Blender For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Chapter 2

Understanding How Blender Thinks

In This Chapter

• Familiarizing yourself with Blender's windows
• Adjusting Blender's interface to fit the way you work
• Working in three-dimensional space
• Using the regions in the 3D View

It's time to get intimate with Blender. No, I don't mean you need to start placing scented candles around your computer. I mean that this chapter's focus is a detailed introduction to Blender's interface and how you can start finding your way around in it. First of all, it's pretty important to have an understanding of the various types of editors that Blender has and how to access them. These editors are the gateways and tools for creating whatever you want.

With the knowledge of what you can do with these editors, the next thing is actually building those creations. To do so, you need to understand how to work in a virtual three-dimensional space, and specifically, you need to understand how Blender handles that space. I also cover these topics in this chapter.

Looking at Editor Types

In many ways, Blender isn't so much one program as it is a bunch of different programs sharing the same interface and access to the same data. Thinking of it this way, each of Blender's editor types is kind of its own little program in a Blender area.

Menus in Blender

You may have noticed that I refer to the 3D View as the “first” item in the Editor Type menu, even though in Figure 2-1, it's at the bottom of the menu. This is due to a somewhat unique quirk of Blender's ...