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ok

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Well, now that we have installed the program, unfortunately we have to talk a little about the settings

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Before we go to the main work.

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I'll try to go as fast as possible, and hopefully this will be the driest part of the course.

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If you look at my screen, you will definitely notice that your screen is not exactly like mine.

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which is normal

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There is no problem.

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The reason is that I had already installed Blender on this system somewhere in a deep folder

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It remembers my settings.

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After we make these initial settings for the first time, every time you open Blender, this page will come to you.

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But for the first time you'll get something that looks like this and I apologize for not having it

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a live version of this, but I had to install it onto another computer to get this screen to pop up

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again.

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So we have to work with the screenshot, but it's really simple and it shouldn't be a problem.

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Okay, this is the quick setup screen.

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Now, if you had a previous version of Blender installed onto the same machine as of the 3.0 update,

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you can come down here where it says load 2.93 settings and click that and it will load all of your

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preferences from the previous version.

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Presuming you wish to keep them the same.

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But for the purposes of this course, I am assuming that this is your first time ever downloading or

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using blender.

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So we're just going to do the quick setup from scratch for language.

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We're going to leave it at English for shortcuts.

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You want to keep them on Blender?

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I know Blender has enabled support for people that are switching from another program like Mya so they

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don't have to learn new keyboards, which, believe me, can be really difficult.

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I don't believe that Mya has any support for quickly enabling blender shortcuts.

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And in fact, last time I tried to manually set up blender style shortcuts and Mya, I was unable to

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because they do not allow certain functions to be read, to be bound to different keys.

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And the default, which is another good thing about open source software like Blender, is that it tends

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to be a lot more configurable than company supported software.

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However, the tradeoff for that is often that open source software is slightly less user friendly.

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But as I mentioned in the last video, Blender had a major update a few years ago and now it is much

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more user friendly than it used to be.

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But I digress.

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I am assuming that someone taking this course is not coming from another 3D modeling program but is

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doing this for the first time.

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So we're going to keep the default blender shortcuts.

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Next up is select with now this is referring to when you want to select something whether you use the

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left or right mouse button, which seems probably a little strange, like why would you want to select

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with the right mouse button but actually used to be the default in blender back in maybe the 2.42.5

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days.

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I don't really know why they went with that at the time and to change it, it wasn't something that

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popped up all nice on the opening screen like this.

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You sort of had to navigate down several submenus to find it.

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But, you know, maybe you learn to use Blender a long time ago and we're used to the right click select.

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So if that's the case, they would still have that option here for you.

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But luckily, Blender now defaults to select with the left click.

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So we're just going to leave it here at left.

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Okay.

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So the next setting is what function do we want to have bound to the spacebar on our keyboard.

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Now it defaults to play, which is geared toward an animation set up, but I actually find it more useful

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to bind it, to search, because oftentimes you'll need to use a really specific operation that Blender

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has.

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But maybe it's not one you use over and over, so you'll forget what menu it's under.

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Or and this has happened to me quite a number of times.

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You'll need to use an operation.

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And you did know where it was located, but you updated Blender to a new version and they moved some

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of the menus and things around.

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In this case, it is extremely helpful to be able to just hit the spacebar and search for the function

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you need.

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So here where it says spacebar, go ahead and make sure that you click search theme.

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Now this is really up to you.

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It's purely cosmetic.

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All it will do is change the color of things like the background, the menus and outlines.

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I personally use blender minimal dark because I find I spend many hours a day staring at the screen

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using blender, and I find that the brighter themes make my eyes start to hurt more quickly, plus darker

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programs because they are emitting less light from your monitor.

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Use less power or so I've been told.

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So you can play around with these, pick your theme and don't stress too much.

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You can change it later if you want.

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So once you have all that set up, you're going to click down here.

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It says Save New Settings.

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So there's just a couple more things that we need to go over regarding settings and preferences before

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we can really get started.

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So the first thing I want to discuss is the mouse and keyboard setup now.

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In order to use Blender or really any other 3D software, you do need to have a three button mouse.

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And just to clarify what I mean by that.

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A three button mouse is a mouse that has the left click, the right click, and the middle mouse scroll

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wheel.

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The middle scroll wheel is really important, and navigating around in 3D space really hinges on your

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ability to use this button.

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So if you don't have a three button mouse, you get one.

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There are about $15 on Amazon.

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It doesn't have to be fancy.

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It just has to have this metal scroll wheel.

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If for whatever reason, you absolutely cannot use a three button mouse blender still has your back.

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If you go under edit preferences and enter input here, there's an option that says Emulate three button

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mouse.

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Enabling this will allow you to use the same functions that the scroll wheel provides by holding alt

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and using the left mouse click.

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This might be an option for you if you're using something like a trackpad.

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You can.

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You can still simulate that.

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I actually first learned Blender on a 2011 MacBook Pro using only my trackpad because that was all I

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had.

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But I really don't recommend it because it's just much more difficult to use with the trackpad and laptops

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in general just aren't powerful enough to run programs like this at a high level.

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You can get by in the beginning for sure on a laptop, and if you are just kind of trying this out to

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see if you like it and are you have the laptop, you will be totally fine in the beginning.

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But there comes a point pretty early on really where you will hit a performance wall and it will be

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trying to model something that is too complex for the machine and you'll get frame drops and lags that

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really make the program unusable, but cross that bridge if and when you come to it.

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So in the next bit of settings I want to discuss is the Numpad and the Numpad here is pretty critical

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in Blender as we're going to see more in future videos.

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But if your keyboard doesn't have one and all you have is these numbers across the top of the letters

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here, that's still okay.

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Just make sure that in that same input preferences window, you're going to want to click Emulate Numpad

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here at the top.

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This will remind all those functions that are normally on the numpad to that top row of number keys.

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You'll notice that any numpad is already on for me because my keyboard does not have a numpad.

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Any of these key binds can be changed by navigating to the key map tab under the preferences window,

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selecting the category, and simply changing the binding there.

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You can also search for the function by name or by the key that it is currently bound to and change

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it that way.

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We're not going to be changing any of these.

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We're just going to leave them all at the defaults.

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I just wanted to show you where you could do that if you needed to.

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The last thing I wanted to discuss are add ons.

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Add ons are essentially plug ins for Blender that can extend the program's functionality.

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Blender comes with a whole slew of add ons that are installed into the program, but not enabled by

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default.

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You can find these add ons by from this window going, opening that preferences window again, which

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is edit preferences and coming over here to the side and clicking add ons.

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So all of these add ons are the ones that come with Blender to enable any of these add ons.

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All you have to do is click the checkmark next to it and to disable on click.

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Obviously, a lot of these are enabled by default, such as these import export options.

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For example, this import export format is there by default, and this allows you to export your models

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into this file format, which is standard for sharing across other programs such as Unreal Engine Unity,

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that sort of thing.

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Any of these add ons that are enabled to begin with, I would leave on because if you disable something

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by default down the line, maybe you're trying to, for example, export and fix and the menu option

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just won't be there.

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And when you Google it, you probably won't find very many answers because nobody has really had this

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problem because it's on by default.

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But in addition to the ones that are on by default, there's a few that I highly recommend you enable.

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The first is mesh loop tools, and the second just down below it is node node wrangler.

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We're going to cover more with these do in future videos for you now.

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For now, just make sure that these checkboxes are enabled.

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The last one that we're probably going to use in this course is usually text tools, but this one does

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not come packaged with Blender.

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We're going to have to download it, but it's going to be really simple.

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We won't be using it right away, but we will eventually and we'll we're going to want some more tools

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when we come to the texture portion of the course.

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And this is a good way to demonstrate just how to add plugins that are not included with Blender, as

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I mentioned in the previous video.

