Blender 2.7 Tutorial #2 : Understanding the User Interface & Preferences #b3d Video Lecture | Learn and Master: Blender (English) - Professional Skills

hello and welcome art to my video series
on how to use blender 2.7 in this video
we'll be talking all about blenders user
interface we'll learn how to understand
it all we'll learn how to customize it
and in the last part of this video we'll
set up blender so it works for the rest
of this whole video series it will work
easier for you from now on if using a
newer version of blender that's totally
ok I'm using bladder 2.70 a which is
available to me right now if you're
using a newer version pretty much
nothing will be different if there is
any large differences in the future I'll
make a new video in this video series to
update both for those changes let's go
ahead and click on the splash screen to
get rid of it now blender is very very
user customizable and it's built on
these things called windows the screen
right now is made of a bunch of windows
we'll talk about them right now the most
obvious one is your 3d viewport window
it'll be large aspartyl your screen and
at the left side of that window is
what's called your tool shelf and this
tool shelf if you don't want it they can
be hidden with the T key which is the
keyboard shortcut to show it and hide it
and on this tool shelf is a lot of
common tasks that you'll need to perform
all working in the 3d viewport one of
the most recent changes to blender are
the addition of these new tabs which
divide up this tool shelf into different
sections based on what kind of tasks
you're currently performing if you're
currently working with an object and you
want to move it in or rotate or scale it
there are buttons for that which are
basically just buttons in place of
keyboard shortcuts like G and R and s
but here you could also do things like
mere objects and delete objects and
joint objects together and there are
lots of other tasks like that if you
have different types of objects selected
like a camera or a lamp there'll be
different options for you depending on
if you have a mesh selected or something
else there are other tabs in here for
creating objects this is just like your
add menu with the shift a key but you
have a place for it always in your
screen if you so desire
we have a tab for relation so setting up
relationships between different objects
in your scene for animation for physics
and for using what's called a grease
pencil which we might talk about in a
future video generally I don't use this
tool shelf too often but sometimes at
the bottom of this window especially
when you add new objects though we have
very important options down here we'll
talk about that in the next video
whenever you hide something in blender
you'll see one of these little pluses
and you'll see it when you hide the tool
shelf and so if there's ever a little
plus and you want to see what that plus
does well you'll know something is is
kind of hidden so you can click on it if
you forget a keyboard shortcut and that
thing will pop up if you drag this panel
away you'll notice that as soon as
that's all the way gone it sort of snaps
away and that plus comes back so that
tool shelf is the T key on the right
side of that 3d viewport though is
what's called your properties panel and
of course you can click the plus to make
it show up but the keyboard shortcut for
that properties paddle is the N key I'm
not sure why they picked and T is
obvious for tool shelf but n it's not so
obvious for properties in this
properties panel our properties for your
whole window and for the objects that
you have selected
so right now I have this cube selected
and in the transform section of this
properties panel which I can collapse
obviously it shows me the location
coordinates the rotation degrees and the
scale and the dimensions of this cube in
case I want to know those things and
that can be very important I could have
options that I can collapse if I don't
need them but again this shows options
for your whole 3d viewport as well as
the object that you have selected
but generally I only bring that up if I
need it the next window in this blender
interface is this top bar and this is
called the information panel or the
information window and this has pretty
much all the basic things you need to
operate blender a file menu to open and
save things to get your user preferences
we'll talk about those in a few minutes
and you can switch in this bar between
different renderers now by default
blender comes with its default blender
render a render engine it's old render
engine
for drawing out every frame in a movie
but in this video series we're going to
be using the cycles render engine which
is a new way of using or working with
lights and materials and basically it is
the way that blender calculates how
light bounces how shadows look and how
to work with things like materials and
cameras within blender as far as it
drawing up movies is concerned so that's
the information window on the right side
of screen we have two windows one up
here and one down below this top window
and as you can see I can drag the
windows to make them you know taller or
shorter or wider or narrower this is
called the outliner window
and this element I will shows me
everything that's in my scene in a
convenient list so right now my scene
has three objects it has a cube it has a
lamp and you can see the objects become
highlighted in that list and we have a
camera there's three icons next to every
object there is a III con which hides
that object from your viewport there is
a little a cursor icon which means that
if you make it unhighlight
that that object can no longer be
selected which can be handy and the
camera icon stops that object from being
rendered when you make a movie so if I
uncheck the or the camera icon right
there if I press the render button and
we'll talk about this window in a sec
that cube will not show up I'll press
escape to go back and I'll click on that
camera button again and click render
