Instructions

Summary

for the

Open Source
3D Software
Package
 About Blender

Blender is a free open source 3D modeling, animation and design package. It has
matured sufficiently “under-the-bonnet” to create remarkably high quality 3D images
as of version 2.6 and higher. On the negative side, it is notoriously complex to learn
because of its quirky interface designed by PC developers. A major interface re-design
is sorely needed. Until then, the instructions included in this document will provide a
significant help to those who are beginners and need a 3D tool that doesn’t break the
bank balance.

The software can be run on Windows 7 or higher, Mac OS X 10.6 or higher, Linux and
other operating systems.

And if you are interested in re-designing the interface of Blender, the open source code
is available for download. Of course, for the changes to propagate to new Blender
release versions, they need to be reviewed by the Blender Foundation (headed by Ton
Roosendall, one of the original developers of Blender).

To download the latest version of Blender, visit http://www.blender.org/.

 Attention all Mac users

Before we delve into the interface of Blender, the first step for all Mac users who don’t
have a three-button mouse and/or a thumb wheel on the mouse is:

1. Go under File menu

2. Choose User Preferences
3. Click the Input tab
4. Make sure there is a tick in the check boxes for “Emulate 3 Button Mouse” and
“Continuous Grab”.
5. Click the “Save As Default” button.

Also, if you prefer (but not critical as you do have the View menu to perform the same
functions), you can emulate the numpad (the extra numbers on the right found on extended
keyboards). It means the numbers across the top of the standard keyboard will function the
same way as the numpad.

1. Go under File menu

2. Choose User Preferences
3. Click the Input tab
4. Make sure there is a tick in the check box for “Emulate Numpad”.
5. Click the “Save As Default” button.

Just performing these changes in Blender will make it enormously easier for Mac users to
use Blender when it comes to things like navigating 3D space and moving objects with a
trackpad or one-mouse button and the keyboard.
1. The User
Interface
 The User Interface
The interface of Blender as shown below,

is comprised of five editing panels:

1. The viewport.
2. The tool shelf.
3. The outliner.
4. The properties.
5. The timeline.

Let us highlight these components of the user interface in more detail.

 The viewport
This is the place where you view the 3D scene. When starting from scratch with a new
window, you are shown the default 3D object called a cube, a large mesh-like grid called
the plane for helping you to visualize the X, Y and Z directions in space, and the camera
viewer showing where and in what direction you will see the final rendered 3D scene (it
looks like a pyramid, with the imaginary camera lens at the apex of the pyramid, the base of
the pyramid indicates the direction the camera is looking, and the arrow just tells you which
way is up).
 The tool shelf
The most popular and useful tools for manipulating your 3D objects, such as sculpting,
moving, and rotating, are kept here. By default, the tool shelf is located in the left pane. You
can make this pane visible or invisible by pressing T on the keyboard.
 The outliner
This pane normally resides in the top right corner of the user interface window. It is
primarily designed to display all the objects in your 3D viewport scene. It will allow you to
quickly select objects, the camera, and anything else when you need to make changes to
your scene.
 The properties editor
This is the place for defining and applying properties to your scene or selected objects. By
default, this appears on the right side of the user interface window. Default tab panel shown
is the Render Panel.
 The time line
This is the place where you can animate your scene. Press Ctrl and the Up Arrow keys to
hide this panel at any time.
2. Setting up
the viewport
 Splitting and Joining the Viewport
In other 3D packages, the viewport can be split into four quadrants. Three of the quadrants
show the 3D scene or selected object in the X, Y and Z directions. Whereas the fourth
quadrant is the standard view as you would see it when rendered (i.e., from the position of
the camera). Most professionals prefer this approach as it helps them to quickly create 3D
shapes by working in different quadrants.

By default, Blender shows a single viewport showing the entire scene including the camera
position. To split the viewport into smaller viewports and so permit you to view 3D objects
in different positions as a means of helping you visualize and quickly create 3D models,
drag with the mouse from right to left on the three line triangle in the top right corner of the
viewport.

To join two viewports together, drag from left to right in the order the viewports were
created the triangle into the previous viewport. A large arrow will appear telling you the
viewport you have dragged across will be the dominant viewport and the other viewport
will disappear.
 Adding a background image to the viewport
A useful option for recreating, or placing certain 3D objects in position with, a photograph
is adding a background image to the viewport. For accuracy (and to see the picture) use
orthographic projection and Top View in the View menu.

1. Press N to show another panel of tools on the right side of the viewport.
2. Look for Background Image.

3. Open it up and select the image file.

4. Specify size (to get the detail) and level of opacity.
5. Choose under the View menu, orthographic projection and Top view to see the
background image.
3. Object or Edit
Mode?
 Are you in object or edit mode?
Here is a tricky part of Blender you need to remember. In many situations, you have to
know whether you are in Edit or Object mode when using Blender as this will change the
sorts of tools you can access when manipulating with your objects in the 3D scene

Edit mode
This is where you sculpt and shape your 3D objects. You can also apply tools to scale,
rotate and move your 3D objects.

Object mode
This allows you to select or add objects you want to edit, or to quickly adjust the position of
the camera and lighting.

How to switch modes

To switch between Edit and Object modes, press the Tab key (NOTE: the cursor must be in
the 3D work space known as the viewport for this to work — just another quirk of Blender
you need to adjust to). Alternatively, you can choose Edit or Object mode from the pop-up
menu.
 IMPORTANT NOTE: To minimize the frustration in selecting 3D
objects for editing (a common experience for newcomers), always
go into Object mode and select the object you want to edit, then
switch into Edit mode. The object you have selected will be kept in
focus as you edit it even when you have removed the selection and
have to reselect the object again.

But I can’t change to Edit Mode?

Make sure you have properly selected the 3D object. If you select the lighting source and/or
camera objects, the Edit Mode will be disabled. Still have a problem? Please read the
section on how to select 3D objects.
4. Navigating
3D space
 Navigating 3D space within the viewport
Another useful skill to have when working in Blender is to know how to navigate 3D space
within the viewport. Of course, you can always create multiple viewports in order to see 3D
object(s) from different and very specific positions in 3D space. But these fixed positions
are never quite enough. At some point you need to move around 3D space (without moving
the objects).

Move anywhere navigation

The table below summarizes four ways you can do this. Fortunately, when navigating in 3D
space, you can be in either Object or Edit modes. So the only thing to remember is which
key(s) to press, or whether to use your mouse, or a combination of the two for the task to be
achieved.

Task Mode How to Apply

Translate through 3D Object or Move two fingers across trackpad.
space (object fixed) Edit
OR

Press Shift Option keys and with a

single finger move it across the
trackpad.

Rotate around space Object or With Alt (or Option key for Mac users)
Edit pressed down, click the mouse button
down and move one finger across
trackpad (or simply move the mouse).

Zoom in or out through 3D Object or With cursor in 3D space, touch trackpad

space Edit with two fingers and pinch in or out to
zoom.

OR

Press the + or – keys.

Zoom out to see all objects Object or Shift C
in the scene Edit

Navigate to fixed positions

To view your 3D objects from specific positions in space, such as on top, front or side,
and/or whether to view the models in perspective or not (known as orthographic projection),
choose from predefined positions under the View menu.
Another rather useful technique in Blender is the ability to select an object and to quickly
zoom in on the object without having to fiddle around with navigating the 3D scene just to
get the selected object into view (i.e., centered and zoomed in or out appropriately). The
way to do this for PC users is by pressing “.” (dot) on the numpad. For Mac users, it is
highly recommended that you choose “View Selected” in the View menu, especially if you
don’t have a numpad.

Toggling between orthographic projection and perspective views

Speaking of perspective and orthographic projection views, you may be wondering, “What
is the difference?” The orthographic projection view gives more “technical” insight about
your 3D objects by revealing them in their true size and shape with respect to one another,
whereas for a more natural “as you see it from your eye’s perspective”, choose the
perspective view.

As you may have noticed, if you are viewing the scene from outside of the camera, pressing
5 on the numpad will quickly toggle the scene between orthographic projection and
perspective views. However, if you press 0 on the numpad to view the scene through the
camera, the view will, by default, be in perspective. This is fine for a more realistic look as
the eye would see it from a distance. However, to change this to orthographic projection
view, select the camera object (use the Outliner), and press the “Orthographic” button in the
Camera panel.
Not sure where the camera panel is located? It is one of the tabs in the properties editor
showing a really tiny icon of a camera. Because of the incredibly small size (move the
cursor into the panel and press + to enlarge it), here is the location:

Isolating the camera panel, this is what you get:

Now that you know how to change the camera view to “orthographic” (you can see it), just
click the button!
5. Speeding up
Blender
 Making it easy for your computer
to re-draw your 3D scene
Of course, no 3D scene is ever complete without at least one object (or model) placed
somewhere in it.

By default, Blender will show you a cube (which may be looking at you directly from the
front and so confuse you into thinking it is a square in 2-dimensional space for older
versions of Blender, or at an angle to show the 3-dimensional nature of the object and space
in the latest versions of Blender).

Luckily, computer technology has advanced sufficiently to make it fast enough to show the
cube in a 3D appearance and with a roughly shaded form (notice the difference in the
darkness of the greyscale colors used) to give a sense that we have a solid 3D object in
space. For a simple object such as a cube, this is fine. However, should the number of
objects in 3D space increase considerably and everything starts to slow down, you can
change the appearance of the objects to wireframe by pressing the Z key. Once you are in
position and the objects are where they should be, press Z again to provide basic shading.
This simple technique will speed things up dramatically.

