Low Poly 3D Modeling in Blender E-Book

Samuel Sullins

• Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Step into the world of low poly 3D art with Low Poly 3D Modeling in Blender—your entry point into Blender and mastering the fundamentals of 3D art. This beginner-friendly guide ensures that you’re fully prepared for the creative adventure that follows.
Through a step-by-step learning process starting with the principles of low poly art, this book gradually immerses you in the intricacies of modeling. As you progress, you’ll gain hands-on experience creating diverse projects ranging from designing a simple 3D crate to rendering complete low poly scenes. The book covers a wide spectrum of topics as you navigate Blender's interface, mastering essential modeling tools and exploring both basic and advanced modeling techniques. Advancing to the final chapters, you’ll find ways to breathe life into your models with material creation and gain practical insights into modeling a variety of low poly objects. From end-to-end scene construction to configuring Blender for rendering high-quality images, you’ll be equipped with the foundational skills to propel your career in 3D modeling and explore the boundless creative possibilities that Blender offers.
By the end of this book, you'll have a solid understanding of Blender, 3D modeling, low poly methodologies, material design, 3D rendering techniques, and the broader world of 3D art.

Leseprobe

Low Poly 3D Modeling in Blender

Kickstart your career as a 3D artist by learning how to create low poly assets and scenes from scratch

Samuel Sullins

BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI

Low Poly 3D Modeling in Blender

Copyright © 2024 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing or its dealers and distributors, will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to have been caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

Group Product Manager: Rohit Rajkumar

Publishing Product Manager: Vaideeshwari Muralikrishnan

Book Project Manager: Sonam Pandey

Senior Editor: Anuradha Joglekar

Technical Editor: Reenish Kulshrestha

Copy Editor: Safis Editing

Proofreader: Safis Editing

Indexer: Subalakshmi Govindhan

Production Designer: Prashant Ghare

DevRel Marketing Coordinators: Namita Velgekar and Nivedita Pandey

Publication date: January 2024

Production reference: 1050124

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Grosvenor House

11 St Paul’s Square

Birmingham

B3 1RB, UK

ISBN 978-1-80324-547-8

www.packtpub.com

Contributors

About the author

Samuel Sullins is an American writer and 3D artist. Ever since he discovered Blender, he’s been fascinated by 3D art. He messes around in Blender far too often for his own good. He runs a weekly email newsletter on Blender called The Blend (which you should definitely subscribe to). He also makes helpful Blender videos on YouTube at @samuelsullins.

Special thanks to my family for helping me work on this project and keeping me moving forward—even when I really didn’t want to.

About the reviewers

Ajay Suthar, an Indian, Mumbai-based 3D artist, excels at pushing creative boundaries in modeling, texturing, rigging, lighting, rendering, animation, and film production. With a career in mechanical engineering, freelancing, and 3D animation, for the past 18 years, he has supervised diverse commercial visualization 3D projects. Ajay expanded his skills by contributing as a 3D interior visualizer on various projects. Committed to education, he became a filmmaking, animation, and VFX lecturer, enhancing students’ knowledge of industry trends. As a UI-UX design head and 3D visual artist in the IT field, Ajay showcased his expertise by creating a design system for enhanced consistency. Ajay is a versatile 3D artist and mentor.

Jane Suteerawanit is a 3D character artist at Gameloft Brisbane. Originally from Perth, her entry into the realm of 3D art was prompted by the realization that pursuing a career in animation and games was a viable option. This revelation, coupled with her lifelong passion for gaming, culminated in the successful completion of a bachelor’s degree in animation and game design from Curtin University in 2020.

Her professional journey commenced with an internship offered by Curtin University at Landshark Games in 2019. This small indie game studio, based in Singapore, provided her with the opportunity to focus on crafting low-poly styled characters, creatures, environments, and props. Subsequently, in 2021, Jane transitioned to the realm of film, joining Flying Bark Production. There, she played a pivotal role in creating 3D characters for the children’s show 100% Wolf: The Book of Hath, which found its broadcast on ABC ME, a widely recognized Australian kids’ channel. Notable among her most recent achievements are contributions to released titles such as My Little Pony: Mane Merge (2022) and The Oregon Trail (2021).

