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First steps in the user interface

Tip

A lot of new concepts and UI elements will be introduced in the upcoming videos. It probably works best to watch video(s) limited to a certain topic, try the operations shown and corresponding exercise(s) in Blender yourself, before moving on to the next topic.

Starting Blender

In general Blender isn't different to start than any other GUI application.

However, warning and error messages will be printed to the console window. It depends on the operating system you're working on how the console window is available:

  • (All operating systems) If you start Blender from a terminal window, e.g. xterm or Windows Command window, then Blender output will be printed in that window
  • (Windows only) If Blender was started from the Start menu, or using a desktop icon, then you can toggle the associated console window using the Window > Toggle System Console option

See this section in the Blender manual for more details on starting Blender from the command line and details specific for each operating system.

User interface fundamentals

We will go over fundamentals of the user interface in terms of interaction and areas, specifically the 3D view and Outliner. We also touch on a number of often-performed operations, such as rendering an image and changing the set of selected objects. We also look a bit closer into keyboard shortcuts and menus.

It's probably best to follow along in Blender on your own system while viewing the video. The files used in the video can be found under data/blender_basics.

Slow 3D interaction

If the interaction in the 3D view isn't as smooth as seen in the video on your own PC/laptop something might be wrong in the setup of your system. Please contact us if this appears to be the case.

Accidental 'Edit mode'

If the 3D view (or some of the other areas) suddenly appear to behave strangely, or you now see your mesh with all kinds of dots or lines then you might have accidentally entered the so-called "Edit Mode" or any of the other modes available (Tab and Ctrl-Tab are used for this). Check the menu in the upper left of the 3D view, which should read Object Mode:

In the Basics module we will use only Object Mode (and briefly use Vertex Paint mode in one of the exercises). You can use the drop-down menu shown above (or the Ctrl-Tab menu in the 3D view) and pick Object Mode to get back to the correct mode.

Accidental workspace switch

Another thing that might happen is that you accidentally clicked one of the tabs at the top of the screen, which then completely changes the layout of your user interface. These tabs are used to switch between workspaces, where each workspace allows a different layout to focus on a certain task (e.g. 3D modeling, versus shader editing, versus animation). The default workspace is Layout and you might have to switch back to that one:

Some user interface tips

  • The location of the mouse pointer controls the current area in focus and any keyboard actions are applied in the active area first.
  • To bring up the relevant section of the official Blender manual for (almost) any user interface element, e.g. button, setting or menu: right-click with the mouse on that element and click Online Manual. This will start a web browser showing the relevant manual page.
  • You can hover with the mouse over pretty much any UI element to get a tooltip with a short description, including shortcut key(s) if available.
  • The keyboard and mouse shortcuts for object selection, editing, view interaction, etc work mostly the same in all Blender editors. So G to grab, X to delete, LMB to select, Shift-MMB to translate, Wheel to zoom, etc.
  • You can maximize a user interface area by using Ctrl+Spacebar, having the mouse in the area you want to maximize. This can sometimes be useful to temporarily get a larger area to work with. You can use the same shortcut to toggle the area back to its original size, or use the Back to Previous button at the top of the screen.

Changes to default preferences settings

Optional

It's not required to change these defaults, but we find they help us in working with Blender, and so might be useful for you as well

Here we suggest some preferences settings to change from their default value.

Under Edit > Preferences, in the Interface tab:

  • Under Display disable Splash Screen. This will save you a click to get rid of the splash screen each time you start Blender. If you ever want to look at the splash again you can use the Blender logo icon in the top-level of the window and use Splash Screen.
  • Under Editors > Status Bar enable Scene Statistics, System Memory and Video Memory. This will show some useful scene statistics in the status bar. Another way to do this is to right-click on the status bar and enable the same options.
  • Under Editors > Temporary Editors set Render In to Image Editor. This will cause the rendered image to be displayed as a replacement of the 3D view, instead of in a separate window. After rendering press Escape to get back the 3D view that was replaced by the rendered output.
  • In case you find that Blender's user interface elements, such as buttons or menu text, are too small you can scale the UI elements with a single setting under Display > Resolution Scale. If you change the value you can see the changes in the UI immediately.

Orbit around selection

Another option which you might consider enabling is Orbit Around Selection on the Navigation tab under Orbit & Pan. By default this is turned off and in that mode any rotation of the 3D viewport will be around the center of the view, which might cause selected objects to go out of view. When the option is turned on viewport rotation will be around the selected object(s), always keeping them in view.

Turntable versus trackball

Another setting on the Navigation tab under Orbit & Pan is the Orbit Mode. The default is Turntable, which always keeps the Z axis of the scene pointing upwards when rotating the view of the scene. For a lot of scenes this makes sense, but you can also switch this option to Trackball, in which case the scene can be rotated in all directions freely.

Last update: 20 March 2024 11:55:22 •