THE 3D BLENDER

In this lesson, the student will learn how to navigate the Blender 3D works and learn a simple
technique in manipulating geometries.

Essential Questions:

▪ Why we choose Blender?

▪ How to navigate the Blender workspace?
▪ How to create and manipulate basic three-dimensional objects?
▪ How to execute different modeling techniques?

Intended Learning Outcomes:

▪ Practice the conventions in creating assets and utilize the third viewports.
▪ Practice the usage 3D-oriented software’s navigations.
▪ Identify the different modeling techniques and use it to manipulate three-dimensional
geometry.
Blender - An open-source program that can be used by anyone without paying anything in return.
The program is helpful in modeling, rigging, animation, composition, video editing, creating video
games and simulation. Since it is an Open and free program, Blender can be used by beginners,
individual animators and students, studio artists, professionals, Game developers, and even
hobbyists.

Blender supports a powerful toolset and a good platform to perform complex functions that helps in
getting the process of animation and modeling easier. Blender also supports a default path tracer
engine that is commonly called Cycles. The Cycles helps in getting realistic rendering outputs, VR
rendering support, and HDR lighting support. All in all, Blender is a dynamic animation program that
supports user-friendly interface as well. The software is well equipped with 3d Painting tools,
sculpting tools, and a scripting language as well. The scripting language that is Python can be used to
create custom libraries and effects on your own terms.

Blender User Interface

Blender can be downloaded from their website - https://www.blender.org/. It is compatible to
Windows, MacOS, and Linux.

As you open the latest Blender, this will look something as the image below: There’s a quick set up on
your preferred such as language, shortcuts, and theme

A screenshot of Quick Set-up on the first used of the software.

After that you can now, create or open blender files and compatible file 3D file formats such as OBJ,
FBX, 3DS, PLY, STL, etc. Otherwise you can check the Blender website and Manual.
 A screenshot of Blender Splash Screen.
If you create a general file, the user interface will be like the image below.
TOP BAR
The top bar is composed of different menus used in Blender.

App Menu
Splash Screen - Open the Splash Screen.

About Blender -Opens a menu displaying information

about Blender.
Version: The Blender version.
Date: Date when Blender was compiled.
Hash: The Git Hash of the build. This can be Screenshot of Menu Bar
useful to give to support personal when
diagnosing a problem.
Branch: Optional branch name.
Release Notes: Open the latest release notes.
Credits: Open credits website.
License: Open License website.
Blender Website: Open main Blender website.
Blender Store: Open the Blender store.
Development Fund: Open the developer fund
website.
Screenshot of About Blender

Install Application Template - Install a new application template. Application templates are a
feature that allows you to define a re-usable configuration that can be selected to replace the
default configuration, without requiring a separate Blender installation or overwriting your
personal settings.

Screenshot of Blender Application Template File View

File Menu

New Ctrl-N -Clears the current scene and loads the

selected application template.

Open Ctrl-O - Open a blend-file.

Open Recent Shift-Ctrl-O - Displays a list of recently saved

blend-files to open.

Revert -Reopens the current file to its last saved version.

Recover
• Recover Last Session -This will load a blend-file that
Blender automatically saves just before --exiting.
• Recover Auto Save -This will open an automatically saved
file to recover it.

Save Ctrl-S - Save the current blend-file.

Save As… Shift-Ctrl-S -Opens the File Browser to specify

file name and location of save.

Save Copy - Saves a copy of the current file.

Link… -Links data from an external blend-file (library) to the current scene.

Append… -Appends data from an external blend-file to the current scene.

Import Blender can use information stored in a variety of other format files which are created
by other graphics programs.

Export - Normally you save your work in a blend-file, but you can export some or all of your
work to a format that can be processed by other graphics programs.

External Data, like texture images and other resources, can be stored inside the blend-file
(packed) or as separate files (unpacked). Blender keeps track of all unpacked resources via a
relative or absolute path.

Clean Up Purge All - Remove all unused data-blocks from the file (cannot be undone). See the
Outliner for more information.

Defaults This menu manages the startup file which is used to store the default scene,
workspace, and interface displayed when creating a new file.

Quit Ctrl-Q - Closes Blender and the file is saved into quit.blend .
Edit Menu
Undo/Redo/History - The tools listed below will let you roll back an
accidental action, redo your last action, or let you choose to recover to a
specific point, by picking from a list of recent actions recorded by Blender.

Undo

Redo

Screenshot of Edit Menu

Undo History

Repeat Last

Repeat History
Menu Search - Find a menu based on its name.

Operator Search - Execute an operator based on its name (Developer Extras only).

Rename Active Item - Rename the active object or node; see Rename tool for more information.

Batch Rename - Renames multiple data types at once.

