Ok, a few more annoying questions;-)

Support Basics & Interface
1

Sorry this is so long but here goes…

(1#) How do I minimize blender or temporarilly get it out of my way so that I can see my desktop instead of having to shut it down each time?. I don’t really want to be in the -w (windowed) mode because the lower portion of my desktop partially obscures the Blender screen.

(2#) How do you completly start over with a new project and delete everything from the screen, memory, buffer, etc?. In other words, a “fresh start”.

(3#) When I right-click on a block/model, instead of all four points on the corners (“vertices”?) turning yellow, only one does and then when I choose TRANSFORM>GRAB>MOVE and try to move it, it only grabs the one yellow corner and tries to stretch it. How do I select (and work with) the entire model?. I believe I experienced this in the edit mode.

(4#) How do I join children (“gluing”)?.

(5#) I’m assuming that “vertices” are the little yellow points/dots located at each joint or corner. Assuming I have the language right, how do I add “vertices” (ie; “yellow dots”) to non-joint areas like the very top of a box, the sides or the middle of an edge, etc so that I can stretch/form it into the shape I want?

(6#) Could someone please tell me step-by-step (in simple terms) how to create two separate block starting from scratch?. I’ve finally had some limited success but I’m not “there” just yet. At the moment, I’m clicking on NEW>DELETE ERASE ALL and then going into the OBJECT mode and then selecting ADD>MESH>CUBE to create a single cube on the screen. Next, I’m going back into the OBJECT mode and repeating this process so that I have two cubes. Then, I’m going MESH>TRANSFORM>GRAB>MOVE and moving the first cube out from behind the original one. Then I go into the object mode, right-click on the cube I want to work with, go back into the edit mode, click on that little box icon with a yellow dot on each corner and from the “links and materials” panel in the bottom-left corner I type in “cube1” (to give my currently-selected box a name) and click on the “select” and “assign” buttons", etc. My biggest question is, should I fill out BOTH sections (ME:cube and OB:cube) or what exactly am I supposed to be doing here?. This is the part that confuses me more than anything right now.

I feel like a midget amongst giants here. A lot of you are obviously seasoned veterans at this 3D stuff but I am a complete novice and there seems to be a substantially high learning curve involved - it sort of feels like the very first time I got on the “net” and asked someone “um…could someone please tell me how to create a hyperlink?”. I guess we all have to start somewhere. I’ve spent the morning downloading video tutorials to try and train my feeble mind how to use this program (they look pretty good).

(7#) Finally, I noticed that all of my previous paths, settings, themes, etc are completely gone. I was clicking on various items in the menus this morning and am wondering if I’ve somehow “reset” everything back to the defaults. Is this possible?. Thanks again and sorry that this is so long-winded.

  • Regards
2

well, actually, ive only been into blender for about 5 months…

i found that with some practice, blender is relatively easy to pick up

well, now to the questions:

  1. umm… im assuming that you mean that you are minimizing when you are “shutting down”, and that you are using Windows. just click on the regular button (the restore button) and move your toolbar so that you cannot see it. click on the blender header, move it, resize, and there you go

  2. [Ctrl+x]

  3. [a] toggles a [select all/deselect all]

  4. select the two objects, and press [Ctrl+J]

  5. select the vertice you want the new one to be connected to (right mouse button), press [ctrl] and LMB where you want the vertice to be.

  6. [spacebar]->[add]->[mesh]->[CUBE]. press [tab]. left click where you want your second cube to be. [spacebar]->[add]->[mesh]->[cube]. press [tab]. that should be fine.

  7. [ctrl+u] saves your user defaults (i.e. theme, paths, view, all objects that you have in it, world settings, render settings, etc. etc.)

i hope this helps

~Delta

3
  1. ctrl p in object mode (whn you have two meshs selected)

other than that i think delta had it

Fudge

4

  1. File >> New.

  2. Hit Tab to go into Object Mode.

  3. select the vert/edges/faces you want to shape and a) E for extrude b) G for grab c) S for scale.

Look in my sig for the file “Basic Training” and use it!

%<

5

Hey thanks. You people are so great and freindly:).

Ok, on number 1#, (and in response to the first reply) I am using Fedora Core 2# (Linux) on Gnome and when I use the full screen mode (my preferred mode) I need some way of minimizing Blender3D from time to time so that I can reference things online, chat with people and do other things. I could use the Windowed mode (blender -w) but when I do this, the lower portion of my desktop partially obscures the Blender screen

Also, with respect to the first response I received on 5#…

“…select the vertice you want the new one to be connected to (right mouse button), press [ctrl] and LMB where you want the vertice to be”

I’m not exactly sure what “LMB” is or where to find it. I looked for it on the keyboard, Blender menus and icons and I don’t see anything like that.

As a footnote to all of this, I accidentally answered another question I was going to ask regarding changing the lighting and rendering screen background while I was fiddling around so this was like a bonus:).

  • Regards and thank’s again!
6

Left Mouse Button :smiley:

7

Thank’s, The left mouse button thing worked:)

8

Have you read the online docs? search for som nice ‘getting started’ tutorials.

BTW: to avoid asking to many stupid questions,use the ‘search’ button in the upper right-hand coner of the forum window, because no question is REALLY stupid, and somone has probably asked it before. this is a BIG forum.

