Blender For Dummies. Jason van Gumster
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Название: Blender For Dummies

Автор: Jason van Gumster

Издательство: John Wiley & Sons Limited

Жанр: Программы

Серия:

isbn: 9781119616986

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ 1-3: The Blender splash screen.

      This book explains some of the design decisions in Blender’s interface and ultimately allows you to be productive with it. Who knows, you might even start to like it and wonder why other programs don’t work this way!

Image described by caption and surrounding text.

      FIGURE 1-4: The default Blender interface.

      Working with an interface that stays out of your way

      The first thing to understand about Blender’s interface is its basic organization. Figure 1-4 displays a single Blender window. Your base Blender session consists of a workspace that can be made up of one or more windows. Workspaces are accessible from the tabs at the top of each Blender window. A Blender window can consist of one or more areas that you can split, resize, and join at will. In all cases, an area defines the space of an editor, such as the 3D Viewport, where you actually make changes and modifications to your 3D scene. Each editor can include one or more regions that contain additional features or tools for using that editor. An example of a region that all editors have is a header region that’s generally at the top of the editor; the header typically includes menus and buttons to give you access to features in that editor. Some regions, like the 3D Viewport’s Sidebar, have tabs and panels within them.

Screenshots arranged vertically depicting hierarchy of typical Blender workspace, from top to bottom: Panel, region, editor, area, window, workspace.

      FIGURE 1-5: A typical Blender workspace includes at least one window containing areas populated by editors, which in turn incorporate one or more regions sometimes filled with tabs and panels.

      

At first, working in a non-blocking, non-modal interface may seem to be really restrictive. How do you see different types of editors? Can you see them at the same time? Everything looks like it’s nailed in place, so is it even possible to change anything? Fortunately, all these things are possible, and you get the benefit of never having your view of one area obstructed by another. Having an unobstructed workspace is a great way to be able to see at a glance what’s going on in your file. Furthermore, if you absolutely need multiple windows that can overlap, you can have them. For example, you might have two computer monitors that are different sizes and you’d like a full-sized Blender window in each. I show you how to do this later in this chapter in the “Duplicating an area to a new window” section.

      

This non-blocking window philosophy, combined with the fact that Blender’s entire interface is written in a standardized programming library for graphics called OpenGL, is the precise reason that Blender looks the same, no matter where you run it. Whether you run it from Linux, Windows, or a Mac, Blender looks and behaves like Blender. An additional benefit to being written in a 3D library like OpenGL is that many parts of Blender’s interface allow you to zoom in on them. Try it! Hover your mouse cursor over the Properties editor (the editor on the right side) and press Numpad Plus (+) or Numpad Minus (-). You can make the panels in this editor much larger or smaller than they are by default. Pretty cool!

      Resizing areas

      Regardless of the type of editor that’s contained in an area, you modify and change all areas in a Blender window the same way. To change the size of an area, left-click the border between two areas and drag it to a new position. This method increases the size of one area while reducing the size of those that adjoin it. If you have only one area in your Blender window, it’s exactly the same size as that window. To resize it, you need to either adjust the size of its parent Blender window or split a new area into that space, as covered in the next section.

      Splitting and removing areas

      While working in Blender, it’s pretty common that the workspace you’re in isn’t quite what you need to work efficiently, but you don’t need as extravagant of a change as a whole new workspace. Sometimes you may just need an additional 3D Viewport, or you may want to see the Image Editor in addition to the 3D Viewport.

      To create either of these layout changes, you need to split an existing area into two. You can split or join areas by right-clicking the border between two areas and choosing either Split Area or Join Area from the menu that pops up. Most editors also have a View ⇒ Area submenu that provides you options for splitting. However, there’s a faster way. It’s a little tricky to get used to, though. Look at the corners in the bottom left and top right of any area. Notice how the corners are rounded and when you move your mouse cursor near them, the cursor changes from the standard pointer to crosshairs. These are the area’s corner widgets, and they’re a shortcut for splitting and joining areas. To split any area into two, follow these steps:

      1 Left-click one of the corner widgets and drag your mouse cursor away from the area’s border and into the area.

      2 Drag your mouse cursor left or right to split the area vertically.Dragging it up or down splits the area horizontally.

      As you drag your mouse, the areas update in real time so that you can see the result of the split while you’re working.

      

If you decide that you actually don’t want to split the area, you can cancel the operation by right-clicking or pressing Esc.

      If you want to remove an area, the process is similar. Rather than splitting an area in two, you’re joining two areas together. So instead of left-clicking the corner widget and dragging your mouse cursor away from the area border, drag it towards the border of the area you want to join with. This action darkens the area your mouse is in and draws an arrow to indicate which area you want to remove.