Читать книгу Blender For Dummies - Jason van Gumster - Страница 6

Probably one of the most daunting aspects of Blender for newcomers and long-time 3D professionals alike has been its unique and somewhat peculiar interface. It's arguably the most controversial feature Blender has. In fact, at one time, merely calling the interface a feature would raise the blood pressure of some of you who tried using Blender in the past, but gave up in frustration when it did not behave as expected.

Although the interface wasn't the primary focus, the interface updates to Blender added in the 2.5 series of release have made great strides toward alleviating that frustration, and the improvements continue through to today. As a small example, when you first launch Blender, the “splash image” provides you with quick links to online documentation, a list of recently opened files, and a choice of interaction presets if you're more familiar with other programs' hotkeys and mouse behavior. Figure 1-3 shows the splash image you're presented with when you start Blender for the first time.

Figure 1-3: The Blender splash image.

If you click anywhere other than the links provided by the splash image, the splash image goes away, and you're greeted with Blender's default scene, shown in Figure 1-4. If you're looking at the interface for the first time, you may think it appears pretty daunting. However, the purpose of this book is to help you get the hang of Blender (and its interface) with a minimum of pain.

Figure 1-4: The default Blender interface.

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!

Fast to use versus fast to learn

One of the key things to remember is that Blender was originally designed as an in-house tool for commercial production. Working in that industry (especially television production) involves very short turn-around times and extremely tight deadlines. For these reasons, 3D artists have to work very quickly to produce high quality work in a short period of time. Blender has always been designed with facilitating this need as a primary focus. And because artists worked side-by-side with the developers, they could tailor the whole program to match the way they worked.

The upside to this approach is that the program evolved with the artists and enabled them to successfully produce great work at a blazingly fast rate. The downside is that, as with most things that are customized, Blender became somewhat difficult for new people to understand. This trade-off is what I mean when I say “fast to use versus fast to learn.” You can be extremely productive with Blender after you understand how it thinks. However, your first few projects with Blender (especially true in earlier versions) might be arduous. Of course, alleviating that potential pain is what this book is all about.

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. Each 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 View, 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 at the top or bottom of the editor; the header typically includes menus and buttons to give you access to features in that editor. Figure 1-5 illustrates each of these building blocks of the Blender interface.

Figure 1-5: A Blender window contains areas populated by editors that include one or more regions.

Knowing this organizational structure, the next important thing to know is that Blender is designed to be as non-blocking and non-modal as possible. Areas in Blender never overlap one another (non-blocking) and using one feature of Blender typically won't restrict you from using any of the others (non-modal). As an example, in most software, if you want to open a new file or save your project, a file browser dialog pops up. This dialog is an overlapping window that not only blocks things behind it from view, but usually also prevents you from making any changes to your file. This scenario isn't the case with Blender. In Blender, the file browser is an editor just like any other, and it makes perfect sense to be able to make a couple of tweaks to your scene before hitting the Save button. Figure 1-6 shows what it might look like to have a file browser open while you make tweaks.

Figure 1-6: Doing those last couple of tweaks before finally saving.

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 task 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, a Mac, or even an experimental build for Android devices, 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 default layout isn't quite what you need to work efficiently. Sometimes you may need an additional 3D View or you may want to see the UV/Image Editor in addition to the 3D View.

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. However, there's a faster way. Look at the corners in the bottom left and top right of any area. These corner widgets are marked as a triangular region indicated by diagonal lines. To split any area into two, use the following steps:

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

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.

Figure 1-7 shows the process of splitting an area and then removing that area. When I work in Blender, I find myself constantly changing the screen layout by splitting and joining new areas as I need them.

Figure 1-7: Creating a new area and then removing that area.

Duplicating an area to a new window

In addition to the new way of splitting and joining areas, you can use these corner widgets to duplicate any area into a new Blender window of its own. You can move that window to a separate monitor (if you have one), or it can overlap your original Blender window. And within this new Blender window, you can split the duplicated area into additional ones as you like. This area duplication feature is a slight violation of Blender's non-overlapping principles, but the benefits it provides for users with multiple computer screens make it very worthwhile.

To take advantage of this feature, follow these steps:

1. Shift+left-click one of the corner widgets in an area and drag your mouse cursor away from it in any direction.

This step duplicates the area you clicked in and creates a new Blender window to contain it.

You can also achieve this effect from the header menu of some editors by choosing View ⇒ Duplicate Area into New Window.

2. Close the additional Blender window by clicking the close button that your operating system adds to the border of the window.

Customizing Headers

All editors in Blender have a horizontal region called the header running along either the top or bottom of the editor. The header usually features specialized menus or buttons that are specific to the editor you're using. Here are some ways you can customize the header:

✔ Resize the header. Like any region, you can resize the header by left-clicking the seam between the header and the main work space of the editor and dragging it up or down.

✔ Hide the header. If you drag the seam all the way to the area border, then the header becomes hidden, leaving only a small plus icon (+) in the corner of the editor. If the header is at the bottom of the editor, the plus icon appears at the bottom right. If the header appears at the top, it's at the top left. Left-click this icon and the header reappears.

✔ Change the location of the header. You can also change the location of the header to either the top or bottom of the editor it belongs to. To do so, right-click the header and choose Flip to Top (or Bottom, depending on where your header currently is).

