This is just a short intoduction to the Sculpt Blender tutorials. It will give you some tricks on how to either make the most of the tutorials, or speed through them as fast as you can
If you hate these sorts of guides, by all means, skip to The Installation Guide.
Quick Reference
Each section of the tutorial will have this "Quick Reference" section, which is a summary of what you learn in the section.
Quick Reference Each section of the scultie tutorials will have a Quick Reference which will summarize everything you learn in the section.
If you're a fast learner, and prefer to speed through the tutorials, simply read the Quick Reference and move on. You can also use the Quick Reference as a reminder if you've forgotten how to do something in the tutorial.
Tutorial Goals
Beginner tutorials walk you through the basics of making sculptie prims for Second Life in Blender. No previous Blender knowledge required. Read them in order.
Intermediate and Advanced tutorials introduce more advanced topics in sculptie-making and expect that you know what's taught in the beginner tutorials. Read them in any order you choose.
Reference to specific terms and functions can be found in the glossary.
If you run into a specific problem with your sculpties, try the troubleshooting section.
If you need additional help, send me an email.
Tutorial Goals The purpose of all the tutorials on this site are to help you use Blender 3D to make sculptie prims for Second Life.
The beginner tutorials walk you through the basics of creating sculpties in Blender. They require no previous knowledge of Blender, and should be read in order. Most people should be able to get through them in a day. Fast learners should be able to get through them in an afternoon.
Intermediate and advanced tutorials introduce more advanced topics related to sculpties, such as precision sculpties and improving your sculptie's resolution. These expect that you know everything taught in the Beginner tutorials. You may read them in any order that you like.
If you're looking for fast reference for something specific, try the glossary. Here I have definitions of terms I use, and also summaries of many functions, some of which have no tutorial associated with them, such as duplicating meshes in Blender, and changing your default settings.
If you run into any problems that aren't addressed in the tutorials, try the troubleshooting section. The troubleshooting section covers most of the common problems that you may run into with creating sculpts in Blender.
Finally, if there's anything missing here, or if you run into any problems that aren't addressed in these tutorials, don't hesistate to send me an email. I'll usually get back with you within a day or two.
Reference
In these tutorials, keys on the numpad are prefixed with NUM while similar keys are prefixed with TOP.
Mouse input is written:
LClick — left mouse button click
RClick — right mouse button click
Wheel Click — scroll wheel click
click/drag — click button and drag
Wheel scroll — scroll with wheel
Key / mouse combinations are written: SHIFT+S, CTRL + RClick, SHIFT + LClick/drag, etc.
Keyboard/Mouse References and Macs Blender uses a wide variety of keyboard shortcuts, mouse input, and combinations of each. After a while, they will become second nature to you, but in the tutorials, I have to make reference to them. I try to make my references as logical as possible, but I will spell them out for you here.
The keys on the Numpad (shown left) work differently than the other keys on the keyboard. For instance, the numpad "1" key does something completely different than the "1" key at the top of your keyboard. To distinguish between them I will prefix the keys on the numpad with NUM and the similar keys at the top of your keyboard with TOP.
Because Blender uses the Numpad keys, you NEED a keyboard with a seperate numpad. Laptop keyboards typically have their numpads as secondaries to the letter keys on the right. It's a major pain to use Blender with this key setup, so if you're using a laptop, I recommend connecting a seperate keyboard or a USB numpad of you have one.
Blender makes heavy use of Left and Right mouse buttons and the Scroll Wheel. For this reason I recommend having a mouse with all three. If you have a single-button Mac mouse, you might want to go to Wal-Mart and pick up a cheap mouse.
In these tutorials I will refer to a few different sorts of mouse input.
Clicking the Left mouse button will be referred to as LClick. Clicking the Right mouse button will be referred to as RClick. Pretty simple, but you also have the scroll wheel, which can also be clicked. Clicking the scroll wheel will be referred to as WheelClick.
Click/Drag refers to holding down one of the mouse buttons (or wheel) while moving the mouse.
WheelScroll is self-explanitory, I hope.
Any key / mouse input combinations will have + inbetween the different parts.
CTRL+NUM7, or
SHIFT+LClick/Drag, etc.
I don't have a ton of experience using Blender on Macs, but the only differences I've found so far are things that are unrelated to making sculpties.
Remember to play around with what you've learned. Experiment. Be adventurous. Make mistakes.
Nothing in Blender is precious.
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Introduction | Quick Reference | Tutorial Goals | Keyboard/Mouse References
Next Tutorial: Installation Guide