Lock Object Modes -Restrict select to the current mode.

Preferences – Open the Preferences window.

Render Menu
Render Image F12 - Render the active scene at the
current frame.

Render Animation Ctrl-F12 - Render the animation of the

active scene.

Render Audio - Mix the scenes audio file to a sound file.

View Render F11 - Toggle show render view.

View Animation Ctrl-F11 - Playback rendered animation

in a separate player.

Lock Interface - Lock interface during rendering in Screenshot of Render Menu

favor of giving more memory to the renderer.

Window Menu
New Window -Create a new window by copying the current window.

New Main Window -Create a new window with its own workspace and scene selection.

Toggle Window Fullscreen -Toggle the current window Fullscreen.

Next Workspace - Switch to the next workspace.

Previous Workspace - Switch to the previous workspace.

Show Status Bar - Choose whether the Status Bar at the bottom of the window should be displayed.

Save Screenshot - Capture a picture of the active area of whole Blender window.
WORKSPACE

Workspaces are essentially predefined window layouts. Blender’s flexibility with Areas lets you
create customized workspaces for different tasks such as modeling, animating, and scripting. It is
often useful to quickly switch between different workspaces within the same file.

Workspaces are located at the Top bar.

Controls
Tabs Click on the tabs titles to switch between the workspaces. To cycle between workspace
use Ctrl-Page Up and Ctrl-Page Down . Double click to rename the workspace.

Add + Click on the add button to add a new workspace.

Context menu RMB - The context menu contains options to duplicate, delete and reorder
workspaces.

Default Workspaces

Blender’s default startup shows the “Layout” workspace in the main area. This workspace is a
general workspace to preview your scene and objects and contains the following Editors:

• 3D Viewport on top left.

• Outliner on top right.
• Properties on bottom right.
• Timeline on bottom left.
 Blender’s ‘Layout’ Workspace with four editors.

3D Viewport (yellow), Outliner (green), Properties (blue) and Timeline (red).

Blender also has several other workspaces added by default:

Modeling - For modification of geometry by modeling tools.

Sculpting - For modification of meshes by sculpting tools.

UV Editing -Mapping of image texture coordinates to 3D surfaces.

Texture Paint - Tools for coloring image textures in the 3D Viewport.

Shading - Tools for specifying material properties for rendering.

Animation -Tools for making properties of objects dependent on time.

Rendering - For viewing and analyzing rendering results.

Compositing - Combining and post-processing of images and rendering information.

Scripting -Programming workspace for writing scripts.

Additional Workspaces

Blender has a couple additional Workspaces to choose from when adding a new Workspace:

2D Animation

2D Animation - General workspace to work with Grease Pencil.

2D Full Canvas- Similar to “2D Animation” but contains a larger canvas.

VFX
Masking -Tools to create 2D masks for compositing.

Motion Tracking - Tools to motion track and stabilize footage.

Video Editing
Video Editing- Sequence together media into one video.

STATUS BAR

The Status Bar is located at the bottom of the Blender window and displays contextual information
such as keyboard shortcuts, result or warning message and statistical information. The Status Bar can
be hidden by disabling Show Status Bar in Window menu or by dragging from the top edge down.

Keymap Information

The left side of the Status Bar displays mouse button shortcuts and the keymap of the active tool. In
editors with a Toolbar, pressing Alt shows the hotkeys to change to a desired tool.

Status Messages

The middle of the Status Bar displays information about in progress operations.

Running Task
 The progress of the currently running task is show when a computation is being
performed for example rendering, baking or playback. Hovering the mouse pointer
over the progress bar will display a time estimate. The task can be aborted by clicking
the cancel button ( X icon).

Report Message

Blender operation results or warnings, such as after saving a file. They disappear after
a short time. Click this label to show the full message in the Info Editor.

Resource Information

The right side of the Status Bar displays information about the Blender instance. These can
individually show or hidden by RMB on the Status Bar area.

Scene Statistics

Collection -Name of the active Collection.

Active Object - Name of the active selected object.

Geometry - Displays information about the current scene depending on the mode
and object type. This can be the number of vertices, faces, triangles, or bones.

Objects - Number of the selected objects and the total count.

System Memory

Estimate of Blender’s RAM consumption. In a single-instance single-machine

scenario, this estimate provides a measurement against the hardware limit of the
machine.

REGIONS

Every Editor in Blender is divided into Regions. Regions can have smaller structuring elements
like tabs and panels with buttons, controls and widgets placed within them. The elements in the
regions varies on selected editors.
The regions of the 3D Viewport showing the Sidebar and the Adjust Last Operation panel after adding a Cube.

