How to make a scene with various elements

Support Basics & Interface
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As a newbie who has been working with After Effects animation a lot I find it very difficult to understand the way Blender thinks and is organized. Could anyone out there who happens also to know AE perhaps help me???

I have studied Blender tutorials for a fortnight now, so I know the basics. I have made a character in the 3d window, I have given her actions and shape keys, and have converted these to NLA strips.

The NLA editor is my scene, I hope Im right about this!!?
I´ve got the character, but I want to make one more character, and a house and a tree.
If it was After Effects, I would choose “MAKE new composition” and I would get a blank window where I could make e.g. a house. Then I would return to the main “scene”(in Blender the NLA window) and find the house in the items menu and drag it down in the scene, where I would place it - perhaps behind the character.

I don´t understand how to do this in Blender???:frowning: I go back to the 3d window, but I still see my initial character mesh, and what do I do??? I want a blank screen to build/extrude a house???

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Layers: Those two little groups of 10 buttons at the bottom of the 3D window. Click on a different one and you have a nice blank screen to build your house. Shift-click on the first one you were using for your character (it’ll have little circle on it to show there’s something on that layer) and your character and the house will appear together.

You’ve got 20 layers to play with. If you want to move something from one layer to another, select the objects you want to move, press M, and then (on the little popup bank of layer buttons) choose the layer you want.

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Thanks a lot for the answer. :slight_smile: