your
scene and I'm just going to quickly zoom
all the way out you'll notice that it
does not change in scale but it does
represent one coordinate in the very
middle in 3d space on the x y&z axis so
it's one coordinate in that space if i
zoom way out and then click somewhere
way off into space and then zoom back in
I've lost my 3d cursor so try not to do
that
try not to lose it if you ever do lose
it you can press and again this is where
a blender is very keyboard shortcut
oriented you can press shift C and shift
C what's that 3d cursor right back in
the middle at 0 0 0 and the coordinates
in your scene and it also zooms to see
everything in your scene zoom to see the
the middle of the scene and the lamp and
the camera so again I have the three
cursor somewhere weird press shift C and
it'll go back to the middle so now that
that three curves in the middle of the
scene I'm going to add a new object I
can do that one of two ways I can go
down to the add menu actually there's
lots of ways to add objects the add menu
and then in most cases you're adding
what's called a mesh meshes include a
plane which is just a flat square a cube
a circle which I never use because we're
almost never used because it's just like
like a hula hoop with no volume at all a
UV sphere which is most like a ball an
eco sphere which is sort of like a
soccer ball a cylinder a cone a grid
which I almost never use monkey yeah
look at
that later and a Taurus which is like a
donut you can also add things by
pressing again this is blender being
very keyboard shortcut oriented shift a
with your mouse anywhere the 3d viewport
shift a brings up the add menu so I'll
be using that from now on you can also
go over here to your create tab this is
called your tool shelf and it's part of
your through a viewport and if I go to
create you can see I can click on any of
the meshes or any other kinds of objects
yes you can create new lamps and even
you can create new cameras as well down
here you can click on these I never use
these though so we'll just be using
shift a and I'm gonna add a cube and so
it gets added to where that 3d cursor is
member that when you're a beginner you
should be using your one three and seven
views so I'm going to go to my front
view I'm going to add a cone over here
so I'll click to make my three cursor go
there all you shift a I'll add a new
mesh I'll add a cone and again I can use
my move gizmo to move things but Jiki to
grab the are key to rotate the S key to
scale let's go ahead and add a monkey
head over here
yes blender has a monkey head shift a
mesh monkey monkey's name is Suzanne and
that's sort of just the the pet name
they have for it most 3d programs have
some sort of a more complicated object
usually it's a tea a teapot at least
that is true in Maya and 3ds Max and
they have these objects so that you can
do better texture and lighting tests in
a scene with more complicated objects to
see how things look especially with
lighting and shadows in blenders case
it's a monkey just I guess for fun it's
been there forever so they stuck with it
so that's adding objects to your scene
again you can press X to the objects and
you can use all the things I've taught
you in this video to navigate and add
and transform objects in this video
we've talked about how to change your
view how to transform objects and lords
how to translate move rotate and scale
objects and then how to add and
leave objects in your scene that's going
to be it for this video thanks for
watching and I'll see you next time