Header (green), Main region (yellow), Toolbar (blue), Sidebar (red) and Adjust Last Operation panel (pink).

Main Region
It is the most prominent part of the editor. Each editor has a specific purpose, so the main region and the
availability of additional regions are different between editors.

Header

A header is a small horizontal strip, which sits either at the top or bottom of an area. All editors have a header
acting as a container for menus and commonly used tools. Menus and buttons will change with the editor type
and the selected object and mode.

The Header of the 3D Viewport.

Toolbar shows buttons for each tool. For tool buttons which have a small triangle in their
bottom right corner, a pop-up menu will be revealed when you LMB drag so that you can
select other tools of the same group.

Hovering your cursor over a tool for a short time will show its name, while hovering longer will show the full
tooltip.

Resizing the Toolbar horizontally will display the icons with two columns. Expanding it further will display the
icon and its text.
Popup Toolbar

You can switch tools with a toolbar that will pop up at the location of
your cursor after pressing Shift-Spacebar. The shortcuts for selecting
the tools are displayed on the right.

Alternatively, you can map this action to Spacebar in the Preferences. Then you’ll be able use Spacebar like a
modifier key (similar to pressing Ctrl or Shift).

Spacebar T for Transform, Spacebar D for Annotate, Spacebar M for measure

COMMON SHORTCUT KEYS

MOUSE ACTION
NUMERIC PAD SHORTCUT KEYS
KEYBOARD HOTKEYS IN 3D VIEWS
Manipulating 3D Geometry
Polygon Modeling typically begins with a Mesh Primitive shape such as circle, cube, cylinder. From
there you might begin editing to create a larger, more complex shape.

Modeling Modes

The 3D Viewport has three principal modes that allow for the creation, editing and manipulation of
the mesh models. Each of the three modes have a variety of tools. Some tools may be found in one or
more of the modes.
 Modes that used for modeling:

Object Mode

Supports basic operations such as object creation, joining objects, managing shape
keys, UV/color layers.

Edit Mode

Used for the majority of mesh editing operations.

Sculpt Mode

Instead of dealing with individual mesh elements, supports sculpting with brushes

Structure

With meshes, everything is built from three basic structures: vertices, edges and faces.

Example of mesh structure.

Vertices

The most elementary part of a mesh is the vertex (vertices plural) which is a single point or
position in 3D space. Vertices are represented in the 3D Viewport in Edit Mode as small dots.
The vertices of and object are stored as an array of coordinates.

Do not mistake the object origin for a vertex. It may look similar, but it is bigger and cannot be
selected.
 The vertex is labeled as “A”; the object’s origin dot is labeled as “B”.
Edges

An edge always connects two vertices by a straight line. The edges are the “wires” you
see when you look at a mesh in wireframe view. They are usually invisible on the
rendered image. They are used to construct faces.

Faces

Faces are used to build the actual surface of the object. They are what you see when
you render the mesh. If this area does not contain a face, it will simply be transparent
or non-existent in the rendered image.

A face is defined as the area between either three (triangles), four (quadrangles) or
more (n-gons) vertices, with an edge on every side. The faces are often abbreviated
to tris, quads & n-gons.

Triangles are always flat and therefore easy to calculate. On the other hand,
quadrangles “deform well” and are therefore preferred for animation and subdivision
modeling.

Mesh Primitives

A common object type used in a 3D scene is a mesh. Blender comes with a number of “primitive”
mesh shapes that you can start modeling from. You can also add primitives in Edit Mode at the 3D
cursor.
Plane

The standard plane is a single quad face, which is composed of four vertices, four edges, and
one face. It is like a piece of paper lying on a table; it is not a three-dimensional object because
it is flat and has no thickness. Objects that can be created with planes include floors,
tabletops, or mirrors.

Cube

A standard cube contains eight vertices, twelve edges, and six faces, and is a three-
dimensional object. Objects that can be created out of cubes include dice, boxes, or crates.

Circle

Vertices :The number of vertices that define the circle or polygon.

Fill Type: Set how the circle will be filled.

Triangle Fan: Fill with triangular faces which share a vertex in the middle.

N-gon: Fill with a single N-gon.

Nothing: Do not fill. Creates only the outer ring of vertices.

UV Sphere

A standard UV sphere is made out of quad faces and a triangle fan at the top and b
ottom. It can be used for texturing.

Segments: Number of vertical segments. Like the Earth’s meridians, going

pole to pole.

Rings: Number of horizontal segments. These are like the Earth’s parallels.
Rings are face loops and not edge loops, which would be one less.

Icosphere

An icosphere is a polyhedral sphere made up of triangles. Icospheres are normally used to

achieve a more isotropical layout of vertices than a UV sphere, in other words, they are
uniform in every direction.