Another way of speeding things up is to use layers (similar to Adobe Photoshop or

Illustrator, except Blender has a funny way of showing layers) to store objects and turn on
or off specific layers to show or hide these objects. By default, Blender starts off in layer 1
and looks like the following in Object Mode:

In case you are having a little trouble seeing where this is owing to the incredibly small size
of these “pigeon holes” like interface design, below is where you need to look:

Now that you have found layers in Blender, if you want to create a new object in a different
layer:
 1. Click into one of the empty squares in this “pigeon-hole” like layers interface design.
The square you have clicked into will be highlighted (with a dot inside it), telling you
a new layer has been selected.

2. With the new layer available and selected, create your object(s) as usual. These will
be stored in the new layer. When you need to hide the objects, click the layer button
again.

3. To see objects in different layers all at once, press the Shift key and click on the
squares representing different layers to turn them “on”.

4. Do you want to move an object from one layer to another? Not a problem at all. Just
select the object (in Object Mode, with the cursor in the viewport), and press M. A
window will pop-up. Click on the square (or layer) to move the selected object into
the layer you want.

There are other techniques to improve the speed of drawing and re-drawing of a complex
3D scene such as reducing the number of faces (or meshes) making up a 3D object. Do a
search on Google.com to find out more. Or consider buying a fast enough computer (as the
professionals do).

Speaking of a getting faster computer, it is highly recommended that you have a machine
with a fast enough graphics processing card. Because the recommended way professionals
create realistic 3D scenes is by using the Cycles Render Engine and having the work of
rendering 3D scenes through this engine technology using the faster and dedicated graphics
processor.

Let us explain a bit more about this.

What is the Cycles Render Engine?

Cycles Render Engine is not a new technology. It has been around for many years in
professional 3D software packages such as Maya and 4D Cinema. It is only in recent times
that Blender has finally come out of the dark ages and is able to benefit from this better
rendering technology.

By default, Blender uses its own internal rendering engine called, naturally enough,
“Blender Render”. This is perfectly fine for most standard 3D work where super-realism is
not critical. However, when it comes to realistic photographic results of any object you wish
to show with lighting source(s) and the presence of other 3D objects in the scene playing
their part in distributing the light in a more natural way, you need a rendering engine that
correctly calculates the way light rays from a lighting source actually lights up 3D objects
and gets reflected. If you use the Blender’s default internal render engine, it calculates in a
simplified way of assuming the light travels in one direction and in a straight line from the
lighting source and if parts of a 3D object does not receive the light directly, those regions
will look extremely black and lacking in detail even if other 3D objects nearby should
technically reflect some light to help lighten up those dark areas. On the other hand, if you
use the cycle render engine, and light behaves more naturally by the way it can reflect off
the walls and everything else in the 3D scene, which in turn will lighten up and give more
details to those darker regions of 3D objects not directly receiving the light from the main
lighting source.

To change the render engine to this better technology, look at the top of the Blender
window for a pop-up menu button with the words “Blender render”. Click on it and choose
“Cycle Render”.

When you make this subtle change, you will notice one other advantage. Assuming you
have a reasonably fast computer, you can set the viewport shading to “Rendered”. It means
you can actually see in almost real-time what the 3D object(s) will look like when rendered.
Compare this to the Blender Render mode. In order to see what the 3D object(s) will look
like in the final rendered scene, you have to press F12 and wait as Blender builds up the
rendered scene in small squares and eventually you get to see the final result after say 30
seconds or up to a few hours. In cycles render engine mode, you see the rendering occur in
real time right across the entire viewport and is faster. To make it even faster, you can click
the Render properties editor. There you will find a new option called “Devices”. Click the
pop-up menu and select GPU (for graphics processing unit) instead of the default CPU. If
you have a modern graphics processing card, you will see the rendering taking place in real-
time at a much faster rate.

As for lighting sources, you no longer need to add dedicated lamps to behave like the Sun
or as spotlights (although they can be used). All lighting can now be done by creating any
type and number of 3D objects (a sphere or flat plane is fine) and go into the materials
properties editor to tell the cycles render engine to turn this object into a lighting source (i.e.
call the surface of the object “Emission”, and set the emission strength of the light to, say,
20 or higher, and you will see how it acts as a more powerful and flexible lighting source).
Are you already seeing the benefits of this alternative and more professional rendering
engine technology?

Okay. If you now add other 3D objects in the scene, the light it receives will not only get
absorbed and reflected, but the reflected light will also get calculated and used to determine
what happens to the darker areas of other 3D objects. In most cases, extra light may arrive
to lighten up these darker areas sufficiently to give you more detail and in a much more
natural way.

To really see the benefits, you should download a complex blender file with lots of 3D
objects and render it. Compare the results with the Blender Render engine. You will see a
big difference.

One other thing worth mentioning. The rendering process never ends. It will constantly use
computer processing power to refine the rendered image to any level of extreme detail and
accuracy you want. This can be a bit of an overkill especially in the early stages of
designing your 3D scene. Therefore, to reduce the amount of processing power, you can go
into the Render properties editor and look for “Integrator Presets” and set the sample render
number to around 100. This means the rendering will stop after 100 passes. The results
might be a bit grainy, but it is fine for quickly rendering something and making regular
changes.

When you are finished with the work, set it to zero (for infinite passes), or raise the value to
500 or more and the results will be dramatically improved. Indeed, the rendered image will
be sharper, more detailed, and with greater realism.

What’s next?

With the choice of the right rendering engine selected to get the best results from Blender,
we must explain how objects are selected in Blender. This is a crucial skill if you ever wish
to work on specific parts of a 3D object in Edit Mode, or you just need to grab one or more
3D object(s) and move them around.
6. Selecting
3D objects
 Selecting objects
Before you can manipulate a 3D object, you have to select it. Just as a hint, an object or
parts of an object that appears selected in Blender will turn orange (or described as pink for
some people).

Function Mode To Apply

Select or Deselect all Edit 1. To select all objects
objects On PC and Mac, press A to select all
objects.

2. To deselect all objects

Press A again to deselect (assumes a
toggle action behavior is chosen in the
Action pop-up preference field).

Select one object Edit For PC users, move the cursor over the
object you wish to select and click the right
button on the mouse. To deselect, press the
Shift Key and right mouse click on the
selected object.

For Mac users, the simplest solution is to

press the letter B on the keyboard. You will
see cross hairs intersecting the cursor
position. Move the cursor on top or near the
object. Now click the mouse button down
and drag the cursor over the object. Let go
of the mouse button. If the object lies
within the rectangular region formed by
dragging the cursor, the object will be
selected. To deselect the object, press B,
move the cursor over the selected object,
press Shift key, and drag the cursor over the
object and let go.

NOTE: This selection method has the

advantage of selecting objects that are
hidden or lie inside another 3D object. If
you only want to select the 3D object that is
visible, press C, click the mouse button
down and drag the cursor (with its circular
selection area) over the object(s) you want
to select. If you want the circle selection
area to be larger, press the + key on the
numpad.

Select multiple objects Edit For PC users, press the Shift key and click
the right mouse button for each object you
wish to select. To deselect the object, repeat
 the process for selecting an object, but this
time for an already selected object.

For Mac users, the process is slightly more

complicated. However, the slight saving
grace in this whole process is that you can
repeat the selecting process using the
keyboard without pressing down the Shift
key.

Alternatively, and for a more flexible

selecting option, press C for circle select.
The cursor changes to a circle. Click the
mouse button and as you drag the cursor
across one or more objects, those objects
will get selected. It is a bit like painting
over the objects, except you are really
selecting objects. Press the Shift key to
deselect objects. To get out of circle select
mode, press the Esc key on a Mac, or click
the right mouse button on a PC.

If pressing the Esc key is a little too much,

try pressing the Ctrl key, press the mouse
button (left mouse button for PC users) and
drag the cursor over the objects. Let go of
the mouse button. The objects are selected
and you are ready to do something else.

NOTE: If you have difficulty selecting the

correct object, move around in 3D space to
get to the right object. Or consider using
layers as a means of hiding specific objects
in the 3D scene and showing only the object
you want to select.

Select all faces on the Edit For Mac users, press B, and use the
visible side of an object trackpad or mouse to drag the cursor to
specify an area containing part or all of the
object(s) you want selected. Let go of the
mouse button for the selection to take
effect.

Or press G C and run the cursor over the

object to select the visible faces. Press Esc
to get out of the selection mode.

Increase number of faces Edit Press Ctrl + as many times until the entire
selected object is selected.

Select a Vertex only Edit 1. While you are in Edit Mode, choose
Vertex Select by clicking the following
button on the left:
 For PC users, press Ctrl Alt and the right
mouse button.

2. Move cursor to a vertex on the 3D object.

3. With two fingers, touch trackpad once, or
click right mouse button on a PC.

NOTE: Press Option to select a closed-loop

(or ring) or full-length edge. Also press the
Shift key to select more edges (until you
select a face or multiple faces).

Select an Edge only Edit 1. While you are in Edit Mode, choose
Edge Select by clicking the following
button in the middle:

2. Move cursor to an edge on the 3D object.

3. With two fingers, touch trackpad once, or
click right mouse button on a PC.
4. Alternatively, press Ctrl TAB 3 and
choose whether to select by edges or
faces.

NOTE: Press Option to select a closed-loop

(or ring) or full-length edge. Also press the
Shift key to select more closed-loop or full
length edges (but not faces).

Select a Face only Edit 1. While you are in Edit Mode, choose Face
Select Mode by pressing the following
button on the right:

For PC users, press Alt and the right

mouse button.

2. Move cursor to a face on the 3D object.

3. With two fingers, touch the trackpad
once, or click right mouse button on a
PC.
4. Alternatively, press Ctrl TAB 3 and
choose whether to select by edges or
faces.

