Blender

Gms9810 · **Posted:** Sun Jul 24, 2011 1:19 pm **(#1)**

I've seen lots of articles and vids about Blender and everyone sings it's praises about it, especially people who use Gimp and Inkscape. I've downloaded it and fooled with it but I just can't find a use for it. It seems to only save in a format that I have no use for. I was wondering if anybody has a valid use for it for just plain graphics?

kimppi · **Joined:** Feb 17, 2011 **Posts:** 225

If you have rendered your image, you can save it as .png file.

If you're asking what artist can do with Blender, check the galleries (www.blender.org) or do a search in DeviantArt.

If you're only doing 2D graphics, you can still make decent effects with Blender, for example by using particles and such. You can also make sculpture, which can then be embellished in Gimp.

nixnine · **Posted:** Sun Jul 24, 2011 2:11 pm **(#3)**

It makes some stunning 3d graphics, clear and very sharp if you've got it set up right. It also creates beautiful videos. I'm still getting my feet wet in the program. If you are into video-editing, you can create very nice video logo introductions with incredible particle effects. Look into the program. It does have a rather steep learning curve, which I learning, but there are hundreds of good tutorials out there that take you step by step. I would download a basics to blender manual to familiarize yourself with the UI. Here is one which I found: Blender Basics

Oregonian · **Posted:** Sun Jul 24, 2011 3:42 pm **(#4)**

There are many tutorials for blender. I made a lamp along time ago and I can't find the tutorial for it nor did I find the image I made.

Here are some Blender tutorials. http://www.blender.org/education-help/tutorials/

Gms9810 · **Posted:** Sun Jul 24, 2011 3:48 pm **(#5)**

yes, I've looked at a lot, and I do mean a lot of tuts on youtube about it, and I fooled with it som. I'm really not intyerested in 3d graphics but based on the opinions here I think I'll give it another go. Thanks.

Rod · **Joined:** May 16, 2010 **Posts:** 14728 **Location:** USA

Blender is great when you learn the keyboard shortcuts.

HeathenX has a nice tutorial on creating a vitamin bottle in Blender and the label in Inkscape.
He shows quite a few main keyboard shortcuts while using it.

Gms9810 · **Posted:** Mon Jul 25, 2011 8:33 am **(#7)**

I watche the one with the vitamin bottle. It was well done but at the time I wasn't seriously looking at Blender. I'll watch it again.

2-ton · **Posted:** Mon Jul 25, 2011 8:28 pm **(#8)**

I find that heathenx uses mainly keyboard shortcuts, which is hard for me...too much to try to remember. I don't even use them in gimp. I always use the tool icons because I can never remember which shortcuts do what, and with icons, you can see what you are getting.

mackenzieh · **Posted:** Mon Feb 17, 2014 3:34 pm **(#9)**

Is a 3 button mouse really needed to use blender? I ask because I have a laptop with a 2 button mouse & pad.

Lurifax73 · **Posted:** Mon Feb 17, 2014 3:58 pm **(#10)**

You have plenty of easy tutorials from: http://www.blenderartists.org/forum/

mackenzieh · **Posted:** Mon Feb 17, 2014 4:09 pm **(#11)**

Lurifax73 wrote:

You have plenty of easy tutorials from: http://www.blenderartists.org/forum/

https://vimeo.com/77097820

Many of the tutorials tell you which keyboard shortcuts you suppose to use.

[ Image ]

That doesn't answer my question. Plus I'm not one to use shortcut keys. I like to see what I'm using like 2-ton had mentioned in a previous post.

Erisian · **Posted:** Mon Feb 17, 2014 5:29 pm **(#12)**

As far as I am aware, you cannot learn Blender without learning keyboard shortcuts. It's a very steep learning curve but I'm sure it's very rewarding when you have learnt it.

mackenzieh · **Posted:** Mon Feb 17, 2014 5:37 pm **(#13)**

Erisian wrote:

As far as I am aware, you cannot learn Blender without learning keyboard shortcuts. It's a very steep learning curve but I'm sure it's very rewarding when you have learnt it.

Thanks Erisian. I'm trying to learn it now without the short cut keys so I'll see how it goes with my attempt.

Erisian · **Posted:** Mon Feb 17, 2014 5:42 pm **(#14)**

mackenzieh wrote:

Erisian wrote:

As far as I am aware, you cannot learn Blender without learning keyboard shortcuts. It's a very steep learning curve but I'm sure it's very rewarding when you have learnt it.

