New to Blender

Support Basics & Interface
#1

While bored the other evening, I decided to conduct a search on google for free downloadable 3D imaging software to tinker around with and found Blender. I downloaded and installed it and find myself overwhelmed yet excited to play around with it.

I have bookmarked a few links to a couple of tutorials but I haven’t been able to find any information for two particular things.

  1. After downloading some python scripts, how do I add it to the Blender program?

  2. After downloading some models (think that’s what they’re called) where and how do I add those to the Blender program?

  3. Are there any sites available that provide step-by-step tutorials to help a total newbie to get started? Are there any “Blender for Dummies” sites?

#2
  1. There are a lot of great places to get started that I’m sure people will point out shortly. But I thought I would point you to a great beginner’s tut that TRexian recently did.

http://lowpolycoop.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=73

There’s a bunch of other ones there that we’ve done, too.

Scott

#3

Here’s an excellent tutorial to take you from beginner to advanced

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro

I’m not sure about scripts, but if you want to add plugins then scroll the drop down window (located next to the help menu at the top of the screen) to sequence [SRC:4-Sequence] and hit Shift A (while your mouse cursor is in the sequence window), and select Plugin. Then, Scroll to the folder where you unpacked the plugin, right click on your chosen plugin, and then hit enter. Go here for a COMPREHENSIVE list of compiled and uncompiled plugins and scripts available for your operating system of choice.

http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~mein/blender/plugins/

Hope this was helpful

#4

Thanks! They’re all going to be very helpful. :slight_smile:

#5

G’day and welcome to Blender!

To add a new Python script to Blender you usually need to put it into Blender’s scripts folder. The location of that folder depends on the operating system you are using, which is usually (and please everyone correct me if I’m wrong here):

Windows:
C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender.blender\scripts
or
c:\Documents and Settings<your username>.blender\scripts\

Linux:
/home/<username>/.blender/scripts/

OSX Tiger:
/Applications/Blender/blender.app/Contents/MacOS/.blender/scripts/

So if you come across a script you’d like to try, find the link to it, right-click on it and go save-as, then save it to the appropriate folder given above. Or, if you’d already downloaded a script, then just move it to Blender’s script folder.
If you already had Blender running when you added the script to Blender’s scripts folder you need to tell Blender there’s a new script, which you can do by selecting ‘update menus’ from the Scripts menu of the scripts window (the one with the green snake icon) – then the new script will be added.
You can then run the new script by selecting it from one of the submenus of the scripts menu in the scripts window (the one with the green snake icon).

Have lots of fun learning Blender and finding all of its special hidden features.

#6

Personally, I’d advise Lady Syren to avoid that tutorial at all costs, there are some very shoddy modeling practices displayed there, such as creating the gun barrel at an angle, which makes it much harder to edit later. Also, check the seam running down almost the entire length of the gun. That’s there because of lazy modeling and some simple mistakes that could have been picked up at the start, had he spent 10 minutes actually planning how to make the thing. Heard the expression ‘the blind leading the blind’? Well, here it is, for all to see.

Go with the noob to pro wikibook, it’s good clean stuff for the most part.

#7

  1. If you whant to use python scripts whith out istalling them correctly as celeriac has mensioned, i often do this to test them as you can colect quite a few after a while, open it in blenders internal text editor and then hit ALT+r to run the script. their are often also notes in side the script from the designer.

  2. If they in the .blender format just open them as you would any outher file, if they in another format you’ll need to import them. both are on the standard file menu drop down list.

  3. Try the offical manuel at either http://www.blender3d.com/cms/Documentation.628.0.html or try the wiki at http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Manual the wikis more up to date but they still setting it up so it still being effected by currant changes so check it regularly, especialy now that blender 2.4 is on the verg of release

welcome to blender

#8

Thanks, y’all :)! PSP 8 was so much easier to learn :slight_smile: I have a few things I downloaded that I want to learn/use once I get the hang of things. They’re .blend files and they are:

Bulldog
Guardians Blade
Lightsaber
Dragon Blade
Dragon head
Burning Candle

In the scripts folder, all I see are the .py files. I didn’t add any .blender files to this folder. I don’t want to mess up the software before I get the chance to attempt to learn it.

There were two other downloads I knew I’d be needing in the future once I learn this thing, but they have some funky looking files in them.

Make hair has both a .blender file and a hair.slx file. No idea where to put that. The other was the MH20 WINTER 02 for making bodies. base.mesh and the .blend.

Thanks so much for the welcomes and the help. I’ve bookmarked those additional tutorials and help sites that were linked and I did download that manual first thing after downloading Blender. I have plenty of reading to do :smiley:

#9

Welcome to Blender! Don’t worry about messing up the program. You can only do that by removing or changing some of the files, but adding scripts or something else in a folder will do nothing…

In the script folder you should place all the Python scripts you download. Make sure you have the right version of Python installed on your computer to make them work (now it’s 2.3.5, but when Blender 2.40 is released, it will need Python 2.4).

The .blend files won’t do any harm, no matter where you place them. They contain everything related to a scene (models, textures, materials, animations…). You should create a folder in your Blender dyrectory and place all your projects in there.

As for the tutorials, beside reading the wiki Noob to Pro, I really suggest that you follow some video tutorial. You can find them on www.blender3d.org, and they’r very usefull. For me, an example is better than million words.

Good luck learning Blender!

#10

Great and thank you! I’m sure I’ll be back with many more questions and hopefully beginning images :slight_smile:

#11

there are some very shoddy modeling practices displayed there, such as creating the gun barrel at an angle, which makes it much harder to edit later.

Glad somebody agreed with me on that…

#12

With the new particle system/strand texture mapping, there is not as much need for the make hair script for small projects, especially if you are just learning. most of the things you will be learning have already been discussed in these forums…do a search and you will be surprised at how much time you can waste :-?