NOTE: Press Option key to select a closed-

 loop (or ring) or full length set of faces.
Press the Shift key to select more closed-
loops or full length faces as you require.

Selecting multiple vertices Edit Select Vertex mode, press the Command
and Shift keys and select each vertex with
your mouse.
Selecting multiple edges Edit Select Edge mode, press the Command and
Shift keys and select each edge with your
mouse.

Selecting multiple faces Edit Select Face mode, press the Command and
Shift keys and select each face with your
mouse.

Selecting multiple vertices, Edit 1. Press the Shift key to choose a

edges and faces combination of Vertex, Edge or Face
Mode buttons. E.g.,

2. Two finger trackpad touch to select, or

click right mouse button on a PC.

Selecting a group of Edit Press B. Then press the mouse button and
vertices, edges and faces drag across the object and let go of the
mouse button.

Deselct All Edit Press A

Why can’t I choose Edit Mode when an object is selected?

Are you having trouble selecting parts of an object (such as the face, edge or vertex)
because Edit Mode does not appear in the pop-up menu? Or do you have a situation where
you know you have clearly selected the entire object, yet somehow Edit Mode is not
available? You are not alone. It is one of the major criticisms people have of Blender. Even
experienced Blender users can make the mistake after a few months away from Blender and
returning to it and then wonder why it is not working quite as intuitively and simply as they
had hoped.

As soon as you see this problem, make sure that you have not selected the lighting source
object(s) or the camera object. These objects are not editable. Well, strictly speaking, this is
not true. There are lighting and camera properties you can edit. And you can even change
the direction and position of these objects. However, Edit Mode is seen by Blender
developers in a narrow way. It should only be used to edit 3D objects that contain what we
call meshes. These meshes, looking like tiny squares (or faces) stretched in various
directions to help create the curves that make up the shape of your 3D object, are the only
things editable under Edit Mode. However, you can’t always tell if you have properly
selected the 3D object. Even if you believe the 3D object has been selected because you can
see the orange line around the object, it does not necessarily mean you have selected the 3D
object correctly.

This is the biggest criticism of Blender. You can select an object that you know should be
editable and nothing else has been selected (especially the camera and lighting objects).
You can see it with your own eyes that it should be editable. The orange line tells you this.
Yet you will be scratching your head as to why Edit Mode is still not available in the pop-
up menu.

So why do we have this problem?

Well, you will be kicking yourself for not realizing this, but you have to go into the
Outliner, open up the “Scene” and physically click on the object. Then, and only then, will
you discover Edit Mode is available to you. For some reason selecting the object in the
viewport by pressing B or C and choosing the object will not always work because it is
grabbing additional information from the scene and you need to tell Blender through the
Outliner that you really want the object itself (with the meshes on it) to be selected and
nothing else

To make this absolute clear, here is a typical scene in Blender, with the cube selected but no
Edit Mode is visible in the pop-up menu,
Notice how the cube (i.e., the 3D object) has been selected, but the only option you have is
Object Mode in the pop-up menu.

Now, here is what you do. Look at the Outliner carefully.

On the left of the word “Scene”, click the “+” button. This will open up the scene to all the
3D objects, as well as the camera and lighting objects.
Now here is the trick. Click on the 3D object called “Cube”. Have you clicked on it? Good.
Now check to see whether Edit Mode is available. Incredible! The option is available (at
last!).

So what has happened here? Even though you can see the 3D object highlighted and is
selected, notice how the word “Lamp” in the Outliner appears in white. This is no fluke.
Blender is still thinking you have selected the Lamp (i.e., one of the lighting objects). If you
click on the word “Cube”, the word itself becomes white and “Lamp” goes back to being
black.

This is the clue you need to be aware of. Once you know about this subtle piece of
information, Edit Mode will always be available to select from the pop-up menu.

Yay!

Now let us learn how to delete and add an object in the 3D scene.
7. Add and Delete
Objects
 Delete and add objects
Delete Object
By default, Blender shows you a cube. If you wish to delete this or any other object:

Function Mode To Apply

Delete Object or In Edit Mode, select the object(s) or part
Edit of an object (in terms of vertices, edges
and/or faces). Press X. A pop-up menu
appears in 3D space. Choose how to
delete, either by vertices, edges, faces or
the entire object.

In Object mode, select the object and

press X. The option given is to delete
the selected object. If no objects are
selected, pressing X gives you the
option to delete all objects visible in the
viewport.

Add a new Object

The next step is adding an object into 3D space:

Function Mode To Apply

To add a new object Object Press Shift A while the cursor is in the
(camera, lighting, sphere, viewport. A pop-up menu will appear.
cube, text etc.) Select the object you want to add from
this menu.

Or, select the object from the Add menu.

Import objects

Another source of adding objects is the Import command under the File menu. If you have
ready-made 3D objects produced by other 3D packages or from Blender, just import them
into Blender.
As for finding ready-made 3D models to import or open in Blender (to save on time re-
creating common objects and so re-invent the wheel), visit http://www.blendswap.com/.
You may need to sign up, but at least you will have a supply of useful objects to select
from.

For another source of ready-made 3D objects, visit https://www.yobi3d.com/. This one is in

French, but you can search and find many models by typing English words in the search
bar.

And as another source, try http://tf3dm.com/. This will have a combination of free and user
pay models to choose from. Keep in mind that in some models you may have to add the
supplied texture map.

For totally free 3D models, visit www.archibase.net and http://archive3d.net/.

Import MakeHuman 3D models

For those of you who have the free open source application for human figure design and
modeling known as MakeHuman, you can import these 3D objects into Blender. Once it is
imported, you can change the positions of arms, legs, head and body to create a variety of
poses, and render it (with clothes, hair and all, if you have added them in the MakeHuman
application).
To import MakeHuman 3D models:

1. Open Blender.
2. Select User Preferences under the File menu.
3. Put the cursor inside the User Preferences window and press + a few times to see
everything clearly (please note that Blender will not remember the zoom setting the
next time you open this window again).
4. Go to the “File” tab.
5. Turn on “Auto Run Python Scripts”.

6. Go to the “Add-ons” tab.

7. Click the “Import Export” button on the left side of the User Preferences window.
8. Scroll down the list of import and export add-ons until you see “Import-Export:
Import: MakeHuman (.mhx)”. Put a tick on the check box on the right to enable this
add-on.
9. While you are still in “Add-ons” tab, click the “Rigging” button on the left. Enable
“Rigify” in the check box shown.
10. Close the User Preferences window. The settings will be automatically saved.
11. With Blender ready to import MakeHuman 3D objects, it is time to go into the
MakeHuman application and export the 3D model.
 12. With the MakeHuman application open, a 3D human model selected and worked on
to your specifications (e.g., with clothes presumably and all the rest), click the Export
button (it is next to the Save button, which at least looks a bit more clearer with its
icon of a floppy disk).

WARNING: We recommend that you don’t add genitals to your male figure as for
some reason, despite having clothes, the penis will stick out uncovered when
imported and rendered in Blender.

13. You can immediately type the name of the file to be exported, and next to it (on the
left), click the “….” Button to select the location for where the file should be saved.
14. Further to the left is a thing called “Mesh Format”. Click the check box that says,
“Blender exchange (mhx)”.
15. On the far right is a thing called “Options”. Put a “x” (should really be a tick) to say
you want “Feet on ground”, “Rotation Limits”, and “Export for Rigify”.
16. You are ready to click the Export button. So click it!
17. Go into Blender, open File menu, go into “Import”, and select “MakeHuman (mhx)”.
18. Find the mhx file and open it.
19. Give it a couple of seconds to show the image in the viewport.
20. Rendering the 3D object will reveal the figure has clothes and everything else you
have added to your model.
21. To manipulate your 3D model to fit certain poses, select “Pose Mode” in the same
menu where you would normally select “Edit Mode” and “Object Mode”. Clicking
on any one of the lines acting as the skeleton of the human figure will allow you to
move that line and, with it, the pose of the human figure.

Please note that the changes you have made in User Preferences will not be remembered the
next time you launch Blender. Due to the way PC developers have created this application,
you should save the configuration settings in the User Preferences in a separate file. You do
this as follows:

1. Open User Preferences under the File menu.

2. Click the “Input” tab.
3. Look at the bottom of the User Preferences window. There will be three buttons.
4. Click the button that says, “Export Key Configuration”. Save the file where it can be
easily accessed the next time you launch Blender. Click the Save button.
5. The next time you open Blender, go under File menu, select User Preferences, click
the “Input” tab, and click the button that says, “Import Key Configuration”. Find the
saved settings file. Import the file.
6. You are done!

The only reason it is this complicated is because PC developers of the Blender application
are not yet certain about when the application will be stable enough in the configuration
settings. Blender is still a work in progress. Since newer versions of Blender may add or
change certain settings, keeping a separate settings file at hand reduces the amount of re-
configuration work you have to do. Not perfect, but it can be a time-saver if you have set up
Blender in a particular way.

Smoothing out curved surfaces

Have you noticed the way certain 3D objects with curved surfaces (e.g., a sphere) will look
rather bumpy on the surface because of the limited number of faces? The reason for this is
because Blender chooses3D objects more quickly, but the result can be a loss of realism in
the final rendered result.

To smooth out curved surfaces:

1. Select the 3D object. Use the Outliner to select the object properly.
2. Switch to Edit Mode.
3. Press W while the cursor is in the viewport.
4. Select from the pop-up menu the option “Subdivide Smooth”.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you get the desired smoothness. But don’t over do it.
Blender will have to work harder to process the 3D object (e.g., adding a texture,
rotation etc.).