again you'll see now that cube shows up
when I render out my scene and again
escape lets you go back so that's the
outliner window it'll show you a nice
list of everything in your scene the
window below that is called the
properties window and this has most of
the tools that you'll be needing to use
in most of the settings for your entire
scene now at the top of this window
we've talked about this at the top of
every window is what's called a header
bar you'll see that the 3d viewport has
a header bar the outliner window is a
header bar and every header bar has a
column button and this is called the
current editor type for this area button
I basically called the window type
button
but this properties window has a bunch
of other buttons or tabs for switching
between different options for different
things that you're working with in your
scene the first tab is the camera tab or
the render tab which has all the options
for rendering out a movie like the
dimensions of the movie that you're
rendering out in this case by default
it's 1920 by 1080 which is the normal
size for 1080p TV and any of the
sections in any of these tabs can be
collapsed and they can even be reordered
so let's say I want the dimensions
section to be above the render section I
can drag this little crosshatch to area
up and reorganize them and collapse
anything that I want but I'll leave it
at its default these tabs are case
sensitive which means that if I have
different objects selected these tabs
will change because different objects
have different sorts of options
available to them you'll notice that
when I have a cube in other words I mesh
selected I have options or tabs for
materials and textures whereas if I have
a camera selected some of those tabs
disappear and I have a new tab for just
the camera settings like what sort of
lens I have on the camera how many
blades that lens has you know what my
field of view is and things like that if
I had a lamp selected you'll see there's
a new light or lamp tab in that laptop I
can change things like the color
temperature of my light or the
brightness or intensity of the light and
things like that all right so that's the
properties window
we don't know at the bottom of the
screen is called the timeline and if
ever done any animation on the computer
you'll know the timeline is a timeline
is basically a representation of time in
frames over your whole animation at the
bottom of this tab and of course is a
header which displays the start and end
frames which is the length how many
frames you have to work with of course
you can change any of these values so if
you need a longer timeline longer than
250 frames which is little over 10
seconds at 24 frames per second we also
have of course like VCR or DVD buttons
with play
a-and play reverse and go back to the
beginning and go to the end and as a
record button if you're doing animation
you can click on this record button and
it will start recording keyframes if you
start moving or rotating or scaling
things in your scene alright so how is
blender users interface customizable
well any of these windows are of course
scalable but you can reorganize them and
change their type and divide your whole
screen up exactly the way that you want
it butter by default comes with a bunch
of different layouts depending on what
task that you're performing at any time
this is blenders default layout but if I
go up to the top in the information
panel I can just click on this little
button here I can change to a different
window layout and I'm working on a video
game and yes blender has a game engine
built in I might want to work in
something like the game logic layout
which changes the entire layout and has
new window types in it that you can get
to it any time but this is a good layout
maybe if you're working on a game if I'm
doing let's say you be editing which
means texturing objects all I want to
have different windows on my screen
again and you can always go back to your
default just by clicking on default now
those are different window layouts and
you saw those windows were different
sizes but you can customize even your
default layout or any layout you want to
exactly you want and you can even create
new layouts
if you customize you know the layout of
the windows exactly the way you want you
can click on plus and you can create a
new window layout for any time you come
back to blender later on but let's talk
about changing window types if I want to
make you know this let's say I don't
want this outliner window in the
interface anymore but I could really use
another 3d viewport which always
displays from my camera what I could do
is I could click on the button on its
header which changes the window type and
I can change this window to another 3d
viewport and I can have a whole other 3d
viewport here and I want this window to
always look through the camera I can
click on 0 or go to view and select
camera and they'll let me see what my
team looks like through my camera
at all times if I want you know this
window down here to be another 3d
viewport or maybe I want you know this
bottom window to be something entirely
different I can change it to any other
type of window that I want we'll talk
about more window types in future videos
but the next thing to talk about is
adding or removing windows if I'm gonna
have more than one 3d viewport in this
area what I can do is I can grab this
little triangular cross hatched area at
the top of my screen
and I can drag it either across left and
right in the window or I can drag it
down in the window and what that will do
is divide my window up into more windows
so what I'll do is I'll click and drag
to the left and that made two
independent 3d windows and again with
any window I can change the window type
if I really want I'll make this window
narrower if I want this window over here
to be just like this window a properties
window I can do that by caching it to a
properties window just like that then
maybe I can get rid of this one I can