Table of Contents

Preface

Part 1: Getting Started with Low Poly Modeling

1

Getting Familiar with Blender

Installing Blender

Anatomy of the UI

The 3D Viewport

The top bar

The Outliner

The Properties panel

The Timeline

Customizing areas

Navigating the 3D Viewport

Moving around

Numpad controls

Viewing in Orthographic mode

Getting to know the UI shortcuts

The N panel

The toolbar

Walk Navigation

If you get lost

Understanding Workspaces

Any Workspace can do anything

Making your own Workspace

Saving your own Startup file

Summary

2

Understanding Low Poly Modeling

Understanding meshes

Smooth versus flat shading

High poly versus low poly

High poly

Mid-poly

Low poly

Low poly as an art style

The Rule of Polygons

Summary

3

Creating a Low Poly Tree

Transforming objects

Adding, deleting, and duplicating

Understanding Edit Mode

The Inset and Extrude tools

Modeling the tree

Parenting objects

Summary

Part 2: Modeling and Shading for Low Poly

4

Exploring Modifiers

What are modifiers?

The Array modifier

The Mirror modifier

Building a low poly chair with a Mirror modifier

The Bevel modifier

The Solidify modifier

Summary

5

Creating Low Poly Mushrooms

Setting up reference images

Working from basic shapes

Creating the mushroom top

Building the mushroom stem

Adding details to the mushroom top

Adding details to the stem

Fine-tuning the model

Summary

6

Understanding Materials and Shading

Understanding materials

The Shader Editor

Nodes in Blender

The Principled BSDF node

The Material Output node

Materials for the tree

Materials for the mushroom

Summary

Part 3: Creating Your Own Assets

7

Creating a Low Poly Tractor

Breaking it down

Adding the main parts

The wheels

The body

The engine

The cab

Adding the details

Wheel axles

Wheel hubs

Mirrors

Headlights

Adding materials

Summary

8

Low Poly Environment Modeling

What we’re making

Modeling low poly grass

Making low poly flowers

Modeling low poly rocks

Creating the basic rock shape

Creating a boulder

Creating a flat rock

Creating low poly trees

Creating the trunk

Creating a tall tree

Creating a branching tree

Summary

9

Modeling a Kangaroo

Why modeling animals is hard

Reference images

Searching for a reference image

Importing and setting up the reference image in Blender

Modeling the body

Extruding and mirroring the body

Making legs

Shaping the body

Tweaking the body and tail

Tweaking the legs

Tweaking the head

Extruding the ears

Adding materials

Summary

10

Creating Low Poly Houses and Buildings

What it takes

The easy building – a skyscraper

Modeling the basic shape

Extruding the edges

Adding materials

The complicated building

Creating the inner part

Creating the outer part

Adding materials

Modeling building details

Modeling a rooftop doorway

Creating a roof vent

Building an AC unit

The cottage

Creating the main walls

Creating the roof

Making the chimney

Creating windows

Adding the door

Summary

Solution to the building challenge

11

Using the Asset Browser

What’s an asset?

Why the Asset Browser?

Setting up the Asset Browser

Creating your Asset Library

Adding Blender files

Marking objects as assets

Setting up the Asset Browser in Blender and using your assets

Summary

Part 4: Building a Complete Low Poly Scene

12

Blocking Out the Scene

What’s a scene?

Creating concept art

Sketching concept art

Making a rough concept in 3D

Summary

13

Building the Scene

Building the ground

Placing the main objects

Summary

14

The Big Render

What’s rendering?

Importance of lighting

Setting up the materials

Render settings

Output settings

Rendering

Summary

Appendix

Solving the Mac color issue

What’s next?

Index

Other Books You May Enjoy

Preface

Blender is a free app for working in 3D. This book helps you get started with using Blender to create art in 3D.

3D art is a wide, varied, and complex topic, but this book brings it down to the basics for you. Before you move forward with 3D art, you need to learn how to work with 3D software and learn the basic principles of 3D art.

Once you grasp the fundamentals, you can start learning more and learning faster, too. This book aims to teach you the fundamentals of working in Blender and creating 3D art. You’re also going to learn the basic principles of low poly, a simplistic 3D art style.

This book helps you gain a fundamental understanding of 3D, followed by the basics of working in 3D in Blender. 3D art is a vast and rapidly evolving field, and this book will make a great starting point for you. We’ll cover common tools, shortcuts, and techniques.