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Blender is open source, which means, among other things, that anyone is able to write plugins for

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it.

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The code is not proprietary, so no company controls what plugins are written for it.

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There are a lot of really great plugins available online that extend blender functionality in some pretty

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substantial ways.

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That being said, of course, because it's totally open there, there's no real support or helpdesk

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of any kind.

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Should you have an issue with one of these outside plugins?

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And as always, be careful of what you download off of the internet, make sure the source is legitimate,

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etc. So in order to get this text tools add on, we're going to open a browser and we're just going

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to Google Blender text tools.

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And the first thing that's going to show up should be this GitHub page.

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And we're going to go in here.

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And what GitHub is, if you've never seen it before, is basically it's just an online location where

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people can upload source code for applications and plugins such as this one.

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You don't need to log in or sign up or anything to access this file, so don't worry about that.

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So when you click inside, you'll see this page and you can scroll all the way down to the.

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Bottom and there's a little read me file which just explains a little bit more about the functionality

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of of text tools.

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So read that if you'd like.

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But for now, let's go back up.

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And we're going to go on the side here where it says releases.

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Underneath that, there's a link that says techs tools, a 1.4.4.

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Now, depending on when you were watching this, this version may be different, but that's okay.

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Just click whatever version says latest.

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So it'll bring you to this page.

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And this is just basically a list of everything that's been updated since the last version of text tools.

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So scroll down to the bottom here where it says assets.

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And we're just going to download this zip file in a second to download.

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And once it's downloaded, we want to go to the file location.

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For me, because I'm using Google Chrome, I can just right click and hit show in folder.

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I can see I've already downloaded it before.

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So I was testing this out.

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So once you have found the file, we are actually not going to unzip this.

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Now it's up to you whether or not you want to make a designated spot to keep your blender plug.

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And you can certainly leave it in the downloads folder if you wish, because once Blender has a copy

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of these files, we won't need this zip file anymore.

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You could delete it and the plug in would still work.

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However, if you ever need to reinstall Blender for whatever reason, you would need to locate these

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original files again and redownload them if they were deleted.

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Which wouldn't necessarily be a problem.

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But there is just no guarantee that the author of the plugin won't have taken them down, which would

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leave you without access to those plug ins.

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And plus, it's just faster if you have them already.

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So I believe as of Blender 3.0, you do not have to reinstall add ons when you update, but I could

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be misremembering that either way.

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I think it's just good practice to keep this zip file somewhere where you can easily find it again should

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something go wrong.

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So for my setup I went into the blender install location, which for me.

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Let's see.

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Program files, Blender Foundation.

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This is where you'll have any and all versions as well as settings and some other supplementary files

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for Blender.

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Now I added this new folder outside of the Blender version folder and I called it add ons.

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This is basically just a repository of backups of all the plug ins and things that I have downloaded.

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You can obviously put this folder wherever you wish, just as long as you know where it is.

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So back in Blender, all you have to do to get any downloaded add on working is in the same preferences

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window we were just in.

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Go to add ons.

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And up at the top there's this install button.

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Click that and it's going to bring up this file browser.

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So now we just need to navigate to where that zip folder is and.

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And if you have it up here in your file browser still.

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I quickly navigate back to it.

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You can just click on this right click copy.

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And then in the location bar on the blender file browser.

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Click Control.

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We paste and enter and it will bring you right there.

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So now all we have to do is just select the add on the zip file and hit install.

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You'll get a little message down here saying that's been successfully installed.

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And now what we want to do is just scroll and just make sure that it's enabled.

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Check that box if it's not already ticked.

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Now, like I said, we won't be using this right away, but we're going to be using it in a future video.

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And I just wanted to show you how to add additional add ons into Blender.

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So.

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Now that we have the program up and running, we have all of our preferences set.

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We're ready to jump in and in the next video, we're going to be doing that.