Blender For Dummies®

Chapter 3. Getting Your Hands Dirty Working in Blender

In This Chapter

• Understanding coordinate system orientations

• Speeding up the process with hotkeys

• Making changes to 3D objects

Blender is built for speed, and its design heavily emphasizes working as quickly and efficiently as possible for extended periods of time. On more than one occasion, I've found myself working in Blender for 10–15 hours straight. Although, admittedly, part of this has to do with my own minor lunacy, the fact that I'm able to be that productive for that long is a testament to Blender's design. This chapter gets you started in taking full advantage of that power. This chapter covers the meat and potatoes of interacting with three-dimensional (3D) space in Blender, such as moving objects and editing polygons. If you've worked in other 3D programs, chances are good that a number of Blender concepts will seem particularly alien to you. To quote Yoda, "You must unlearn what you have learned" in your journey to become a Blender Jedi. If you've never worked in 3D, you probably have an advantage over a trained professional who's used to a different workflow. Hooray for starting fresh!

Note

In addition to having an emphasis on efficiency, Blender is designed to allow you to work for as long as possible while incurring the least amount of repetitive stress. For this reason, relatively few operations in Blender require you to hold down a key. Typically, you press a key to begin the operation and confirm its completion ...