By the time you’re done, you’ll understand the basics of 3D, and you’ll know how to use Blender to create simple 3D art. You’ll be ready to move on and learn more.

Who this book is for

This book is for absolute beginners to 3D. However, it does assume you have basic knowledge of how to work a computer, manage files, and so on.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Getting Familiar with Blender, shows you how to download Blender. You will get a walk-through of the interface, learn what the different panels are called, and learn the basic controls for 3D navigation.

Chapter 2, Understanding Low Poly Modeling, teaches you the basics of working in 3D. You will learn about concepts such as polygons and meshes and understand high - versus low poly objects.

Chapter 3, Creating a Low Poly Tree, teaches you basic operations in 3D. You will learn how to move, rotate, and scale objects. You will also learn about Edit Mode and several basic Edit Mode tools for editing your mesh.

Chapter 4, Exploring Modifiers, provides an introduction to modifiers in Blender. You will learn what modifiers are, what they do, and how to use them. You will be introduced to several basic and useful modifiers.

Chapter 5, Creating Low Poly Mushrooms, walks you through a project in which you will model a low poly stylized mushroom in 3D. You’ll also learn about some new modeling tools and techniques.

Chapter 6, Understanding Materials and Shading, teaches you how to add color to your models using materials. You will learn what materials are and will be introduced to a new workspace for working with materials. You will learn how to use material slots to add different materials to different parts of an object.

Chapter 7, Creating a Low Poly Tractor, walks you through the creation of a basic low poly tractor model. You will start from scratch and model every part of the tractor, and wrap up by adding materials.

Chapter 8, Low Poly Environment Modeling, walks you through creating different elements for low poly environments. You will learn how to make simple cartoony grass, trees, and rocks.

Chapter 9, Modeling a Kangaroo, walks you through a slightly more advanced project. You will start from scratch and model an entire low poly animal, learning new techniques and tools along the way.

Chapter 10, Creating Low Poly Houses and Buildings, is an easy chapter. You will get some quick lessons on using simple shapes to create simple houses and buildings.

Chapter 11, Using the Asset Browser, teaches you how to store all the models you’ve created in a central location called an asset library, accessible from any Blender project.

Chapter 12, Blocking Out the Scene, explains why blocking out a scene is important. You will learn a few simple techniques for working out how your scene will look ahead of time. You will also learn how to set up your scene camera.

Chapter 13, Building the Scene, shows you how to use your models to build a complete scene, following the simple block out you created in the preceding chapter.

Chapter 14, The Big Render, teaches you what rendering is, and explains how it works. Then, you will learn how to create a final rendered image of the scene you’ve built.

Appendix, describes a tip for fixing your render if the color looks wrong.

To get the most out of this book

You’ll need to know how to operate your computer and understand basics such as how to save files.

The only software you’ll need is Blender.

Software/hardware covered in the book

Operating system requirements

Blender

Windows, macOS, or Linux

Download the example files

You can download the example files for this book from GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Low-Poly-3D-Modeling-in-Blender.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: “Open the Modifier tab in the Properties panel.”

Tips or important notes

Appear like this.

Get in touch

Feedback from our readers is always welcome.

General feedback: If you have questions about any aspect of this book, email us at [email protected] and mention the book title in the subject of your message.

Errata: Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you have found a mistake in this book, we would be grateful if you would report this to us. Please visit www.packtpub.com/support/errata and fill in the form.

Piracy: If you come across any illegal copies of our works in any form on the internet, we would be grateful if you would provide us with the location address or website name. Please contact us at [email protected] with a link to the material.

If you are interested in becoming an author: If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, please visit authors.packtpub.com.

Share Your Thoughts

Once you’ve read Low Poly 3D Modeling in Blender, we’d love to hear your thoughts! Please visit https://packt.link/r/1803245476 for this book and share your feedback.

Your review is important to us and the tech community and will help us make sure we’re delivering excellent quality content.

Download a free PDF copy of this book

Thanks for purchasing this book!

Do you like to read on the go but are unable to carry your print books everywhere?

Is your eBook purchase not compatible with the device of your choice?

Don’t worry, now with every Packt book you get a DRM-free PDF version of that book at no cost.

Read anywhere, any place, on any device. Search, copy, and paste code from your favorite technical books directly into your application.

The perks don’t stop there, you can get exclusive access to discounts, newsletters, and great free content in your inbox daily

Follow these simple steps to get the benefits:

Scan the QR code or visit the link below

https://packt.link/free-ebook/978-1-80324-547-8

Submit your proof of purchaseThat’s it! We’ll send your free PDF and other benefits to your email directly

Part 1:Getting Started with Low Poly Modeling

This part introduces you to Blender and 3D. You’ll learn how to navigate Blender and how to perform basic operations. You’ll also learn the fundamentals of how 3D works.

This part has the following chapters:

Chapter 1, Getting Familiar with BlenderChapter 2, Understanding Low Poly ModelingChapter 3, Creating a Low Poly Tree

1

Getting Familiar with Blender

Once upon a time, 3D software was outrageously expensive. 3D artists had to choose between buying a house or buying a 3D app—and, well, you can’t blame them for choosing the house.

Then came Blender. Blender was special because it cost less than a thumbtack (it was open source, and the price tag was $0). It was new, free, and exciting—but it didn’t work so well. It had the potential to be great in 20 years or so—but who wants to wait that long?

That was 20 years ago. Now, Blender has reached incredible heights. For the last two decades, Blender has made 3D accessible to anyone with a laptop.

Ready to join the party?

In this chapter, we’ll dive right in and start learning Blender. You’ll download Blender and get it set up. You’ll learn how the UI works, how to navigate 3D space, and how 3D space works in Blender. Then, you’ll learn how simple it is to tweak the UI to fit your needs.

Here are the main topics we’ll be covering in this chapter:

Installing BlenderAnatomy of the UINavigating the 3D ViewportGetting to know the UI shortcutsUnderstanding WorkspacesSaving your own Startup file

Installing Blender

In this chapter, you’ll start by installing Blender. Then you’ll learn about the different areas of Blender’s interface. You’ll learn what each section of the interface is for, and to wrap it up, you’ll learn how it can be customized to fit your needs.

OK, let’s get started. Time to download Blender and set it all up:

In a web browser, go to www.blender.org, the home of the Blender Foundation.Click the Download tab to see the latest release. You can download the latest release and everything in this book should work just fine.But if you want to work in the exact same Blender version as I am working in, click the Long-term Support tab at the top, between Release Notesand Requirements.

Long-term support (LTS) versions of Blender will be supported for a few years, so they’re very stable. Also, they still get bug fixes so they should be pretty bug-free.

Scroll down to LTS Releases Currently Maintained to see a list of the currently supported LTS versions of Blender. I’m using Blender 3.3 LTS, so click that one (it’s a big aerial picture of a castle/city). You’ll end up on a new page.Scroll down to Versions and in the Download section, pick your operating system:

Figure 1.1 – The download page

Now, wait for Blender to download (this is the hardest part of the process). Once the download is complete, you’ll have an installer of some kind in your Downloads folder.

It’ll be slightly different depending on your operating system, but the installer should guide you through the installation process.

And that’s it! You’re done, great job. You’ve successfully installed Blender. In the next section, you’ll learn about the different parts of Blender’s user interface.

Anatomy of the UI

Now you’ll learn what’s what in Blender’s UI. There’s a lot to see when you first open Blender, but it’s simpler than it looks. Launch Blender and you’ll be greeted by a splash screen. Admire the cool artwork for a minute and then click anywhere to get rid of it. You’re in a new, empty Blender file.

Files in Blender are called Scenes. It’ll look extremely complex at first—but don’t worry. You get to ignore most of that for now.

Blender’s UI is broken down into simple sections. I’ll cover the basics, but don’t worry—I won’t go into agonizing detail. The thing about the UI is that you’ll pick up most of it on your own the more you use Blender.

I’m just here to get you started.

The 3D Viewport

The open area in the middle is called the 3D Viewport. In this book, I’ll eventually get tired of typing the 3D Viewport so I’ll just be calling it the viewport.

The 3D Viewport is where all the 3D work happens. It’s where you create, edit, and manipulate 3D models. Figure 1.2 shows how the 3D Viewport looks:

Figure 1.2 – The 3D Viewport

In the next section, let’s learn about the top bar.

