by Didik Wijaya

Blender is a free 3D application. Yes, you can download and use it for free. Although free, Blender has advanced sets of tools for modeling, texturing, and animation. That why I am interested in learning Blender. First time I use Blender, this program makes me nuts. I can't find most button I need easily. The worst thing is I can't find any tutorial or manual that explain with clear and direct for me as designer. But, I don't give up. I want to learn this software. And I wrote this tutorial for you, in my learning process, so you don't have the bad experience the same way I did. This tutorial is for you who already knew other 3D apps, so I don't explain in details about 3D terms. By following this tutorial, you will have a brief look on how to use Blender.

1.You may want to download, and install Blender first. When writing this tutorial, I use version 2.4.5. When you open Blender for the first time, you will see interface like image below. There are header, window and panel. Also there are cube, lamp and camera available in viewport

2.Blender uses a lot of windows. You can use window for many things inluding viewport. You can split window, for example to use one window as Top viewport and another as camera viewport. To split window, just move cursor to window border. This border is located on left, right, top and bottom (shown below as green color). Right click and then choose Split Area. After that, you can choose where you want to split window. Each newly created window, will also have header in the bottom of it.

3. You can split windows as much as you can. Vertical or horizontal. To join windows again, just right click at border and choose Join Areas. Then, you can select adjacent window to be joined.

4. Note: I found splitting windows is cool but inefficient. I prefer to use predefined lay-out in Blender. Make sure cursor is inside window, and press Ctrl+Numpad 4 or 6 (with Num Lock off). You can press several times until you find desired layout. Image below shows example of layout choice.

5. Each windows can have specific function. By default, each splitted windows will have 3D view / viewport type (shown in bottom left). Right now, let's focus on 3D view window type first. Using 3D view, you can view object in 3D environment (Front, Side, Top, Camera, etc). To change view you can click View button in window header, or using Shortcut: Front (Numpad 1), Side (Numpad 3), Top (Numpad 7), Camera (Numpad 0), and Perspective (Numpad 5). To use this shortcut, your cursor need to be inside window and Num Lock in keyboard is active.

6. Next, to rotate, pan, and zoom. If you have 3 button mouse with scroll wheel, you can have all benefit Blender offer. For example, to rotate / arc-rotate view you can click middle mouse button and drag to any direction. If you don't have 3 button mouse, you can press Alt then click left mouse button and drag. Other shortcut for viewing in 3D viewport can bee seen in image below.

7. Next, about selection. In Blender, you use right click mouse to select object. First, press Home to view all object. Then practice to select object in the screen by right clicking. Selected object will shown with pink border. To select more than one object, hold Shift while right clicking.

Left click mouse is used to move 3D cursor position (red-white circle). 3D cursor is used as reference point when you add new object in 3D viewport.

Blender Beginner Tutorial Part 1 | Part 2

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