Next, we get into the slightly more interesting and useful tools for manipulating 3D objects
— in particular, how to move in a straight line (called transformation), rotate and scale 3D
objects.
8. Manipulating
3D objects
 Transformation, Rotation and Scale
Function Mode To Apply
Move object(s) through 3D Object or Select the object(s) or parts of the object
space Edit (i.e., vertex, edge or face). To move the
selection, press G (for Grab) and use a
single finger to move across the
trackpad (or move the mouse). The
selected object(s) or part of the object
will move at the same time. When
finished, touch again the trackpad, or
press the mouse button.

Or, press the 3D Manipulator Widget,

followed by the button next to it on the

right called the Translate Manipulator
Mode. Once the button is selected, move
the cursor to inside the white circle
where the colored arrows representing
the X, Y and Z axis originate from.
Press Shift key, click the left mouse
button down and move the mouse. For
Mac users with a trackpad, just click
down on the trackpad and keep it down
with one finger and use a second finger
to move around on the trackpad. This
will translate (or move) the object in any
direction.

NOTE: Have you made a mistake and

want to return to where you were
before? Press the Esc key. If you have
already moved the object, press
Command (or Ctrl for Window users) Z
to Undo last action.

Move object(s) through 3D Edit Select the objects. Then press G

space along the followed by X, Y or Z for the axes.
transformation axes (X, Y, Then move the object.
Z)
Or, press the 3D Manipulator Widget,

followed by the button next to it on the

right called the Translate Manipulator
 Mode. Move the cursor to one of the
coloured arrows on the axes displayed in
the viewport, and left click the mouse
button and drag the object. The object
will move along the axis you have
clicked on.

Rotate object(s) Edit Select the object(s) or parts of an object

and press R. Move single finger across
the trackpad to rotate the object. Touch
the trackpad a second time to lock the
new rotation in position, or press Esc to
return to where you were.

Or, press the 3D Manipulator Widget,

followed by the button called the Rotate

Manipulator Mode. Once the button is
selected, move the cursor to inside the
white circle where the coloured arrows
representing the X, Y and Z axes
originate from. Press Shift key, click the
left mouse button down and move the
mouse. For Mac users with a trackpad,
just click down on the trackpad and keep
it down with one finger and use a second
finger to move around on the trackpad
causing the object to rotate in any
direction.

Rotate object(s) around Edit Select the object and press R followed
transformation axes (X, Y, by X, Y or Z for the axes. Then rotate
Z) the object.

Or, press the 3D Manipulator Widget,

followed by the button called the Rotate

Manipulator Mode. Move the cursor to
one of the coloured lines representing
the X, Y and Z axes, left click the mouse
button and rotate the object. The object
will rotate along the axis you have
chosen.

Rotate object(s) by an Edit Select the object or parts of it. Press R

arbitrary angle followed by the number representing the
angle you want the object to be rotated
 by. For example, R-90 means the object
is rotated by -90 degrees.
Scale object(s) Edit Select object and press S. Move single
finger across the trackpad to scale the
object. Touch the trackpad a second time
to lock in the new size, or press Esc to
return to where you were.

Or, press the 3D Manipulator Widget,

followed by the button called the Scale

Manipulator Mode. Once the button is
selected, move the cursor to inside the
white circle where the coloured arrows
representing the X, Y and Z axes
originate from. Press Shift key, click the
left mouse button down and move the
mouse. For Mac users with a trackpad,
just click down on the trackpad and keep
it down with one finger while using a
second finger to move around on the
trackpad causing the object to scale up
or down.

Scale object(s) along axes Edit Select object and press S followed by X,
(X, Y, Z) Y or Z for the axes and scale the object
with your mouse or trackpad.

Or, press the 3D Manipulator Widget,

followed by the button called the Scale

Manipulator Mode. Move the cursor to
one of the coloured arrows representing
the X, Y and Z axes, left click the mouse
button and scale the object. The object
will scale up or down along the axis you
have chosen.

NOTE: Press the 3D Manipulator

Widget button again to remove the
coloured axes.

And now for some more manipulation techniques for you to try out.
 Stretch, Extrude and Duplicate
Show and Hide Object
Although you can essentially do this using layers, there are other ways of showing or hiding
3D objects in Blender.

Function Mode To Apply

Hide Selected Object(s) Edit Press H

Show Object(s) Edit Alt H (for PC), or Option H (for Mac)

Hide Unselected Object(s) Edit Shift H

NOTE: If 3D objects are missing in the scene and pressing Alt H (or Option H for Mac
users) does not show the object(s), make sure you are viewing the scene in Local mode.
Press / on the numpad for PC users, or choose “View Global/Local” in the View menu for
Mac users.

Stretch and Extrude Object

Function Mode To Apply
Stretch an object in any Edit Select vertices, edges or faces.
direction
Press G.

Touch trackpad with one finger and drag

to stretch 3D object.
Want to stretch an object Edit Select vertices, edges or faces.
but wish to lock the
stretching to a particular Press L G and either X, Y or Z.
axes
Touch trackpad with one finger and drag
to stretch 3D object.
Extrude vertices, edges or Edit Select the vertices, edges and/or faces on
faces of an object the object. Press the E kay for Extrude.
Use the mouse to drag the selection for
extrusion.

Duplicate Object
Function Mode To Apply
Duplicate (Unlink) Edit Select object or part of an object to
duplicate. Press Shift D to duplicate the
 selection including materials and texture
data. You will automatically be taken to
Grab mode where you can move the
selected duplicate object away from the
original object to any position in 3D
space.

VERY IMPORTANT: A common

source of frustration for newcomers is
how a duplicated object can continue to
be linked in unexpected ways, especially
when it comes to selecting just the
duplicate object and not the original
object. To ensure the selection of a
duplicate object remains unlinked to the
original so you can move the duplicated
object and apply different settings, Press
P to the selected duplicate object the
moment it has been duplicated and move
it from the original.

Duplicate (Link) Edit To retain mesh object data linking such

that any changes to the shape of an
original object is automatically
transferred across to the other duplicate
object(s) and vice versa, press Ctrl/Alt
D.

Duplicate object to another Edit or There is no copy and paste commands in

Blender file (equivalent to Object Blender. Use File-->Append, or File--
copy and paste) >Link to grab the object from another
file and bring it across to a new Blender
file.

Change Object Handle Type for Bezier Curves

Function Mode To Apply
Create Vector Handles Edit If you have created a bezier curve and
Blender draws the curve in a smooth
rounded nature, you can change it to a
sharp edged straight (or zig-zag) line
effect (useful for creating lightning bolts
etc) by selecting the handles at the end
of the bezier curve and then press V.
Select Vector.

Extend bezier curve Edit Select centre handle at end of bezier

curve, press Ctrl key down and start
moving and clicking the mouse button to
extend the curve.
Convert 3D Bezier Curve Edit Press Option/Ctrl C and choose “Mesh
to a Mesh from Curve”.

NOTE: Useful to UV unwrap a 3D

object and apply texture effects. To do
this, select the mesh 3D object in Edit
mode, press U and select Project from
View. Rotate and scale up or down the
projected mesh object to fill the grid so
you can apply a texture effect correctly.
Go into Texture and apply what you
want.
 9. Advanced
Manipulation
Techniques
 Sculpting objects
Sculpt Mode
This mode is designed to create highly sophisticated shapes on a selected 3D object by
using tools to mold the object. The technique of sculpting is similar to selecting parts of an
object and using the transformation, scaling or rotation tools to manipulate the selection,
except the Sculpt mode is much more flexible and accurate to get the desired object design
you want.

Begin by selecting Sculpt mode (from the same pop-up menu for selecting Object or Edit
Mode):

NOTE: Make sure you have properly selected the 3D object to see Sculpt Mode in the pop-
up menu (see earlier discussion on what to do if you have trouble seeing this option in the
menu).

With Sculpt Mode selected, use the View pop-up menu next to the mode selector menu to
help you choose a view to make sculpting easier to perform. For example, choose Top view
and remove Perspective view.

Are you ready? Then start sculpting and molding the 3D object using tools called Draw,
Pinch, Smooth, Inflate, Flatten etc. You will find these tools in the Tool Shelf in the left
pane. Press T if the left pane is missing.
Choose type of brush (click on the graphic picture representing the type of brush and the
effect it performs) and radius size and the level of sculpting the tool will achieve (known as
the strength).
10. Camera
Navigation
 Manipulating the camera object
When you have finished sculpting your masterpiece (or 3D model) and feeling more like a
professional in using Blender (congratulations!), press 0 on the numpad (for Mac users, just
press 0 assuming you have set up Blender to be more Mac friendly) to see the model from
the camera view. This is particularly important as this will tell you how the final rendered
image will look when you tell Blender to render the scene and show you the final picture
(the point at which you see how photorealistic everything looks, but only after we have set
the lighting and applied certain textures and their properties will this magic happen for
you).

Not happy with the position of the camera?

To shift camera view, press Shift F and move the camera with your mouse (or trackpad). If
you have pressed the 0 key, you can watch it through the camera as you move it. Press the –
and + keys (keep it pressed for a second or two) to move the camera away or closer to the
scene. When you are happy with the camera; click the mouse button to lock in the camera’s
new position.

For a quicker way to move the camera:

1. Navigate the scene normally until you are happy with the view.
2. Press Ctrl Alt [0 on the numpad] (for PC users) or Ctrl Option 0 (for Mac users, so
long as the numpad is emulated in Blender to use the numbers across the top of the
keyboard) to move the active camera and make it point at the new view.