The top bar

At the top of the window is the top bar.

Figure 1.3 – The top bar

The top bar allows you to switch between different configurations of views (called Workspaces) with a single click.

The Outliner

In the top right is the Outliner. This is a bit like a computer’s filesystem. It shows you a simple list of all the 3D objects in your Blender file, organized into folders called Collections:

Figure 1.4 – The Outliner

You’ll see Camera, Light, and Cube in the default Collection. These make up the simple default setup that comes in with every new Blender file. (You’ll find yourself having to delete them a lot.)

The Properties panel

Below the Outliner is the Properties panel. Many of the most important settings you’ll use, such as render settings, modifiers, and output options, are located in the Properties panel. The Properties panel is divided into its own set of tabs, as shown in Figure 1.5:

Figure 1.5 – The Properties panel

Next, let’s see what the timeline is.

The Timeline

At the bottom of the window is the Timeline. This gives you play/pause controls that you would use if you were creating an animation. We won’t be covering that in this book, though.

Below the Timeline is the Status bar. This is where you’ll see information on processes (such as how close a render is to completion) and tools (such as extra keyboard shortcuts):

Figure 1.6 – The Timeline

Finally, let’s see what customizing areas means.

Customizing areas

All the different panels we’ve just covered are called areas. Areas are extremely customizable, and it’s not hard to do. It’s super-useful to be able to reconfigure the view (for example, if you wanted two viewports side-by-side, or if you wanted to get rid of the Outliner).

All of your changes are file-specific: they’ll be saved when you save your file, but you won’t see them in other Blender files. In the corner of every area is the Editor Type menu. It looks slightly different depending on the area type, as shown in the following figure:

Figure 1.7 – The Editor Type menu

You can open this menu to change any type of area into any other type of area. For example, you could easily switch the 3D Viewport into a big Outliner by switching Editor Typeto Outliner.

You can also adjust each area’s size. Simply hover your mouse over the border between two areas until the cursor turns into an arrow, then left-click and drag to resize the area. Adding new areas is even easier. Hover your cursor over the corner of an area until it becomes a cross, then click and drag inward toward the center of the area. This will create a new area.

To get rid of areas, you can join two areas together. Hover over the corner of an area until it turns into a cross again, but this time, drag outward toward another area (and don’t let go). Your cursor will turn into a little arrow, pointing outward. The areas will darken to show you how they will be joined.

Knowing how to manage areas is very important—so practice! Join and create some areas right now. It’s fine if you mess up your Blender window—it’ll all be fixed when you restart it.

In the next section, you’ll learn how to look around in the 3D Viewport.

Navigating the 3D Viewport

The 3D Viewport is where you interact with 3D. You’ll need to see your 3D models from all sides as you work, so it’s important to learn how to navigate in 3D. You’ll learn how to pan, orbit, and zoom your way around.

This basic navigation is easy to master, and won’t take you very long. You’ll become very good at this the more you use Blender, since you have to navigate in 3D to accomplish anythingin 3D.

Moving around

Navigating in the 3D Viewport is extremely intuitive. It’s a bit different depending on whether you’re using a mouse or a trackpad.

With a trackpad, you simply scroll with two fingers (in any direction) to orbit in the 3D Viewport, and to pan, move two fingers around while holding down the Shift key.

That’s orbiting and panning. To zoom in and out, you have two options: spread two fingers closer together or further apart on your trackpad (like zooming in and out on a smartphone), or hold down the Ctrl key and scroll up and down with two fingers.

Simple, right?

Now, if you’re using a real mouse (fun fact: I’m not), you can click and drag with the middle mouse button to orbit, scroll to zoom, and press Shift + middle mouse button to pan.

These controls will seem difficult at first, but as you do more Blender work, they’ll become natural.

Numpad controls

Sometimes, you’ll want to view a 3D model exactly from the side, the top, or the front. In Blender, there are two ways to do this.