make it into a 3d viewport window over
here so you can go really go crazy with
this and maybe you should just to get
comfortable with it and I'll show you
later on this video how to just reset
blender to all the defaults or you can
just quit blender and everything will
come back the way it was let's go ahead
and change us back to a properties
window let's go ahead and change this
window back to a 3d viewport so as you
can see you can make as many 3d views as
you want to if you want to you can eat
me you'll make a four-way grid if you
want you can drag down on that down into
the window and then you can have one
let's say from your front view and let's
drag one down here and I'll make this
one that's my front this is going to my
side this is going to be my top and this
is going to be just from from some
perspective view there we go and now it
looks something like other than 3d
programs like Maya or 3ds Max if you
want to join windows together what you
can do is you can do the opposite you
can drag this little cross hatched area
into a neighboring window now a little
proviso here you can only merge two
windows that share and it
after rectangle or a square as you can
see I've got a different size windows in
this side of the screen than this on
this screen so you know this window and
this window at door don't form a
rectangle they're sort of a funny shape
so I cannot merge these two together
what I need to do if I want to make this
into one big window again is merge these
two together and then these two together
and then I can merge the two half
together again to merge two windows you
can just do the opposite you can click
on the little crosshatch area and drag
it into the window next door and it'll
merge those two windows together or if
you click and drag and keep holding on
you'll see that there's an arrow that
shows up but you keep holding your mouse
down and you keep any drag down you can
decide which way you want the window to
be dragged so if I really want to keep
this right window here I don't care
about this user per spinned oh I can
just drag down and let go and it'll keep
the right ortho view there are other
ways too or there's another way to
divide or join windows up if I
right-click on the border between two
windows it'll give me the option to
either split area or join area so
instead of using this little cross
hatched area you can right click and say
split area and you get a line and you
can go across in fact you can go across
any window and divide your window up
that way likewise if you want to join
these two areas together you can right
click on the edge between them and click
join area and choose which direction
that you want to go I'm going to go
ahead and drag that window over and now
we have our kind of our basic layout
again I'll change this window back into
a outliner window but I just want to do
this very quickly what I can do is I can
go to file and new and we those startup
file and it goes back to the way it was
so those are Windows and customizing
wheels within blender the next thing
we'll do is we're going to customize
blender so that it works better for you
from now on the first thing we'll do
though is I'm gonna make this one a
little bit wider so that I can see all
the tabs well I have a mesh selected and
I'm going to change my blender render
engine over to the new cycles around
your engine so that now we may
you know a movie and we make textures
and lights everything will look a lot
better or make our final animation
production or any rendering of any scene
let's go ahead and you know what I don't
want a timeline in my default layout so
I'm going to get rid of it I'm going to
just click that little cross next area
up and then keep holding and drag down
and then I'll get rid of it and you know
what I don't want a tool shelf at all
because I can always just press T on yet
but I don't use it that often let's go
ahead and make this outline a little bit
taller and I think that's all I'll do in
the interface let's go up to our
preferences so under the file menu our
preferences and preferences are one of a
few times where blender will actually
launch a new window like that you can
dry ground that has closed icons both of
them on a Mac but all this should be the
same on a Windows PC if actually I know
that it is the Preferences window is
broken up into tabs and under the first
tab will sort of go through each tab one
by one and we'll set things up so things
work really great for you in the future
one thing that you should definitely
check it's not checked by default is
this rotate around selection option if
you have this checked what it will do is
if you have an object selected and you
orbit your scene
it'll orbit your scene around that
object so the object will always stay in
the middle of your viewport which is
really ideal if you're zoomed in and you
don't have this option selected and you
orbit that object go flying off of your
scene because the scene will always
orbit around the zero zero zero
coordinate right in the middle of the
world and not the object that you have
selected so that's the one thing that I
would change in here let's go over to
the next tab in the editing tab the
first thing I'll do is I'm going to a
update number of undos that I have
possible just like in Photoshop or any
other program you have a limited number
of control Z's that you can do to undo
my default is 32 I'm going to turn it up
to 64 which I believe is the maximum it
might be different if you have a 64-bit
version of blender or a 32-bit version
of blender depending on what your
operating system is but 64 is a better
number
anything else that I want to do in here
I don't think so let's go on over to the
input tab and definitely one thing you
want to do here is you want to check
emulate numpad I talked about this in
the last video but what emulate numpad
does is lets you use those one three and
seven buttons but on your number row to
change your views so in the last video I
use one three and seven to learn my