Or perhaps the best and most precise way of controlling the camera object and position it
where you want and know it is looking in the right direction and have the scene within the
precise boundaries of the camera view, press 0 to view the scene through the selected
camera. With the cursor in the viewport, press N to access the Properties side panel. Look
for “Lock Camera to View” option in the View tab of this side panel. Put a tick in the check
box to enable this option. You will see the boundary of the camera view change to a red
colour. Now that you have the camera locked to the view as you are seeing the scene,
navigate 3D space in the usual way. Move in or out or rotate in space until your have the 3D
objects positioned just right within the view. When you do, the camera will have moved
with you and looking in the same precise way as you see it. Now if you want to keep the
camera object in that very spot in 3D space and looking at what you want and never to lose
it as you later move around the scene, just remove the tick in the check box to unlock the
camera from the view.

How easy is it now?

If you are not sure where to find this camera locking to the view option, this snapshot of the
Blender user interface should help:
Would you like to have several cameras positioned in different spots within 3D space to
make it easier to view the scene quickly? Duplicate the camera object, make it the active
camera, and move the duplicated “active” camera to the new position. In fact, the quickest
way to make a selected camera object the active camera and to view what it sees, press Ctrl
0.

A tip to remember

Speaking of making a camera active, it can be a source of frustration for newcomers to

Blender how sometimes the camera object is not the active camera for some reason, and
each time you press 0 it seems you have the camera object in the right position and looking
at the scene correctly. Yet somehow when you render the scene, the 3D objects do not
appear. You can be scratching your head looking at lighting, materials and render layers as
well as the object layers thinking everything is okay but can’t figure out why it won’t
render.

Here is an important tip to solve this conundrum. Go into the Scene panel:
Open the triangle icon for Scene if it isn’t already open and look at the name of the object
for the Camera. If it isn’t “Camera” or whatever name you have given to your active
camera, the renderer will see nothing even if you can see through the camera object by
pressing 0. Make sure the active camera name is clearly displayed in the Scene panel.

Also check to see that you have selected the layers containing your 3D objects. Sometimes
the layers may not be active, causing the 3D objects to disappear.

Now you should be able to render the scene through the active camera. Before we do, let us
jazzy up the look of our 3D objects with textures and materials. We do this by going into
Materials Mode.

Here the fun begins (in a good way that is!).

11. Adding
Textures
 Materials Mode
Now things get more fun.

To create realistic-looking objects reminiscent of wood,

glass, metal or other textures or to simply colour in a 3D
object, you apply materials to the entire or parts of an
object and then adjust material properties such as
specular and transparency to achieve the desired effect
you want.

A critical thing to remember is that any new object in 3D

space comes without a material. Think of a material as
like the clothes you wear. When you first appear in 3D
space, you are actually naked. So we have to create a
material for the object in the Materials Mode. Once you
have a material defined and placed on the 3D object, you
can define the texture effect (whether it should be shiny
or not and other properties) you want the material to
display when the 3D object is rendered in the final
picture.

You will find the Materials Mode by clicking on the red

sphere icon in the right pane (see image on the left) like
so:

Select face(s) on the object, or select the entire object.

Next, click the New button in the Materials panel. An
image of a sphere will appear in Preview. The sphere is
your sample rendered object showing the effect you’ve
applied after manipulating a few settings.

Note that the name “Material” can be changed. You can

change the name in the field below the Assign button
and next to the red sphere. Once you have named the
material, click the Assign button. This is important to
ensure the material is assigned to the object selection.

Open Diffuse option (the little black arrow should be

clicked). Click into the white coloured box to select a
different colour. The white box will change to the colour
you have chosen and this will be displayed in the
selected areas of the object in real-time.
Open the Specular option. This gives you the option to generate the appearance of a matte
(like a squash ball) or gloss finish (like a billiard ball) on the surface of the 3D object. A
gloss finish will have the effect of being able to reflect light off its surface. A matte surface
is the opposite. The reflected light of a gloss surface can also be set to a different colour, but
usually you would keep the reflected light colour as white for a realistic gloss or semi-gloss
surface look. The gloss look is particular good for creating realistic glass-like surfaces. For
cloth or wood-like surfaces, you would set the specular value very low for a more non-
reflective finish.

Open the Transparency option to give the object the effect of looking like glass by setting
the level of transparency you want.

However, if you want the material to look like metal, wood, water or something else, you
have to go into the Textures panel.

On entering the Textures panel, no textures have been defined for this object. So click the
New button. A sample Preview of a standard texture will be shown.
Now choose a texture of your choice. It means if you go into the pop-up menu called Type,
you can select available textures for Blender 3D, or choose a custom image by selecting
Image or Movie.

For a custom image file, you will see two buttons called New and Open. Click the Open
button. In the Open dialog window (uniquely designed for Blender by the PC developers),
find the image file on your hard disk and open it. The file will be opened and the texture
shown in the Materials panel.

Need more textures? Visit http://www.cgtextures.com or

http://www.handpaintedtextures.com where you can find many high-resolution textures
ready to be tiled together in a seamless way in Blender. Some textures you may have to pay
for, but given the quality you get, it is probably worth the cost. To save on money
purchasing unnecessary textures you may never use and so ensure the textures are right for
you, download the low-resolution images directly from the web sites and add them to your
3D objects. If you are happy with the textures and how they look on the objects to the point
where it is unlikely you will change them, purchase the high-resolution version for a more
dramatic result.

Copying and Pasting Materials and Textures

A critical aspect of establishing material settings and applying textures is the ability to copy
these settings and textures across to selected 3D objects. Fortunately the PC developers of
Blender have thought of this aspect very carefully. Leaving aside the poor user interface
design, it means you can press the rather obscure button called Copy/Paste, which has a
down arrow icon in it:

Once you have discovered this button and what it does, a pop-up menu will appear:

Choose your option from the menu.

So what you do is:

1. Select an object or part of an object (i.e. a face) containing the correct material
settings and texture.
2. Copy Material (or texture).
3. Select other objects.
4. Paste Material (or texture).

With the textures and materials defined and placed on your 3D object(s), you are ready to
render.

Yippy!

Changing the background of the 3D scene

To change the background of the 3D scene (called the world), go into the World property
editor.
When deciding on a suitable background, look at the nature of your 3D objects. If it relates
to real-life objects, choose a realistic background to achieve the desired realism you want
For example, if the 3D objects are planets of the solar system, a black background is usually
fine. However, if the object shows a jumbo jet, perhaps a light blue background is
sufficient.

Of course, you can be as creative as you like here. Unless the aim of your 3D work is to
create cartoons or unique artwork, usually 3D work is aimed at creating the most realistic
results possible.

For a quick change of the background to a solid color, click “Horizon Color” and choose
the color you want.

Advanced texture mapping

A simple and straight UN unwrap method may work in most cases where the object has
square faces making up the entire mesh for describing the object’s shape. However,
sometimes you do need to simplify the unwrapping process so you can add textures (or
paint colors) easily to the right faces before it is re-wrapped automatically by Blender to
create a perfectly textures 3D object.

For this to work:

1. Look for areas anywhere on the object’s surface where the faces are effectively
triangles. It is important you find ways to shrink these triangles out of existence for
this method to work proporly (for example, after creating a sphere, the poles where
the mesh faces join up to a point are essentially triangles. So select the triangular
faces around this point and shrink them to the point. This will permit the next set of
mesh faces to have proper four edges (even if one of the edge is very short to look
like a point).
2. To create a neat unwrapped “rectangular” surface, mark a seam along a selected edge
running one half of the object. This is where Blender will cut the mesh to create a
neat rectangular unwrapped mesh grid.
3. With the “face select” button pressed, move the object to a position that will allow
you to choose the largest four-sided square or rectangular mesh face —you will want
one that's not trapezoidal or rhombus-like in shape. Press the Command key down
and click into the mesh face. It will appear to be selected, but this is a special type of
selection.
4. Now press Shift A. All the other faces will be selected but not the square you selected
in the previous step.
5. With the cursor still in the Viewport, press U.
6. Choose “Follow Active Quads”
7. If you open the UV Image Editor, the mesh faces for the entire object will be
wrapped as a neat rectangular sheet. You will then be able to apply textures or colors
 to selected faces and these will be wrapped and placed correctly to the object when
rendered.

What if my textures on 3D objects are not showing when I render them?

This is particularly common problem when using the Cycles Render. You can have
moments when you know with absolute certainty that you have added textures to 3D objects
and in the standard Blender Render mode the textures will appear fine. Switch over to
Cycles Render and you will be scratching your head wondering why it does not show the
textures.

Cycles Render is one of those special rendering engines that uses a different approach to
adding and showing textures. In fact, it is so different that it has the power to befuddle even
a seasoned Blender user.

With this in mind, we recommend you do the following to each of the 3D objects that have
textures in Cycle Blender mode:

1. Select a 3D object that you know has a texture (and hence a material) added to it.
2. Let’s go over to the Node Editor by clicking the tiny Cube icon in the bottom far left
corner of the viewport window.
3. With the cursor in the viewport, press Shift A and look for the names of each of the
“nodes” shown in the picture below, adding each one individually. If you need to find
them quickly. Choose the Search option and type the name of the node, such as
“Mapping”, “Transparent BDSF”, “Image Texture” etc.
 4. Have you noticed in this picture how each node has connecting lines between them?
This is important to include in your Blender file. As you can see, the lines come out
of and go into what appears to be small colored circles. This might give you a clue as
to what to do next. Or more specifically, click on one of the circle that sits on the
right of a node (the one containing a connecting line according to the above picture)
and with the mouse button pressed down, drag the circle (a line will appear instead)
and join the line formed to the correct circle showing on the left side of the
appropriate node. Repeat this process for all other connecting circles.
5. Once you have all the lines joined up. You can render the scene to see if the textures
of the selected object do appear. Technically they should using what should be a
foolproof and flexible setup in the Nodes Editor viewport.
6. Once you see the texture has appeared as it should, press Esc key to return to the
Nodes Editor viewport. Press A to select all the nodes (remember to place the cursor
in the viewport).
7. Choose Copy (press Command C, or Ctrl C for PC users).
8. Select another 3D object using the Outliner.
9. Choose Paste (press Command V, or Ctrl V for PC users) while the cursor is in the
Node Editor viewport window.
10. Repeat steps 8 and 9 for the remaining objects (but do not select the light source or
camera objects, since these do not traditionally come with textures).
11. You are done!

