The File Select window

Hotkeys: F1 for loading, F2 for saving.

Left click to select a file and press ENTER to load it, or middle click to both select and load it. Alternatively you can use the "LOAD" (or "SAVE") buttons in the upper right corner of a FileWindow.

The FileWindow in Blender is general and will be called for all file operations.

To save a file, enter a name in the filename field (the second one from the top) and press ENTER to confirm the filename. Press ENTER again to save the file. If you have already entered a filename earlier, pressing F2, ENTER will save, too.

Entering a new directory name in the directory box (the one on the top) and pressing ENTER will create the new directory for you, after asking for confirmation.

The Image Select window

This window type works exactly like the file load window, but all recognized image files are shown as thumbnails. An example of where this window is used is in the Texture Buttons window, for loading image texture maps.

The 3D window

This window allows you to manipulate the objects in your scene directly by dragging (GKEY), rotating (RKEY) or scaling them (SKEY).

Change between top, front and right view with numpad 7, numpad 1 and numpad 3. Toggle perspective mode with numpad 5, and change to camera view with numpad 0. Toggle between wire, solid or shaded drawing with ZKEY and CTRL+ZKEY.

You can navigate through 3D space by dragging with the middle button; this will rotate your view. Dragging with middle button and holding the key will translate the view, and holding down will allow you to zoom.

The IPO window

Hotkey: SHIFT+F6.

In this window you can edit the animation curves that are associated to different object properties, like their position and rotation, but also their color or layer. The different object properties or 'channels' that are available are shown on the right. You can select channels by left clicking on them - SHIFT will extend the selection.

Just like in the 3Dwindow, enter edit mode by pressing TAB. You can now edit the individual vertices of the curves or change their curvature.

The Text window

Hotkey: SHIFT+F11.

The TextWindow is mainly used for writing Python scripts, but you can also use it for other things.. It is often a good idea to keep notes of your animation projects. Information that I always forget (especially after a couple of weeks!) are the maps that I have used, the scenes that I have defined, important frame numbers, well, you get the picture.

A big advantage of using the TextWindow is that the notes are stored inside the .blend files - this way you can never loose your notes again!

When creating a new TextWindow, you have the choice of creating a new text object, or to import an existing text file. In that case, a FileWindow will be opened and you can select a file as usual. Of course, you can have more than one text object in your Blender file.

The Info Window

The Info Window does not have a hotkey. Instead, it is 'hidden' at the top of your screen. To reveal it, drag down the top window border on your screen as indicated in the picture.

The Info Window shows you the settings of Blender. Among other things, you can tell Blender where to store autosave files, when to save them (use the 'Time' value) and how many versions to keep on disk. Here, you can also activate Blender's tooltips function. Tooltips will appear in the right corner of the header of the Info Window, right next to the Blender URL and version number.

You can make your settings permanent by pressing CTRL+U and confirming the requester that pops up. (Please note, that this manual assumes that you have not changed the default Blender settings file!)

DisplayButtons

Hotkey: F10.

Once you are ready to render your image or save it to disk, you need the DisplayButtons window. In this window you can control all the parameters that have to do with rendering quality, rendering size, animation length and animation filenames.

To define the image size you can either select a preset value from the row of buttons on the far right or set an image size yourself by changing the SizeX and SizeY values. For preview rendering, you can also render the image at 25%, 50% or 75% of the final output size.

Turn anti-aliasing on or off with the OSA button. Control the image quality with the oversampling buttons 5, 8, 11 or 16. A higher value will result in a better image quality at the penalty of a longer rendering time.

Start rendering by selecting the 'Render' button or by pressing F12. A separate window will pop up. ESC aborts rendering. F11 will toggle the rendering result window.

Press 'Anim' to render an entire animation. When rendering an animation, enter the basename of the animation frames in the 'Pics' field. Each file will be automatically named (basename)+framenumber. For example: frame0001, frame0002 etc. After rendering, press the 'Play' button to play back your animation.

Select a file format with the MenuButton labeled 'Targa' here. A pop-up menu lets you choose the desired format. For animations, you can also choose 'AVI raw' and 'AVI jpg' and define the number of frames per second for these files.

To determine the start- and endframe of your animation, change the Sta: and End: values. After you have rendered your animation press Play to play it back.

The Lamp Buttons

Hotkey: F4.

The Lamp Buttons will only appear when a lamp has been selected. With these buttons, you can change all the parameters of lamps, like their color, energy, type (regular lamp, spotlight or sun). You can also control the quality of shadows by manipulating the clipping values and shadow buffer sizes.

The Material Buttons

Hotkey: F5.

MaterialButtons are only shown when an object with a Material has been selected. To create a new Material or browse in the scene-materials use the MenuButton in the MaterialButtons header. This window allows control over properties such as object color, shininess, transparency, textures, texture types and texture projection methods.

The Texture Buttons

Hotkey: F6.

In this window you can select several types of textures for use in a material, light or world setting. The available types are:

Image: You can load an image as a 'texture map'. This image will then be projected on an object in the way that you define (for example using planar or spherical projection). Projection method is a material property.

Procedural: Clouds, Wood, Marble, Magic, Blend, Stucci and Noise. These textures are predefined and have a number of parameters that you can adjust. Procedural textures are also truly three dimensional. An example of this would be a block of wood: if you cut out a part of it, the wood texture needs to continue on the inside in a realistic manner.

Plugin: You can also program your own piece of code to use as a procedural texture. It is similar to writing a sequence editor plugin. More information about this can be found in the help section of this site.

Environment map: Environment maps are used to simulate reflections of the environment in an object. To achieve this, Blender calculates six images from the object's viewpoint. These images are then combined to compute a reflection.

The Animation Buttons

In the left part of the Animation Buttons window you can set properties for things like curve following, automatic object duplication and object tracking.

The middle part of the window contains the interface to object plugins like particle systems and the wave effect. Pressing the 'New Effect' button and selecting an effect from the effects list on the right will attach a new effect to the currently selected object and display the list of options for this effect.

The standard effects are: particle system, wave and build.

The World Buttons

In the WorldButtons you can define settings that are scene-global. These are for example the mist (fog) settings, rendering of stars, the color and textures of the horizon and zenith.

The Realtime Buttons

Hotkey: F8.

The RealtimeButtons are Blenders editor for defining interactive realtime 3D graphics. Here you can edit settings for the physics of realtime objects, and connect objects with game-logic. Check our numerous tutorials on creation of real-time content!

The Edit Buttons

The buttons that are shown in the EditButtons window depend on the kind of object that you have currently selected. Each type of Objects has its own specific set of Buttons and settings. Meshes for example have Buttons for manipulation of vertices and Curves have Buttons to edit the resolution and the order of the Curve.