Subdivisions

How many recursions are used to define the sphere. At level 1 the icosphere is an
icosahedron, a solid with 20 equilateral triangular faces. Each increase in the number
of subdivisions splits each triangular face into four triangles. Subdividing an icosphere
raises the vertex count very quickly even with few iterations (10 times creates
5,242,880 triangles), Adding such a dense mesh is a sure way to cause the program to
crash.

Cylinder

Objects that can be created out of cylinders include handles or rods.

Vertices: The number of vertical edges between the circles used to define the
cylinder or prism.

Depth: Sets the starting height of the cylinder.

Cap Fill Type: Similar to circle. When set to none, the created object will be a tube.
Objects that can be created out of tubes include pipes or drinking glasses.

Cone

Objects that can be created out of cones include spikes or pointed hats.

Vertices: The number of vertical edges between the circles or tip, used to define the
cone or pyramid

Radius 1: Sets the radius of the circular base of the cone.

 Radius 2: Sets the radius of the tip of the cone. Which will create a frustum (a pyramid
or cone with the top cut off). A value of 0 will produce a standard cone shape.

Depth: Sets the starting height of the cone.

Torus

A doughnut-shaped primitive created by rotating a circle around an axis. The overall

dimensions can be defined by two methods.

Operator Presets: Torus preset settings for reuse. These presets are stored as scripts
in the proper presets directory.

Major Segments: Number of segments for the main ring of the torus. If you think of a
torus as a “spin” operation around an axis, this is how many steps are in the spin.

Minor Segments: Number of segments for the minor ring of the torus. This is the
number of vertices of each circular segment.

Grid

A regular quadratic grid which is a subdivided plane. Example objects that can be
created out of grids include landscapes and organic surfaces.

X Subdivisions: The number of spans in the X axis.

Y Subdivisions: The number of spans in the Y axis.

Monkey

This adds a stylized monkey head to use as a test mesh, use Subdivision Surface for a
refined shape. This is intended as a test mesh, similar to: Utah Teapot
Edit Tools

Select Box - Select geometry by dragging a box.

Cursor - Change the location of the 3D Cursor.

Move - Translation tool.

Rotate - Rotation tool.

Scale -Scale tool.

Scale Cage -Change the scale of an object by controlling its cage.

Transform - Tool to adjust the objects translation, rotations and

scale.

Annotate - Draw free-hand annotation.

Measure - Measure distances in the scene.

Extrude Region - Extrude the selected region together freely or

along an axis.

Inset Faces - Inset selected faces.

Bevel - Create a bevel from the selected elements.

Loop Cut - Create a loop cut along the mesh.

Knife - Create a knife cut in the mesh. Press enter to confirm the
cut.

Bisect - Bisect the mesh.

Poly Build - Create geometry by adding vertices one by one.

Spin - Create new geometry by extruding and rotating.

Smooth - Flatten angles of selected vertices.

Edge Slide - Slide edge along a faces.

Vertex Slide -Slide vertex along an edge.

Shrink/Flatten - Shrink selected vertices along their normals.
Push/Pull - Push or pull (scale) selected elements.
Shear - Shear selected elements.
To Sphere - Move vertices outwards in a spherical shape around object center
Rip Region - Rip Polygons and move the result.
Extrude Region
Extrusion tools duplicate vertices, edge or faces,
while keeping the new geometry connected with
the base.
This tool is of paramount importance for creating
new geometry. It allows you to create parallelepipeds from rectangles and
cylinders from circles, as well as easily creating such things as tree limbs.

Extrude Manifold - This tool is very

similar to Extrude Faces but enables
Dissolve Orthogonal Edges by default.
This causes the tool to automatically split
and remove adjacent faces when
extruding inwards.

Knife
The Knife tool can be used to interactively subdivide (cut
up) geometry by drawing lines or closed loops to create
holes.
When using Knife, the cursor changes to an icon of a
scalpel and the header changes to display options for the
tool. You can draw connected straight lines by clicking LMB, marked with small green
squares. Red squares are already defined cuts. Surrounding red squares mean that
there is a cut already in that position, so no additional vertex will be created (besides
the first one).
Loop Cuts
The Loop Cut tool is a modal tool version of the Loop Cut
and Slide operator. This tool splits a loop of faces by
inserting new edge loops intersecting the chosen edge.
The tool is interactive and has two steps:
1. Pre-Visualizing the Cut
After the tool is activated, move the cursor over a desired edge. The cut to be made is
marked with a magenta colored line as you move the mouse over the various edges. The
to be created edge loop stops at the poles (tris and n-gons) where the existing face loop
terminates.
2. Perform the Cut
Once the desired location of the new edge loop is found, the edge loop can be created
via LMB.