Thanks Erisian. I'm trying to learn it now without the short cut keys so I'll see how it goes with my attempt.

Let me know how it goes

mackenzieh · **Posted:** Mon Feb 17, 2014 5:49 pm **(#15)**

Erisian wrote:

mackenzieh wrote:

Erisian wrote:

As far as I am aware, you cannot learn Blender without learning keyboard shortcuts. It's a very steep learning curve but I'm sure it's very rewarding when you have learnt it.

Thanks Erisian. I'm trying to learn it now without the short cut keys so I'll see how it goes with my attempt.

Let me know how it goes

I will.

I still haven't got an answer to my question: Is a 3 button mouse really needed in order to use blender?

Erisian · **Posted:** Mon Feb 17, 2014 5:58 pm **(#16)**

Quote: "It is perfectly possible to use Blender with a two-button mouse (e.g. laptop touchpad…) or an Apple single-button mouse. The missing buttons can be emulated with key/mouse-button combos. "

from http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2 ... _and_Mouse

mackenzieh · **Posted:** Mon Feb 17, 2014 6:37 pm **(#17)**

Erisian wrote:

Quote: "It is perfectly possible to use Blender with a two-button mouse (e.g. laptop touchpad…) or an Apple single-button mouse. The missing buttons can be emulated with key/mouse-button combos. "

from http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2 ... _and_Mouse

good to know. now if only there was a desktop shortcut icon to use.. then i'd be in business. lol!

mackenzieh · **Posted:** Tue Feb 18, 2014 9:09 pm **(#18)**

I'm starting to get the hang of Blender but since I don't have a 3 button mouse, is there a cheat sheet with short cuts for users with a 2 button mouse? It took me a while to learn how to zoom.

Erisian · **Posted:** Wed Feb 19, 2014 4:55 pm **(#19)**

You might want to try here. http://blenderartists.org/forum/

Brogun · **Joined:** Apr 29, 2012 **Posts:** 110

- Launch Blender
- Go to File -> User Preferences
- Select the Input panel
- Enable "Emulate 3 Buttons mouses"
- On the bottom of that Input panel click on "Save User Settings" so it will be enabled by default everytime you launch blender again.

Now after having done it, here are the shortcuts :
ALT and Left mouse button -> Rotation of the view
CTRL and ALT and Left mouse button -> Zoom in/out the view
SHIFT and ALT and Left mouse button -> Pan the view

That said, to work much faster in Blender it is necessary to learn shortcuts, as going to click buttons, develop panels etc are slowing you down a lot
When you're beginning you'll want to use those buttons of course, but after progressing you'll understand how much better using key shortcuts will be.
An additional good side of this is that even if the devs decide to change the user interface in each couple of version, you will never be lost, the key shortcuts do not change

Here are the most usefull ones in my opinion :

Quote:

press CTRL+TAB -> choose Vertices/Edge/Face selection mode
press ALT+Right Click -> Select edge loops/face loops
press S -> Scale selection
press R -> Rotate selection
press G -> Move selection
press E -> in edit mode Extrude selection
press ALT+E -> in edit mode allow individual faces extrusion (when lots of faces are selected)
press ALT+S -> in edit mode Shrink/Fatten
press CTRL+F -> in edit mode all functions related to Faces
press CTRL+V -> in edit mode all functions related to Vertices
press CTRL+E -> in edit mode all functions related to Edges
press W -> special functions
press F6 -> display the editable settings corresponding to the operation you just did
press X -> Delete/Dissolve menu
press CTRL+Left Click -> in edit mode Add a vertice or if something is selected extrude it to the location of the click
press F -> Make a face between selected vertices
press CTRL+R -> in edit mode Add a loop cut
press CTRL+B -> in edit mode Bevel selected edges (available in the CTRL+E)
press I -> in edit mode Inset (available in the CTRL+F)
press J -> in edit mode Join 2 vertices by an edge inside a face (can go through several faces)
press K -> in edit mode use the Knife (read the bottom header for the functions of it)
press CTRL+J -> in Object Mode join 2 object into a single one
Press P -> in Edit Mode Separate the selection into another Object
Press L -> select linked
SPACEBAR -> search a specific function (and if you add the dynamic spacebar addon, you have most Blender menu functions available from it)
Press CTRL+N -> recalculate normals of the selection

Press N -> open/close the "N" Panel to the right of the 3DView
Press T -> close/open the Toolshelf (panel to the left of the 3DView)

There's more, but those are easy to remember by simply practicing with them and become quickly 2nd nature.

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