Do you see the little 3D cross in the upper-right corner of the viewport, as shown in Figure 1.8? That’s called the Gizmo, which is like a little 3D compass:

Figure 1.8 – The Gizmo

It’s labeled with letters: X (red), Y (green), and Z (blue). In 3D, just like in reality, there are three spatial dimensions (think about the width, depth, and height of a cube). In Blender, these are called X, Y, and Z:

Figure 1.9 – The X and Y axes

As shown in Figure 1.9, X axis is displayed as red. The green line represents Y axis. The color blue is used to represent the Z axis, which runs in the vertical, up-and-down direction. You’ll notice there’s no blue line representing the Z axis . That’s to avoid cluttering the viewport more than is needed.

If you ever need a reminder of any of this, simply look at the little Gizmo in the corner.

Now it’s time to learn your first keyboard shortcuts. But before that, you’ll need to turn on something called Emulate Numpad (if you have an actual numpad on your keyboard, you won’t need to do this):

Go to Edit | Preferences:

Figure 1.10 – The Preferences menu

Find theInput tab:

Figure 1.11 – The Input tab

Turn on Emulate Numpad:

Figure 1.12 – Emulate Numpad

This makes Blender treat your regular number keys as if they were a numpad, which lets you use the viewport shortcuts.

Close Preferences.

In the viewport, press 1 to get a perfect front view, press 3 to get a perfect right view, and press 7 to get a top view. To see the reverse of these views (back, left, and bottom) press Ctrl + 1, Ctrl + 3, and Ctrl + 7.

There’s another way to do this, too: you can click the little red, green, and blue circles on the Gizmo.

Next, you’ll learn about the Orthographicview mode.

Viewing in Orthographic mode

There are two ways to look at things in 3D. The way you’re looking at your 3D Viewport right now is called Perspective. Perspective is how we view the real world. The farther away something is, the smaller it appears. It’s a very realistic way of viewing things in 3D.

A railroad track is a good example; the further away the rails are, the closer together they appear to be. Take a look at Figure 1.13:

Figure 1.13 – A railroad, viewed in Perspective mode (same as real life)

There’s another, different way to view the world in 3D, called Orthographic. When you view your Scene in Orthographic mode, everything is consistent in size, no matter how far away it is.

To enable Orthographic mode, press 5 on your numpad. Here’s the same railroad track in Orthographic mode:

Figure 1.14 – The same railroad in Orthographic mode

This can sometimes be useful when you need to get a better look at something (for example, to get a good look at the overall shape of a model). You probably won’t use it much—but it’s an option.

Now you know the most important keyboard shortcuts for navigating the 3D Viewport. You’ll find these extremely helpful for working quickly and efficiently as we progress.

In the next section, you’ll learn some more helpful shortcuts.

Getting to know the UI shortcuts

There are a few more helpful things to know about for getting around in the viewport. You can use keyboard shortcuts to hide and show the toolbar or to control navigation in the 3D Viewport.

The N panel

The N panel is the panel that appears when you press N. It’s sometimes called the sidebar or the side panel—in this book, I’ll be calling it the N panel:

Figure 1.15 – The N panel

This panel gives you quick access to the selected object’s position, rotation, and scale values. In Chapter 3, Creating a Low Poly Tree, you’ll learn how to edit these. The N panel also exists in many of the other editor types (the Shader Editor, for example).

To hide the N panel, just press N again.

The toolbar

The toolbar is a bank of tools down the left-hand side of the viewport. These tools are, for the most part, simple conveniences. They’re useful while you’re learning Blender, but you’ll eventually end up using keyboard shortcuts to work faster.

To show and hide the toolbar, you just press T.

There’s also a secret way to see the names of all the tools in the toolbar—hover your cursor over the right edge of the toolbar until your cursor turns into a double arrow:

Figure 1.16 – Expanding the toolbar

Now click and drag toward the viewport. Once the toolbar is wide enough, you’ll see the tool names, as shown in Figure 1.17:

Figure 1.17 – The toolbar

You’ll notice the top tool is selected by default. This is the Select tool. By default, it’s in Select Box mode, but you can press W to toggle through all the different Select tools:

Tweak, which lets you click and drag objectsBox, which is the default (leave it on this mode for this book)Circle, which gives you a circle “brush” to select withLasso, which gives you a Photoshop-like lasso tool

If, during the course of this book, you find that you’re not able to select objects as you expect, it’s likely that you ended up with the wrong Select tool by accident. Just press W to cycle through each tool and get back to the default Select Box.

Walk Navigation

There’s another, less common way to navigate the viewport in Blender. You can walk around in it using the arrow keys, similar to how you would navigate a video game.