For more details about what the Node Editor is all about, see the chapter titled Compositing.
Essentially the node editor just summarizes all the options you have applied to a selected
texture in the properties editor panel in a mode visual way with boxes and lines connecting
together.

I can’t remove unused textures from Blender. Why?

A very good question. Welcome to another example of a Blender quirk courtesy of the PC
developers.

Please remember that you can indeed remove textures in Blender (if they are not linked to
any 3D object), but not while Blender and the file is still open. You can go into the Textures
properties editor panel, see some old textures you have decided not to use. You select them
from the pop-up menu list and click the “X” next to it. Blender claims those textures are
gone until you look at the textures list again and wonder, “What have I done wrong? Should
they have disappeared?”

Technically yes. However, thanks to our beloved PC developers of Blender, the

methodology to achieve this seemingly simple task is bizarre to say the least.

The recommendation of how to not see these old textures is for you to proceed as usual with
deleting old textures in the way you understand it. But if you want to see the textures
disappear properly, save the file, quit Blender, and re-open the Blender file. Then the
textures will be gone.

Does it make sense now?

12. Rendering
the 3D scene
 Renderer Mode
Wow! You have managed to reach this point without being deterred by the strange user
interface quirks from the beloved PC developers of Blender. Well done! It means you are
ready to see the final results of your modeling and texturizing of objects in a process known
as rendering. Before we do, it is important to check the camera and lighting source objects
at this stage.

1. Check the active camera object

Press the 0 (zero) key on the numpad. You will be looking through the “active” camera.
Why? It is because whatever the camera sees is what will get rendered. Get yourself into a
habit of checking the camera view from time-to-time, especially if you have moved the
camera object or chosen a different active camera, as rendering is based entirely on what the
“active” camera sees. If the camera can’t see your objects, your rendered scene will show
you nothing.

Does your camera view look a little empty? Either the camera object is not in the scene or it
is facing in the wrong direction. Two options are available to you to fix the camera
problem. You can either get into Object mode and add the camera (if it doesn’t exist) from
the Add menu, or you can adjust the position and angle of the existing camera object in the
scene.

Once you have the camera object in 3D space, select the camera object (use the Outliner
panel to select “camera”), press G for grab and move with the mouse or trackpad the camera
object to where you want it. Press R to rotate the camera object until it is facing in the right
direction towards the objects.

NOTE: The rectangle base of the pyramid-like camera object shows you the direction the
camera is facing. Anything in front of this rectangular base is going to be the rendered
scene.

Or alternatively, you can move all the objects until they are in front of the camera,
whichever is easiest or makes sense to you.

Press 0 on the numpad again to see whether the objects appear in the camera view and are
positioned just right. Press Shift F to make tiny camera adjustments. Perfect. The camera
position is ready.

2. Check the lighting source object(s)

The final step before rendering is checking your lighting source object(s). This is vital,
because without light, no 3D object will be visible and the rendered scene will look entirely
black. For 3D objects to be visible, they must reflect light from their surfaces, which means
the light must come from a source (or sources). Therefore, you must add and/or move
lighting source object(s) to help shine light on your 3D objects in the right way. As God
once said, “Let there be light!” and there was light. So you must be a god in your 3D scene
by adding light source(s).

Remember, the lack of any light source anywhere in your 3D scene

effectively means your objects will be rendered black. It is,
therefore, essentially that you have at least one lighting source
somewhere in your scene (usually in front of the 3D objects, either
in between or behind the active camera object). Remember, you
won’t see the light source when rendered if the “Blender Render”
option is selected. Of course, in “Cycle Render”, any object turned
into a light source will be visible. So, with the light source selected,
it is fairly important to untick the check box next to “Camera” in the
Object properties editor panel (see picture on the left for a screen
snapshot).

You add a light source object through the Add menu. Make sure you
are in Object mode when you do this. Press G for grab to move the
lighting source object to the right position. Make sure the position of
the light source is such that the light rays emanating from it will
definitely hit the surface and get reflected or emitted in the direction
of the camera (remember how a mirror works when reflecting
light?). If you feel the intensity of the light source is not strong enough, the distance to the
3D objects is not too critical as you can always increase the light
intensity.

To change the lighting source settings, such as light intensity, go

to the properties editor and select the Object Data panel. Make
sure you have selected “Lamp” or whatever the name of the light
source is for the correct data settings to appear in the panel.

The most popular choice of a lighting source is “Sun”. Use it to

send light in all directions to help light up as many surfaces as
possible. Other options include spotlight. And if you choose
Cycle Render, virtually any 3D object can be turned into a
lighting source.

Once you are happy with camera and lighting objects, you are
ready to render the 3D scene.

The steps to perform a final render is actually quite easy

(compared to just about everything else about Blender)!
3. Rendering the 3D scene

Press the fn (function) button followed by F12 to render (Note: Expose of OSX could be
assigned this function key so remove it in the Expose and Spaces system preference pane).
Or go into the Render panel and click the Image button.

To get out of the rendered image and back to your 3D modeling scene, move the cursor
inside the viewport and press Esc button.

In Dimensions under the Render panel, you can specify the rendered image size and
resolution (in terms of number of pixels for both width and length), and whether you want
anti-aliasing.

NOTE: Blender does not show a numerical number representing the resolution in dots per
inch (dpi) to complement picture size. You have to convert the image size to the required
dpi resolution (e.g. 300dpi) using a separate image editor (e.g. Adobe Photoshop). When
you do this, turn off the option in the image editor to resample the image to the new image
size.

In Output under the Render panel, specify whether you want PNG, TIFF, JPG or other
graphic file format for the rendered scene image when it is saved, the location of the image
file where it should be saved, and specify if the image should be black and white (BW) or
color (RGB) and the color depth (8- or 16-bits).

Finally, when the image is rendered, press fn key followed by F3. A save dialog window
will appear. Save the rendered image file. You can then import the image into any other
application.

NOTE: The Animation button in the Render properties editor panel is different. It will
automatically save the file for you in the location you have specified. The standard Render
button, other other hand, does not. So remember to press [fn] F3 to save the final rendered
image.
13. Compositing
 Compositing
Doing more with the renderer
Rendering is great. However, there is a little understood feature for newcomers considered
one of the most useful and powerful tools you have in Blender. It is designed to help you
apply special effects (not unlike the filters you apply to a graphic image in Adobe
Photoshop) to rendered 3D objects of your choice so that when the time comes to render the
3D scene, those objects that need the special effects are rendered separately and the special
effects applied, and later they are added or mixed with other rendered objects to create the
final composite rendered picture.

Adding special effects is great for things like creating a blur effect on a 3D object that is
meant to be moving or would appear naturally blurred as in a lightning bolt. Of course, you
can apply any number of other special effect to any 3D object.

To better appreciate this feature, you must first decide which of the 3D object in your 3D
scene will benefit from a special effect if applied. Once you have worked this out, you need
to separate the 3D object from the rest of the scene, since naturally you are not going to
apply the special effects to all the 3D objects, only just the part that needs it. So here are the
steps to applying a filter:

1. In Object or Edit mode, use the selection tools to select the 3D object.

2. In Object mode and with the cursor in the viewport, press M. A window will appear
and you will see buttons arranged in a grid-like fashion. If you have some familiarity
with Blender 3D, you will recognize these buttons as the layers buttons. In fact, that
is exactly what they are.

3. Click a different layer button to the one where the object is currently located. This
will move the object to a new layer.

4. Click the Render button.

5. By default, all rendering is done once on all the 3D objects. A default name is given
to this render called “RenderLayer” Thus when the name is highlighted by clicking
on it, you will see below the same layer buttons, but this time all the layer buttons
have been turned on. This means all the 3D objects stored in their own layers are
brought across to the Render engine and rendered once to create the scene. However,
we need to tell the Render engine to break the rendering into individual renders in
order to apply the effects we want on specific layers.
6. Rename “RenderLayer” to “Scene” or other name to represent the 3D object you
have stored in Layer 1. Click Layer 1 button in the render panel to make sure only
Layer 1 is rendered normally.

7. Click the + button to create a new Render layer. Name the layer something else. Let’s
call it “Object Effect”. Click Layer 2 button in the render panel to tell it the rendering
to the 3D object in Layer 2 will be performed separately from the other render layer.

8. Turn off Sky option for all the render layers.

9. Turn off Mask Layers buttons.

10. Now re-render the image by pressing fn key followed by F12. You need to do this
before we enter the compositor.

11. To see the Compositor, press Ctrl Left Arrow, or choose Node Editor from the Editor
Type menu (next to the View menu). To get out of the Compositor at any time, press
Ctrl Right Arrow.

12. Make sure in the Compositor window that the check box called “Use Nodes” has a
tick in it. You should see two boxes called “Nodes” and a link between them between
two yellow dots. If you don’t, you will get an error message during rendering stating
“No render output node in scene”. If you ever see this message, the following two
default nodes need to be added (a) Render Layers; and (b) Composite. You add these
nodes in the Add menu (next to the Node menu). Hence Add->>Input-->Render
Layers and Add-->Output-->Composite. Drag and drop the input yellow dot marked
“Image” in one node to “Image” in the output node. That’s it. When you render the
3D scene normally, the information will pass through these nodes and get processed
to produce the final rendered output scene.

