Blender Basics: Navigating and Using Essential Tools for 3D Modeling

hello welcome to day two of from blender to 5m today we are going to spend some time

in blender we're going to spend time getting to know blender getting comfortable with the tools that we will

be using to create I ml blender is a free program so if you have not installed it yet you can check the

description box below for a direct link to the download page today all you need is

blender and all I need is your attention all right let's dive in okay so now we've that we've opened

up blender this is what you will see if this is your first time using blender you will see a splash screen that looks

something like this um and if you've used blender before you won't see this splash screen you'll see

something like like this where I show all of your previous projects that you've been working on if you click over

here on the right side of this splash screen it will remove it completely and you will have your viewport you will be

able to see your different objects in your viewport okay um on the right side of the screen top right side of the

screen that is what we call our outliner um in the outliner it is going to show us everything that we have in

our scene we have our Cube we have our

light and we have our camera um so whatever objects that you're working on in creating is it'll

be there in the outliner below the outliner is another sidebar that we that has additional

tools that we'll be using to create our ml we only there only a couple that we'll be using um we're not going to go

into detail right now about what those are but just know that they're there don't don't want to stress you out or

overwhelm you going to take it a step at a time okay again this is our viewport with our

Cube our light and our camera on the left side of the screen and the top of the screen is another is another toolbar

that we'll be focused on um the toolbar on the left well first I'll just say at the top of the screen

you see where it says object mode um this is where we'll switch between switch between object mode and edit mode

um edit mode is when we can go and shape and move things around as we might as we need them to okay but on the left side

toolbar we have our select tool our cursor um obviously the select tool allows you to select the objects in the

scene the cursor you can move your cursor around um in the world we have our move tool um our scale and our

rotate tool which will will be um f highly focused on using um in the creation of an ml I turned on my hotkey

so I can show you more um so that you'll be able to see what I'm doing as I am you know clicking the buttons uh to

create let's take a moment to look at some additional viewports we have our shading viewport our UV editing viewport

and of course the layout viewport once again let's go through them a again we have our UV editing viewport and we have

our shading viewport one more time I'm just doing this a few times because these are so important um this is what

we will be using our layout viewport our UV editing viewport and our shading viewport okay um they're so important we

will spend a lot I won't say a lot of our time we spend most of our time here in the layout viewport but the UV

editing and the shading is is just as important okay all right so if you click left click onto into the viewport

in our layout um it allow you to select you can select the objects or you can just click off of objects but that is

our select tool um you can box select by clicking and dragging across the screen um if you press down on the

middle M Mouse button it'll allow you to pan around objects um or pan around the the origin point in the scene um so that

is what we doing so I'm going through these um as I go through this I want you to

follow along with me and just get comfortable cuz with these what I'm what we're going over right now is what

you're going to be using all the time the buttons the shortcuts all the time if you right click it will bring up that

menu um just more options yes we will be using that menu so you right click and you will see um you can look over it and

just see what is there I won't dive too far into it right now okay if you scroll on your mouse wheel you're able to zoom

in and out um from your point of origin okay if you press control and you scroll at the same time um or you click down on

your middle Mouse button um you are able to have more control over your Zoom okay um you can also click right here at the

spy glass and it will allow you to zoom as well and if you click on the hand it will allow you to move around in space

and then we have our camera and um my orthographic view um if you use the hand and you can see

that we're not just panning cuz we're not panning now now we're actually moving around in space when you click

down on your middle Mouse button it will pan around the object versus actually moving around in

space um so if you need to do more than just pan around your object you can click this hand right here and it will

allow you to move around I think one of the moving around and blender was one of the most confusing things at first when

I first started learning how to move around and blender I don't typically use the hand I like to click shift and

middle Mouse button at the same time time to move around in space for for me blender is heavily

focused highly focused um what am I trying to say highly keyboard shortcut Focus okay so a lot of

the moving that I do I do keyboard shortcuts um as well as um when I'm editing I use a lot of keyboard

shortcuts I don't typically use the on screen uh G ggs gadgets G gizmos is what I'm

trying to say I don't typically use the on screen gizmos I use the shortcut so just taking taking a moment so that you

can get used to moving around in blender for those who aren't familiar with blender blender I do know that some of

you who are watching are familiar with blender but some aren't so I'm starting from the bottom from the ground and we

coming to the top okay so just spend some time panning around getting familiar with holding down shift and

clicking middle Mouse button and dragging across the screen at the same time if you want to use the gizmoes on

the screen you can do that um you don't have to use shift for me just pressing shift and middle Mouse button to move

around there a lot quicker for me okay um okay so just panning around if you select the different

objects you will see that they are highlighted and in the outliner um we are going to delete our

light and we're going to delete our camera okay I'm going to show you a couple ways that you can delete objects

um I guess the most common one I want to say the most common one um is that you

can click left click on an object and then you can right click on it and just select delete and boom it'll it'll it'll

disappear you can also um left click on your object to select

it and you can press X and it will bring up the menu to delete and boom it's

gone um and then next um you can bring it back so I'm going to show you the next way and the way that you bring it

back is just press contrl + z but if we come over to the outliner we right click on the light and then we select choose

select hierarchy we will select everything for in that collection for the light and then you just go back and

