Notes on learning Blender
I've just started using Blender, the freeware 3D CAD program. It's much like Maya, only a bit simpler (according to both my fancy pants animator boyfriend and well-educated floor mate).
The learning curve for the controls is a bit difficult, but once you dive into a tutorial, you'll get the hang of it. I've started learning off a nice PDF of several different projects brought to you by the Blender wiki books tutorial.
However, it's all specialized for PC folks with a full keyboard and three-button mouse. I am using a macbook and a wacom tablet. Problem #2 is that the tutorial does not utilize the amazing abilities of PDFs to use bookmarks, chapters and I think they even converted all their fonts to outlines so it's not even SEARCHABLE. This is quite frustrating in a 100+ page PDF. I want to fix it up much nicer and so I'm starting to utilize my own notes, which I shall document here until I have the free time for their wiki and possibly to just make them a whole new PDF. This is a great program that more folks need to get into.
For one, make sure that the wacom stylus is set to be a three button mouse. This is not always standard and I don't know any mac users who have ever needed a third button when we're sometimes not even allowed a two button mouse. Having three buttons is key to learning most tutorials, since they won't always tell you the hot key for 'middle mouse button' when you only have one. This can screw things up, because a lot of commands utilize ctrl, alt/option, apple, shift and clicking with one of the three buttons. So if you're already ctrl+lmb-ing just to make a right, you'll get frustrated easily.
If you open the user preferences in the bottom window, you can set what mouse click you want to select with. Its default is NOT the left mouse button so either change it to work that way or remember it. You can set most things and should be done first.
Secondly, you can move the view angle for yourself around with the middle mouse button. You can pan the view up or down with shift+middle mouse buttons. Zooming in/out is only done with NUMLOCK / key. Do not hit apple - because it makes things disappear.
More later, I must work now.
The learning curve for the controls is a bit difficult, but once you dive into a tutorial, you'll get the hang of it. I've started learning off a nice PDF of several different projects brought to you by the Blender wiki books tutorial.
However, it's all specialized for PC folks with a full keyboard and three-button mouse. I am using a macbook and a wacom tablet. Problem #2 is that the tutorial does not utilize the amazing abilities of PDFs to use bookmarks, chapters and I think they even converted all their fonts to outlines so it's not even SEARCHABLE. This is quite frustrating in a 100+ page PDF. I want to fix it up much nicer and so I'm starting to utilize my own notes, which I shall document here until I have the free time for their wiki and possibly to just make them a whole new PDF. This is a great program that more folks need to get into.
For one, make sure that the wacom stylus is set to be a three button mouse. This is not always standard and I don't know any mac users who have ever needed a third button when we're sometimes not even allowed a two button mouse. Having three buttons is key to learning most tutorials, since they won't always tell you the hot key for 'middle mouse button' when you only have one. This can screw things up, because a lot of commands utilize ctrl, alt/option, apple, shift and clicking with one of the three buttons. So if you're already ctrl+lmb-ing just to make a right, you'll get frustrated easily.
If you open the user preferences in the bottom window, you can set what mouse click you want to select with. Its default is NOT the left mouse button so either change it to work that way or remember it. You can set most things and should be done first.
Secondly, you can move the view angle for yourself around with the middle mouse button. You can pan the view up or down with shift+middle mouse buttons. Zooming in/out is only done with NUMLOCK / key. Do not hit apple - because it makes things disappear.
More later, I must work now.