13. However, you will need additional nodes in between the input and output nodes.
These additional nodes tell how to apply special effects. So, for now, you need to
break the link between the nodes and start creating new links starting from the input
node (the output Composite node is not needed and can be deleted).

14. The input node you have is likely to be focusing on rendering just one render layer Of
course, you are going to need to grab all the render layers, apply special filters on one
or two of these layers, and combine these layers with other layers to form the final
composite rendered picture. So add new Render Layer input nodes to the Compositor
window and change the render layer to focus on from the pop-up menu.

15. If you want to see the rendered images of each of these input nodes, you can add an
Output node called a Viewer. Once linked to the input node, you will see the output
rendered image as a backdrop in the Compositor window by putting a tick in the
backdrop check box.
16. For the purposes of creating a special effect, you will not need the output viewer node
at this stage. Remove the output viewer node from the Render Layer input node
where you are going to apply a special filter.

17. To apply a special effect to a rendered image for one Render Layer, go into the Add
menu and choose a filter or some other function you wish to apply to the rendered
image. For the sake of an example in this case, let’s choose Add-->Filter-->Blur. The
Blur filter node appears. Create a link between the two yellow dots.

18. To see the effect of this filter to the output rendered image, add an Output Viewer
node and link it to the Blur Filter node. With the backdrop option turned on, you
should see what will happen.

19. Use Add-->Color-->Mix to add a Mix Node and an extra Output Viewer node so you
can click into it (always remember to click into a Viewer node in order to view the
output) and see the rendered result. Create links where appropriate to get the result
you want. Here is a typical link and node structure
 20. Simplify the nodes and you could have something like this;

21. Everything looks fine in the backdrop rendered image? No worries. Now add the
Output Composite node and drag the expected output to the composite node. When
you do this, you can click the fn key followed by F12 (or click Image button in the
Render panel) to render the 3D scene including applying the filters to get the final
rendered result.

Problems rendering certain 3D objects?

If you have any rendering issues for certain 3D objects not appearing in the rendered scene
after adding a few new nodes and relinking everything (and rechecking the node links), put
a tick in the check box that says “AutoRender”. And, if texture, lighting, camera position
and ensuring the camera is active are okay, and the render layers are properly defined and
included as RenderLayer nodes in the compositor, open up the RenderLayer node
corresponding to the problematic 3D object and click the camera icon button to force a
render.

Alternatively, create a new RenderLayer node and select the render layer containing the 3D
object and redirect the Output Composite node link to this new render layer node. Use this
method to eliminate other nodes as somehow contributing to the rendering problem.
14. Animation
 How to Animate
So, you have reached this far and want to do more with Blender. Fortunately, Blender does
offer one more trick up its sleeve. It is called animation. If you are familiar with Adobe
After Effects and its ability to animate objects in a composition, the idea is the same. The
only thing you will have to remember is that there will be some user interface differences in
the way you go about animating things in Blender compared to Adobe After Effects. But by
the time you see where everything is placed, you should be right at home with animation in
Blender.

The basics

First thing to remember is that the 3D scene you can see in the viewport is essentially your
composition. A composition is a place where you show one aspect of a story. And a story
will contain multiple compositions that need to be linked together in the right order in order
to tell the story clearly and with some interest (and hopefully be entertaining too). However,
in Blender, to make multiple compositions, you effectively need to produce an individual
Blender file for each composition.

To keep things simple, let us assume you do have a blender file opened and contains a 3D
object and this is the only composition that needs to be animated. For this exercise, let the
3D object be a cube.
With the cube in position and ready for animating, we can animate either this object
directly, or any other object in the scene (such as the camera), so as time goes by, the object
will appear to move. Blender can achieve this seemingly complex task using the animation
tools available at the bottom of the Blender window, as shown here:

The top part of the animation tools is perhaps the most important. It is the one containing
the green line. This is your timeline for controlling when certain animations can take place
and for how long.

Within the timeline, you can move the green line anywhere you like. For a 3D object
already set for animation, moving the green line along the timeline will help you see the
animation in progress.

To convert frames into seconds (a useful piece of knowledge to have), a typical

documentary film or movie you see on television or in the cinemas shows 24 frames per
second. Assuming this standard number of frames per second is kept for your animation
(we recommend that you do to ensure a relatively smooth animation effect), it means you
have approximately 10.4 seconds available for your animation. You can increase or
decrease the number of frames (and hence the number of seconds) by moving the green line
to a position along the timeline and pressing E on the keyboard. Or you can type the end
frame number just below the timeline (you will see this where it says “End:” and “250”). If
you want to have a different starting frame number, move the green line to where you want
it in the timeline and press S, or enter the frame number in the Start field below the
timeline. And if you want precise control of where the green line is positioned on the
timeline, type the frame number here:

The bottom part of the animation tools, as you may have noticed, is the place where you tell
Blender to do certain things to achieve the kind of animation you want. You can either let
Blender choose the default settings and in most cases the animation will look fine, or you
can fine tune the animation by using the graph editor. For simplicity sake, let us accept the
default values from Blender as we record our animation.
Now how do we record animation in Blender? The process involves doing the following:

1. Place the green line on a position somewhere along the timeline (in most cases, you
probably want to start a frame 0, so check to see if the green line is at this position).
We will assume this position is where you want the animation to begin.
2. Select the 3D object or part of the object you want animated.
3. Make sure the initial settings for the object such as position, rotation, scale and other
properties are just right in the initial animation frame scene.
4. Choose the setting or settings that will be animated. For example, you may choose to
animate the object by position only, or perhaps a combination of position and
rotation.
5. Record in Blender the relevant setting(s) to be animated for the selected 3D object in
the current initial frame (by pressing the letter I on the keyboard and selecting the
setting or settings combination to be recorded).
6. Move the green line forward (or backwards) to another position on the timeline.
7. Change the setting(s) for the selected 3D object. If the animation is based on position,
click G for grab and move the object to a different position.
8. Record in Blender the new setting (repeat by pressing the letter I and selecting the
correct setting or settings combination to be recorded). Blender will then calculate
automatically what needs to be done to change the 3D object to match the start and
end points and for all frames in between these points.This is how animation is
created.

How will you know the setting(s) have been recorded? Blender will let tell you this through
the placement of a yellow marker in the timeline called a keyframe. You can’t see it? No
surprises here. The way thebasic timeline is designed by Blender developers, the marker is
actually a line hidden by the green line marker. Move the green line to see this yellow line
hidden underneath. Just another quirk of Blender’s user interface to get used to. Once you
realize the recording has been made, move the green line to a different position in the
timeline. Now you can change the way the 3D object looks. You then record the new
setting(s) for the 3D object, and that’s it! Afterwards, every frame between the two recorded
“yellow lines” keyframes are calculated by Blender so as you move the green line between
these two keyframes, the animation takes place in a smooth way. The process of calculating
what needs to be shown between the start and end points (marked by the keyframes) is
called interpolation.

By default, the interpolation can be a straight-line method. However, for greater realism,
such as a cube accelerating and decelerating near the start and end points, Blender chooses a
Bezier curve. You can see this by clicking Graph Editor in the animation tools menu.
Otherwise, without the curve, the object may suddenly start, move at constant speed
throughout, and abruptly stop at the end point. Usually in real life this is not how objects
move.
Creating your first animation in more details.

In the example of a cube, let us tell Blender to rotate it over a specified time frame within
the timeline in a direction of our own choosing.

1. Move the green line to where you want the animation to begin. If you want to start at
the beginning of the timeline, enter a value of 1 (this represents frame 1).
2. Select the cube (as we will animate the entire object). For PC users, right click on the
mouse button the object itself (for Mac users, use the appropriate key and mouse
combination).
3. Press I. A pop-up menu appears.
4. Click on the option in the pop-up menu called “Rotation”. This action records the
rotation property of the cube as it appears in the viewport for the current frame, and is
marked in the timeline as a keyframe. To see the keyframe move the green line
forward in the timeline. Can you see a yellow line in the timeline? This is your
keyframe. The keyframe only appears when the animated part of the 3D object (in
this case the cube) is selected.
5. With the green line positioned in another frame, click R for rotate, and rotate the cube
to where you want it. Be rough about it for this example. Use the mouse to rotate it in
any direction you like. After you have given the cube a few rotations, click the mouse
button to set the new rotation value.
6. Press I again, and click on “Rotation” to record the new rotation information and
create the second keyframe.
7. Now if you move the green line between these two yellow lines, you will observe the
cube rotating as Blender calculates the information needed to animate the cube.

Congratulations! You have created your first animation in Blender.

After defining your keyframes, you can manipulate these keyframes. For example, press G
to grab and move keyframes. Press Shift and right click on the mouse to select any number
of keyframes and press G to move them all at once. Press B to box select a group of
keyframes. To duplicate keyframe(s), press Shift D. If you need to move to the beginning or
end of the timeline, press Shift [Left Arrow] or Shift [Right Arrow] keys.

With everything all set in the timeline, we are ready to preview the animation and see what
it looks like.

To play the animation:

1. Move the green line in the timeline to where you want to start playing the animation.
2. In the lower right corner of the animation tools, you see what looks like tiny buttons
for playing at normal speed and fast forward and similar buttons when moving the
animation backwards. These buttons are definied slightly differently than you expect.
 The two middle buttons allow you to play forward or backwards. The next two outer
buttons allow you to skip to the next or previous keyframe, and the outermost buttons
will get you to the beginning or end of the timeline. To play the animation, click the
button with the triangle inside pointing to the right.
3. For keyboard commands, PC users can use the two-key combination Alt A to play
and pause the animation. Use the Left and Right Arrow keys to skip to the previous
or next keyframe. And press Shift [Up Arrow] or Shift [Down Arrow] to jump in 10-
frame increments.