Maximizing an area

When working in Blender, you also occasionally need to maximize an area. Maximizing an area is particularly useful when you're working on a model or scene and you just want to get all the other areas out of your way so you can use as much screen space as possible to focus your attention on the task at hand.

To maximize any area, hover your mouse cursor over it and press Shift+Spacebar. You can toggle back to the tiled screen layout by either pressing Shift+Spacebar again or clicking the Back to Previous button at the top of the window. These options are available in the header menus of nearly all editor types by choosing View ⇒ Toggle Full Screen. You can also right-click the header and choose Maximize Area from the menu that appears. If the area is already maximized, then the menu item will say Tile Area.

You may notice that the hot keys next to these menu items are Ctrl+Up Arrow for maximizing and Ctrl+Down Arrow for tiling, rather than Shift+Spacebar. Those hotkeys also work, but I find that I don't have to move my left hand as much to hit Shift+Spacebar, so that's much more convenient for me.

The menu that is a pie

There's a recent addition to Blender's user interface that's worth mentioning. That addition is a feature called pie menus. Contrasted with the more conventional linear, list-type menu, a pie menu lists your menu options radially around your mouse cursor. This setup has a few advantages:

✔ Each menu item has a much larger click area.

With a typical list-type menu, once you find the menu item you want, there's a relatively small area that you need to precisely click. With a pie menu, you only need to have your mouse cursor in the general area around your menu selection (its slice of the pie). Because you don't need to be as precise with your mouse, you can navigate menus faster with less stress on your hand.

✔ Menu options are easier to remember.

As humans, we tend to naturally think about things spatially. It's much easier to remember that a thing is up or left or right than to remember that it's the sixth item in a list of things. Because the menu items are arranged in two-dimensional space, pie menus take advantage of our natural way of recalling information. Also helpful for memory is the fact that any given pie menu can only have as many as eight options.

✔ Selecting menu items is a gestural behavior.

A gestural interface relies on using mouse movement to issue a command. Pie menus are not purely gestural, but by arranging the menu items spatially, you get many of the same advantages provided by gestures. Most valuable among these advantages is the reliance on muscle memory. After working with a pie menu for an extended period of time, selecting menu items becomes nearly as fast as using hotkeys, and for essentially the same reasons. You're no longer thinking about the direction you're moving your mouse cursor (or which key you're pressing). You've trained your hands to move in a specific way when you want to perform that task. Once you get to that point (it doesn't take very long), you'll find that you're working very quickly.

Before you get too excited about pie menus, they have a couple of limitations:

✔ Pie menus are basically limited to a maximum of eight menu items. (It's possible to have more items, but if a pie menu has more than eight items, it becomes cluttered and the speed and memory advantages of pie menus are lessened.) Blender has a number of menus that are very long; therefore, they don't translate nicely to the pie menu model. This means that some menus will be pies and others will not. Hopefully, as development continues on Blender, these menus will migrate to being more pie-like.

✔ Pie menus, as of this writing, aren't enabled by default. As Blender development progresses, the plan is that pie menus will eventually be enabled as a default option. For the time being, however, you need to manually enable them. As that's the direction that Blender is currently heading (and Blender development is fast; there's a new release nearly every two months), I recommend that you go ahead and enable pie menus so you can get comfortable with them early.

The process of enabling pie menus is easy:

1. Open User Preferences (File ⇒ User Preferences or Ctrl+Alt+U) and go to the Add-ons section.

2. On the category list on the left side of the window, choose the User Interface category (you may need to scroll down to see it).

The Pie Menus Official add-on should appear on the list to the right (as of this writing, this add-on is the only one in the User Interface category, so you may need to scroll back up to see it).

3. Enable the Pie Menus Official add-on by left-clicking its checkbox on the far right.

4. Pie menus are now enabled. Left-click the Save User Settings button at the bottom left of the User Preferences window.

That's it! Pie menus will be automatically enabled each time you start Blender. (Read more about Blender add-ons in Chapter 2.)

To try out pie menus, first close the User Preferences window. With your mouse cursor in the 3D View, press Q to show the View pie menu. You should see a menu like the one in Figure 1-8.

Figure 1-8: Your first pie [menu]!

With the menu still visible, move your mouse cursor around the screen. Notice that the highlighted area of the circular slice indicator at the center of the menu points to your mouse cursor. Also notice that as you move your mouse cursor, individual menu items highlight when you enter their slice of the menu. This highlighting is how you know which menu item is currently ready to be picked. Press Esc to close the menu without selecting anything.

There are two ways to choose menu items in a pie menu:

✔ Press, release, click: This can be considered the standard method:

1. Press and release the hotkey that activates the menu.

In this example, press and release Q.

2. Move your mouse cursor to your desired menu item's slice.

3. Choose that menu item by clicking anywhere within its slice.

The current active slice is indicated by the circular slice indicator at the center of the menu, as well as the highlighting of each menu item as your mouse cursor enters its slice.

✔ Press, hold, release: I think of this method as the fast way.

1. Press and hold the hotkey that activates the menu.

In this example, press and hold Q.

2. Move your mouse cursor to your desired menu item's slice.

3. Release the hotkey to choose that menu item.

As pie menus are still optional, you can always go back and disable them if you decide that you don't like using them. However, if you decide to keep them enabled, I try to help you throughout the rest of the book. For any given menu or operator, if there's an option for using a pie menu, I make it a point to let you know the hotkey and location of the various pie menu items.