To activate it, go to View | Navigation and click Walk Navigation to enter walk mode. Use the arrow keys to move around and the mouse to steer. There are a lot of other options—look in the Status bar at the bottom of the window to see them all.

It’s a little annoying to go through all those menus every time you want to use Walk Navigation, though.

Here’s how you can set your own shortcu:

Go to View | Navigation and right-click on Walk Navigation.Click Assign Shortcut.Press Shift + F on your keyboard to set it as the shortcut. I picked Shift + F because it doesn’t alreadydo anything.

Now you can turn on Walk Navigation simply with the push of a button!

If you get lost

When you’re working in the 3D Viewport, you might pan or zoom too far in one direction—and get lost.

If you ever do get lost in the viewport, here’s how to un-lose yourself:

Select any object in Outliner by clicking on it.Press the ~ key to open the View menu. The View menu is a pie menu—these menus are super-easy to operate. Just move your mouse toward the option you want and then click! In this case, choose the View Selected option:

Figure 1.18 – The View pie menu

This will center the view around the object you have selected. This is a really good way to navigate the viewport—and it also works well for finding something you’ve misplaced!

You don’t have to use the mouse to select options in the menu—you can also use the number keys. You’ll notice that each option in the View pie menu has a small number next to it—pressing that number will select that option.

So, to select the View Selected option, you can press ~ then 3—no mouse needed!

Now you have the ability to re-center the view on any selected object, no matter where you currently are in the 3D Viewport. This is an incredibly helpful technique, especially in larger Scenes.

In the next section, we’ll explain those mysterious tabs across the top of the window.

Understanding Workspaces

The tabs across the top of the Blender window (Layout, Modeling, Sculpting, and so on) are called Workspaces:

Figure 1.19 – Some Workspace tabs

Workspaces are just different sets of areas, configured for different tasks. For example, the Layout Workspace (the one we’re in currently) is set up for general Blender work.

Click through the different kinds of Workspaces and have a look!

Any Workspace can do anything

It’s important to understand that the Workspaces are only a convenience—and that any Workspace can quickly be configured to perform any task.

For example, switch to the Shading Workspace. You’ll see a bunch of stuff that you won’t recognize. But, just like the Layout Workspace, it’s all made up of areas. You can easily change the Editor Type of any of them, join them, and add new ones.

You could reconfigure this Workspace to look exactly like the Layout Workspace if you wanted. Workspaces are very useful, though. They save a lot of time by having things set up and ready to go.

But what if you want a different Workspace? Here’s how you can add your own Workspace.

Making your own Workspace

You can make your own Workspace if you want. There are two ways to do it: you can either change an existing one or add a new one. Changing an existing one is easy—just click a Workspace to switch to it, then double-click the name to edit it and name it whatever you want. Now rearrange all of the areas however you like—and you have your own Workspace!

To add a new Workspace, just click the + button at the end of the top bar (you may have to scroll to the side a bit before you can see it) and choose the Workspace you’d like to add (you can also choose to duplicate the current one). Once you have a new Workspace, you can rename and edit it just like any other.

Making your own Workspace is a great way to save yourself the trouble of continuously rearranging areas. However, any changes you make to the workspaces are file-specific. This means that if you open a new file, you won’t have any of the Workspaces that you renamed or created.

The next section will explain how to set up your own default Startup file.

Saving your own Startup file

This is something you won’t need to do for a while, but when you do need it, here it is. One day, you’ll get fearfully tired of setting up Blender just how you like it every single time you open a new file.

When that happens, you need to set up your own Startup file. A Startup file is like a new set of default settings, so when you open Blender, your new file will be a copy of the Startup file you’ve made.

Here’s how to set up your Startup file:

Open a new Blender file.Press Ctrl + S and save it somewhere.Now, change stuff. Set it up exactly the way you want.Press Ctrl + S again to make sure your file is saved.Go to File | Defaults | Save Startup File:

Figure 1.20 – The Save Startup File menu

You’ve got your own default settings now! If you ever want to change them, simply open your Startup file, change the settings, and press Save Startup File again.

If you ever want the default settings back, go to File | Defaults | Load Factory Settings to see the original setup again (and you can save that as the Startup file if you want).