Blender Basics for Second Life Sculpties

It was a grand occasion one summer day back in 1997. I was an ambitious 14-year-old who wanted to get a head start in 3D modeling. I had installed Blender 3D for the very first time on my computer, and had just opened it up. What I saw was something similar to the image on the left.

What did I do from there?
I stared at the screen for two minutes before shutting down Blender and going back to playing video games.

The moral of the story is: Blender is complex. I will not lie here. However there is GOOD NEWS for you Second Life sculptors.

The news is this:
You don’t have to learn all of Blender to make sculpties and what you need to learn is PRETTY EASY!

You should already have Blender, Python, and the Domino scripts installed. If not, back up one tutorial.

Also, in order to make life easier, you should have a full-size keyboard with numpad, and a two-button mouse (preferably with a scroll wheel). If you are using a laptop keyboard, either buy a full usb keyboard, or at least a usb numpad. If you’re using a 1-button Mac mouse, I’d recommend getting a cheap mouse from Wal-Mart or something, but you can use the typical mouse/keyboard combinations if you feel so inclined.

Blender Windows

Blender’s interface uses a rather unique window setup. I won’t get into the complex details in this tutorial, but I need to explain a few things.

When you first start up Blender, you will have three divisions, or windows (Shown here. Click to enlarge).

So how is this important to you right now? Your cursor’s location determines which division is ‘active.’ The active division will respond to all mouse and keyboard commands, so if things on your screen appear to be unresponsive, first check your cursor position.

Blender Camera Controls

The NUMPAD is your friend for camera control. If ever you don’t know which way you’re pointed, just tap 1, 3, or 7 on your numpad and it will show you the front, side, or top respectively. If you ever need to see opposite side of your sculpt, simply hold the CTRL key in combination with the numbers.

Your mouse wheel is your other camera controller. Scrolling with the wheel predictably zooms in and out on your 3D view. Clicking and dragging with the wheel will rotate the camera around a set center point. If you hold SHIFT while clicking and dragging with the wheel, the camera will pan along the current view plane.

Remember: If your view doesn’t respond to the keypad, check your cursor position.

Basic Editing in Blender

Before we get into making actual sculpts, we need to get familiar with the basic editing hotkeys. They are fairly straight-forward.

Selection:

Right now, you have three objects on your screen. A box, a camera (pyramid thing), and a light (circle-thing). To select one of these objects, Right-Click on it, and it will get a pink outline. To select more than one, SHIFT+Right-Click on each in turn. You can also SHIFT+Right-Click on a selected object to deselect it.

To toggle between selecting ALL objects on screen and NONE of the objects on screen, tap the A key.

Object Manipulation:

The hotkeys for basic object manipulation are really straight forward.

G – grabs the current selection (picks it up so you can move it)
R – rotates the current selection
S – scales the current selection

Tap one of these keys ONCE. This will only begin a rotation, scaling, or move. At this point, your manipulation is ACTIVE. Left-click to set the manipulation or Right-click to cancel it.

Also, you probably noticed that S will scale your object in all directions (every axis). If you want to scale in only ONE direction (axis), while scaling is ACTIVE, press either X, Y, or Z. These represent your X, Y, and Z axes. Also, if you press SHIFT + X, Y, or Z you can scale in all but one direction.

Blender also allows you to use the X, Y, and Z modifiers while grabbing (G) and rotating (R) your selections. Try them all out to see what they do.