right click and select delete okay all right so the reason why I chose uh to select the hierarchy before um deleting

is because sometimes you will have multiple meshes within an object and sometimes you can't see it um unless you

you know click the arrow um to bring the drop down to show the drop down menu um but a lot sometimes we don't think to to

show the drop down menu and you might forget that you have actually multiple meshes within that one object so maybe

you started out with a cube to create a car but then within that same object you had a a sphere for the um a sphere a

cylinder a cylinder to create the wheels um but they are too separate

meshes but the overall object you have it labeled as car so you you sometimes if you just right click on it and delete

you can just delete the body of it or delete one of the meshes but not the other so um just uh to I guess you could

say to practice you know in good what's the word I'm looking for foundational tools um just just

choose select hierarchy if you're trying to delete the whole thing select the hierarchy first and then SE choose to

delete it okay all right so we'll delete the camera now um You can just press X to delete or you can choose to go to the

outliner to delete it what we're left with is our Cube okay we're going to keep the cube here

for now because I'm I'm going to use the cube to show you how to use other gizmos tools okay from the left side toolbar so

what we will start with is the move tool once you select the move tool it will allow you then you then you click on the

object it will allow you to move your object around in the space if you use the

gizmos um the arrows or the the little boxes or the center cursor it will move it according to um those aspects so if

you select the blue arrow blue arrow is connected to the Z axis red is the x axis and yellow is the Y AIS so if you

move it that way you can I don't typically use the gizmos on the screen I like to use the keyboard shortcuts um so

the keyboard short shortcut to move is G um if you just select G it will move it freely around in space um I like to move

it along move my objects along axis for more Precision um so I like in order to do

that all you have to do is press G and then choose whichever axis that you want so if you want to move something you can

press G and then you can press X Y or Z so let's do Z first and you'll see it will snap it to the z- axis and move it

around even if for some reason um you you select G and move your object around for you select the axis you can still

select your axis and it will bring it back to where um your object originally was to that axis okay so if you select X

Y and Z it'll move it along those axes next tool we are going to use is the rotate tool very similar you can use the

gizmos on the screen to rotate it's very simple you know just move it around um just practice along with

me uh again we're going to take it a step at a time y'all um I really want you guys to

understand how to use blender if you can understand how to use blender oh my gosh you can create anything with ease okay

so just keep rotating the keyboard um I'm going to I'm just going to undo these things um to get us back to um

where we were but the keyboard shortcut for rotate is

R so if you select r or like just like if you select G to move if you select R and don't press anything else it will

move your object around um freely so if you press R it'll go anywhere um according to where you are licking in

what whatever Direction you're licking in um that's where it move it freely around um if you want to rotate around

specific axis you just press R and then you can select the Z axis the x axis or the Y AIS you can also type in numbers

too so you can type in numbers to represent the degrees so if you want to rotate 90° you can rotate

90° um you can rotate 180° you can rotate 90 um all of that okay um if you press

alt and middle Mouse button at the same time you know I we use middle Mouse button to pan around the object if you

press alt and middle Mouse button while you are panning it will snap it to

um the different sides of your object you can see it right here right now we're sna to one side you do it again

you can we're sna to um another side now we're snapped to the left

side um the back

right bottom top okay you can also use your num pad um to snap to different sides of

your object too so if you just press one 2 3 you will see that it will snap to different sides I I use all

um right now my blender scene is default so um I don't have any additional settings set but you can also there if

you don't have a npad like me there you can make it so that you can use your numbers that are at the top of your

keyboard I don't have it set right now but I'll show you later on how to do that um and then we have our scale tool

with the scale tool you can make your object bigger or smaller um with the Gizmo obviously um it will

move it according to um which whichever uh point that you select say if you select the Red Dot or the red the red um

Gizmo to move it'll move it along the x-axis if you select the green it'll move it along the y- AIS if you select

blue it'll scale it along the z-axis again I don't typically use the onscreen Gizmo I like to use shortcut what is the

shortcut for scale s and then again if you want to scale along the axis you just press which axis

you would like X Y or Z and you can scale so just practice along with me scaling

um and then control + z to delete everything okay and that's pretty much

everything you guys everything that we're going to be using to

create our ml we're going to the final thing we're going to do is delete the cube um and

then in our next video we are going to I'm going to show you how to add new meshes objects to your scene we are

going to create a scene um don't be overwhelmed we are going to create a scene using primitive objects what are

primitive objects primitive objects are our cubes our spheres our cylinders um and that's about it that's

there are more more perimeter objects but those are the ones that we're going to be focused on using and I'm going to

show you how you can create a scene um just with those objects and how you can make it look uh freaking amazing

okay um so take this time the next video will go up on Friday take this time to just

get comfortable with blender I know you probably want to do more um but I'm not rushing I'm not going to rush

this okay I'm not going to rush this and I need for you you need for you to understand this fully I with all the

questions that I've seen that I've gotten when it comes to creating emo a lot of times it's just a lack of

something is missing a lack of understanding something is the smallest thing is missing um and if you just

understand you can do amazing things okay so I need for you to understand and you need for you you to understand so

I'm taking it a step at a time um all right so I will see you all in our next

video um again we'll be creating our first scene all right I love you

I'll see y'all next time