Are you happy with your animation? It is time for you to render the animation.

Rendering the animation

Rendering an animation is not unlike going into the Render properties editor and clicking
the Render button. However, there is a specific button for rendering animations. And there
are a few settings you need to check in Blender before you can go ahead and render the
animation.

Here are the steps to rendering an animation:

1. After your animation scene has been created and saved in your Blender file (always
save the file prior to rendering your animation in case Blender decides to crash in the
middle of rendering, which is rare these days but it can happen), press 0 on the
numpad (for Mac users who have set up their keyboard to handle numpad keys, just
press the number 0 in the normal way on the top part of the keyboard).
2. You will be looking through the active camera, showing what part of the scene will
be rendered. If the animation scene is not positioned correctly within the active
camera view, select the active camera (if necessary just use the outliner to select the
object called “camera”), press G and move the mouse or swipe across the trackpad
with a finger to move the camera. You can also use the key combination Shift F for
finer adjustments.
3. Happy with the position of the active camera? Okay, let us go to the Render
properties editor panel.
4. There is a section within the panel called “Dimensions”. You need to check this as
Blender’s default values or ones specified in a previous Blender project may be
different to what you want. By default, the resolution has been set to those found in
High-Definition (HD) television, which is 1920 (width) by 1080 (height) pixels.
Probably fine for most situations. You can adjust the resolution in case you have a
different purpose. However, please note that this resolution will be scaled down to
50% according to the value shown directly below the resolution values. Choose
100%.
5. One the right of resolution is the frame range. This refers to the start and end frame
number on the timeline you want rendered. Usually this starts at frame number 0 and
ends at whatever the frame number the animation ends at. Make sure these numbers
are correct.
6. There are other settings you may wish to change. For now, let us stick to 24 frames
per second etc.
7. The next thing to do is to scroll down the Render properties panel. You will see a
pop-up menu button with the word “PNG” on it. This is the file format of the file that
will store the animation scene. Clicking on it will let you change the file format to
QuickTime (mainly for Macs), AVI (for PCs), or MP4 (for internet or general cross-
platform use). Or you can save each frame in the animation sequence as individual
graphic files (which you can later combine to create a high resolution and sharp
movie file using the right tools). You choose what is best for you (so many choices!).
 8. Click just above this file format button to tell Blender the location where you want to
store the rendered animation file (or files). The default value set by Blender is in a
temporary folder called “tmp”. Let us choose the Desktop for easy access to the
rendered file (for individual graphic files, we recommend you save them in a folder
on the Desktop).
9. Now you are ready to render your animation. Scroll the Render properties editor
panel to the top. Look for the section in the panel called “Render”. In version 2.76 of
Blender, you will see three buttons for rendering: Render, Animation, and Audio. For
this example, let us render the animation (we will not worry about adding an audio
file to the movie file at this present time). We do this by clicking the “Animation”
button. Blender begins processing each frame in the timeline. You can see where
Blender is at in the top left corner—a frame number will appear telling you the
current frame being rendered.

Please note that for complex 3D objects, rendering an animation can take many hours to
complete. Patience is definitely a virtue here (or buy a powerful enough computer, as the
professionals do).

An annoying feature of Blender animation

Are you familiar with the way Adobe After effects works by showing all the keyframes for
any object or composition at any time and being able to use the timeline as a proper editor?
You are not alone. The timeline shown below the viewport is very basic. It shows nothing
more than simple information about a selected 3D object and any possible animation
settings made for it via keyframes. If you do not select the right 3D object, you may never
know if keyframes exist for any object.

The best thing you have got to seeing what is going on in all 3D objects is to use what PC
developers call the Dope Sheet feature. No, we are not trying to be rude or anything. That is
the way it is called (it was originally called the Action Sheet editor in version 2.5 and earlier
of Blender).

You will find the Dope Sheet by clicking the tiny icon in the far bottom left corner of the
animation tools. This pop-up menu is the place where you choose the type of editor you
want when refining the settings saved for your animations. If you are confused about where
it is, the following screen shot of the Blender user interface should get you in the right
direction.
When you select Dope Sheet editor, the basic timeline editor changes to the Dope Sheet
editor’s own timeline and with keyframe markers looking a lot like what you see in Adobe
After Effects. Not quite perfect since those 3D objects without animation will not appear, so
you cannot create new keyframes in the Dope Sheet for those 3D objects (you need to go
back to the basic timeline to achieve this basic task). Only those 3D objects with animation
set for them (i.e., having keyframes) will appear in the Dope Sheet editor. Certainly better
than the basic timeline.

Use two-fingers swiping on the trackpad for Mac users while the cursor is in the Dope
Sheet editor to move along the new timeline either left or right. Press G to grab all the
keyframes (they happen to be all selected for you by Blender by default with their
distinctive and bright yellow colour) and move them to where you want. Selecting
individual keyframes is slightly more difficult than in After Effects. Not quite the intuitive
process of clicking the shift key and selecting the keyframes, and moving the selected
keyframes to the right spot. You have to remember that in Blender, all the keyframes have
been selected automatically (appears in yellow). Press A to deselect them all (remember to
put the cursor inside the timeline). Press B to select the specific keyframes you want (please
note that some extra keyframes are likely to be selected because they must be given the way
Blender works and achieves its animation). Press G to grab these selected keyframes and
moving them along the timeline. Press Shift D to duplicate the selected keyframes and
move them to where you want.

Do you have hidden 3D objects containing keyframes that you would like to see and make
adjustments as you feel necessary? Click on the following button (known as the Ghost
button):

These are the fundamental basics of animation in Blender.

Want to learn more?

Advanced animation technique 1 – cyclic animation

Did you know that your animations can be made to continuously cycle again and again over
time without copying and pasting keyframes multiple times across the timeline? Here are
the steps to achieve this task:

1. Go into the Graph Editor (the same place where the Dope Sheet editor is located).
2. Select the keyframes that need to become cyclic and repeating. If the keyframes are
out-of-view in the timeline, press fn [Left Arrow] keys (this acts on Macs as the
Home key on a PC) to automatically zoom in or out and bring all the keyframes
within the timeline range you can see.
3. With the cursor in the graph region, press Shift E. A pop-up menu appears. Select
“Make Cyclic (F-modifier)”. You can also find this in the Channel menu at the
bottom of the animation tools and select “Extrapolation Mode”. You will find “Make
Cyclic (F-modifier) located there. The graph changes to show a cyclic and repeating
pattern of the keyframes.
4. If you would like to reverse this cyclic feature, repeat steps 3 and 4 and choose this
time “Clear Cyclic (F-modifier)”.
Advanced animation technique 2 – playing with the graph editor

If you would like to refine the movement of your 3D object to achieve some desired effect,
the graph editor available in the animation tools provides additional options for modifying
the graph representing the movement. Think of the graph as a way of changing the behavior
of your 3D object by making it move in a particular way that seems more natural (or
unnatural, depending on your purpose).

To change the graph, and hence the behavior of the animating 3D object, keep in mind the
following points:

1. Select graph editor in the animation tools section (this can be found in the far bottom
left corner with a button looking like a cube and two tiny arrows facing up and
down).
2. You will see a curve representing the behavior of the 3D object as it moves over time
(i.e., frames).
3. You can select individual keyframes (press B as the tool for selecting things) along
the curve, press G, and move the keyframes. This will help to change the behavior of
the 3D object’s movement, unless, of course, you have selected all keyframes, in
which case moving the keyframes just changes the time when the movement will take
place.
4. To make a more complicated movement (with various accelerating and decelerating
behaviors), you can add as many keyframe markers as you like along any part of the
curve and move these markers wherever you like. The graph will match the pattern
you are trying to create. To create a new keyframe, place the cursor on where you
want the keyframe to appear on the curve. If you click once, the green lines in the
timeline will move to the cursor. To be precise, all lines including the curve should
intersect at the point where you want the keyframe to be created. Click the Key menu
(or press I while the cursor is sitting inside the Graph editor) and choose “Insert
keyframe”. You will be asked if the keyframe is to be created across all channels
(e.g., x,y,z), or just the current channel. In most cases, choose the latter. A new
keyframe is created. NOTE: On a Mac, this is now a quick affair. Move the cursor to
a point along the curve, press the Ctrl key, and click the mouse button. A new
keyframe is created. Yay!
5. On a Mac, you don’t always have the luxury of a two or three-button mouse. If you
select a keyframe in the graph editor, you may notice two “handles” sticking out at
either side of the keyframe marker. You can select the end of one of these handles
and move them in order to change the gradient of the curve. If you do happen to have
a three-button mouse, great. Press the middle button and you should be fine (you
lucky devil!). In rare cases, make sure in System Preferences ! Dashboard and
Expose (or Expose and Spaces, or Mission Control) that you have not assigned a
function to the middle button of the mouse. It kind of makes a big difference we hear
when using Blender. However, if you only have a one button mouse or trackpad,
move the cursor to the end of one of these handles, press the Command key, and click
 on the mouse button. Only that end of the handle will be selected and the other
handle will be de-selected. Press G and move the handle as you wish. Furthermore, if
you select a keyframe with handles on it, the handles can be made to automatically
retract to the keyframe marker, leaving behind a sharp corner in the graph by pressing
the Option key and clicking the mouse button on the selected keyframe marker. Very
quick!
6. To delete a keyframe, select the keyframe on the graph. Press X and choose “Delete
keyframes”.

You now have the absolute basics of animation.

Enjoy!
Appendix A
Keyboard Shortcuts
 BLENDER
BASIC SHORTCUT KEYS
OBJECT MODE SHORTCUT KEYS
EDIT MODE SHORTCUT KEYS