front side and top views but I have to
use my number pad but if you a small
keyboard like at the default Mac
keyboard or a smaller laptop keyboard
the number pad or the number row didn't
work before well if you check this it
will you'll be able to use your one
three and seven and your five key to
switch between orthographic and
perspective the next option that you
should definitely have turned on is
turntable it is by default but the old
default and the old versions of other
was trackball the way you orbit the way
the orbiting behaves in this window is
much better in turntable you can
experiment between those and see what I
mean but definitely leave it on
turntable if you're using a mouse that
does not have a mouse wheel or a
clickable mouse wheel you'll definitely
want to click on emulate 3-button mouse
I thought my mouse cursor over that
you'll see what it says is emulate
middle mouse with alt left Mouse so what
this means is if you don't have a mouse
wheel or using a trackpad
you can hold down alt and then just
left-click to orbit like you would with
a mouse wheel button it'll be very handy
for you this is also under the input tab
where you can customize all of your
keyboard shortcuts and if you're a three
studio max person or a Maya person
you're a little bit saved here by
default all these keyboard shortcuts are
set to the way they are in blender but
you can change them using these 3ds Max
and Maya presets in case you really just
want to use all the presets that you
already know but I recommend just
leaving them at the blender settings by
default so that you get used to the
butter settings on other computers if
you use blender on other computers is
there anything else I want to have
checked here now I'm on a Mac and I have
my Mac set to the have the scroll
Direction called natural and that's the
way that it is by default on
in other words scrolling up and down is
the opposite on newer Macs
so what I did is I want to be able to
zoom in using my mouse wheel by
scrolling up to zoom in and scrolling
down to zoom out so I've checked this
invert wheel now assume direction and
that's fixed that so if you have a you
know you if you a Mac you can play with
that that's that is for I think that's
everything that I want to talk about in
this tab let's go ahead to the add-ons
tab we're not going to talk about
anything here but what I will say is
that you know in most videos what I'll
be doing is I'll be displaying to you
what keys I'm pressing on my keyboard
and what mouse buttons I'm pressing down
on the bottom left of my 3d viewport and
that is done with this add-on which is a
third-party add-on it's in a 3d view
section of this window or that's a three
view option and it's called screencast
key so I need to enable that and then
I'll enable that later on my properties
panel in my 3d viewport so it shows up
in every video in fact I will check that
and we'll move on themes is where you
can change the color of anything in your
entire blender interface if you want the
background color instead of the dark
gray in your 3d viewport to be bright
pink you can do it you'll see different
options for every single window you can
literally change any single color in any
part of the interface that you want but
I'm not going to
there are presets but again I'm not
going to change that under the file tab
but you can change the default paths in
other words what folders you want to be
default for things like where the fonts
are on your computer if you're adding
text to a scene you can change basically
any of the paths I'm not gonna change
anything here so we'll move on under the
system tab is where you can change
things like the text size on your screen
you'll notice that my text in other
words all the text and all the icons are
bigger on my screen they are on yours
because I've set my DPI adults per inch
for icons and text to 94 by default it's
72 but I can leave mine at 94 you can
play with those as you desire but
let's move on I don't think there's
anything else in here that I'm going to
want to change so I'll leave it to save
these user settings in this window what
I can do is just click save user
settings if I'm working with a seen this
new this button is actually kind of new
and nice if I'm working on something
already and I want to change my
preferences if I click this it's not
going to set up you know it's not going
to force blender to load with other
things that I've done already in my
scene so you can just click on save user
settings and then close the window and
the next time you launch blender those
settings will be saved to make sure
blender stays the way it is though in
terms of what objects I have in my scene
and exactly you know how zoomed in and
out I am and exactly as you see it now
I'm going to talk to file and save
startup file and what that will do is
it'll save all my preferences that I
just set up and saved and my entire
window layout and this is what you can
also do this with control you and I'll
click on OK yes I want to do that and
now look the next time I launch blender
you'll see file new reload setup file
but I have no tool shelf I have no
timeline and everything is exactly the
way I left it and if I look at my
preferences let's look at the rotate
around selection
yep that's still checked because I check
that before we saved our settings if you
ever mess up blender entirely in other
words you do something you don't know
what you did and blur doesn't behave the
same as it did before you can always go
to file and load factory settings oops
file load factory settings and blender
will go back the way it was and then
you'll need to go to file and save
startup file or control you to save
those factory settings to your default
settings again so weather is very easy
to get back to the way it should be but
we'll leave it like this
that's it for this video please click on
the like button below and you wanna see
more videos from me go ahead and
subscribe thank you for watching and
I'll see you next time
you