9

Hey guy/girl. From your questions it seems to me that you need to read a few of the beginning with blender tutorials from the www.blender.org site or the docs at wwwl.blender3d.com. The seem like the kind of questions that people have when the first fire up the program and do not bother to read the documentation. Thats just lazy. At least attempt to read and solve you own question.

That being said, blender is not the most intutive program availible, BUT is is still GREAT. I have been using it for 5 years and still feel like I do not know very much. Sometimes I feel like I still am a beginner. BUT one thing you do need to do is try to find the answers yourself before you just jump in and expect people to help you. If you do you will find that you learn a lot more about this OUTSTANDING program then the immediate topic you were having problems with.

10

Excuse me for being frank here but what makes you think that I hav’nt already gone over some of these beginner tutorials?. While it certainly IS human/animal nature to always want to take the easy way out or the path of least resistance (ie: “to be lazy”), I did actually spend several days downloading and veiwing both textual and video tutorials BEFORE I asked my questions here. Did it ever occurr to you that perhaps upon failing to find what I was looking for, I then decided to post my question(s) in this forum?. I realize there’s a big RTFM (read the ******* manual) movement afoot and a lot of people automatically assume that just because a person asks a question (which is what forums are for) that they did’nt bother to search around or read the manuals. I can assure you that that is definately not the case with me. Manuals are definately helpful but they do not always have an answer for everything and certainly are no subsitute for good old human interaction - something I find sorely lacking in society today!.

As an aside, it is often difficult to even KNOW exactly what to search for since I’m not familliar with all of the 3D related terminology and thus my questions may indeed seem “stupid” (like the embarrassing “LMB” question I asked earlier). I am familiar with the acronym “LMB” and have seen it used before and knew what it meant but perhaps, this one time, my brain just did’nt make the assocciation due to the fact that I am in poor health and have just finished coming off of two month’s worth of powerful medications.

Anyway, enough. Thank’s for the help (it was appreciated)

11

Ok, I just checked the online manuals again and I don’t see anything relating to my current problem which is that when I do an “F1” to bring up the file folder and then scroll through it and locate a .blend file, right-click on it and select “open”, I always get an “untitled .blend” thingy up there and even when I backspace this out, I still get a message that say’s…

Error: Can’t open file. /home/smitty/blender_stuff/library/matlib/untitled.blend

What’s causing this?. I’ve also gotten a read error a few times. I was’nt having this problem yesterday.

Thank’s

12

Your question is too confusing. If you want to open a file in F1 just MMB (middle mouse button) it or Alt-LMB.
The “Untitled.blend” is just a file you havn’t named and saved as that.

%<

13

How is my question “too confusing”?. I have been doing what you just described and as I stated earlier, it is not loading the file and is producing an error.

14

Ok, it works now. I was using my RMB as opposed to my MMB and now I’m tired and going out into the kitchen to MAS (make a snack) and then WST (watch some TV) and finally, GTB (go to bed). These acronyms are killing me.

TAF (thank’s again folks) :wink:

15

How is my question “too confusing”?.

If you were doing as I said then you did indeed select “Untitled.blend”. If this is not what you wanted to select (maybe a prob with your mouse?) then why back it out? Just reselect the correct one. If it is what you wanted to select and you did as I said you would not have time to see the filepath as the file “Untitled.blend” would open before you could read it. Confusing.

If you RMB a file and the wrong name appears in the bottom box then you can back it out and write the correct name in and hit Open.

%<

16

I feel like I’m being misunderstood here. What I actually said was that I was getting an error message when I right-clicked and attempted to open a .blend file. I am not trying to select “untitled.blend” so I really don’t see why you would find this “confusing”. It just appears in the lower text feild for some crazy reason. I did actually follow yoiur instructions and it worked so…um…thank’s. I think what it boils down to is just confusion on my part as to how to open various files (ie; python scripts, materials, images, textures, .blend files, etc. I’m getting there and learning a LOT though thank’s to the help I’ve received in this forum and also several of the nice tutorials I’ve had the pleasure of viewing over the past few days. Anyway, again, you helped me to understand how this works so thank you.

  • Regards
17

LOL… don’t let it bring you down. I can’t answer a Q that I find confusing so I let you know so you’re aware of it if the answer is way off. Anyhow, there’s a protocol, anything you select from a filebrowser outside of Blender (.blend, .py, images etc) will open with a MMB. Anything inside Blender opens with “Add New” or select from an existing menu with LMB. Use the “Basic Training” file in my sig which concentrates on all these Blender oddities.

%<

18

Everything is cool:-). To be brutally honest, I joined this forum with an inferiority complex to begin with because as I stated in another post, I felt like a “midget among giants” with all the pros in here and figured everyone would think I was an idiot or something so I may be a little more defensive than I should be when dealing with people (please forgive and try to ovewrlook if I am). The other thing that does’nt help is that the medication I was on screwed me up so I’m not my usual self (intellectually or otherwise). The medication I was on was Cipro and Levaquin (two months). If you know anything about these meds, you know they have some pretty debilllitating side effects so please forgive any unusual behavior or slow-mindedness I exhibit while riding the learning curve:)

19

We don’t have that kind of attitude towards noobs here, and those that do are worth ignoring.

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20

I open Blender on it’s own workspace. To switch between workspaces, (in GNOME, at least,) press Ctrl+Alt+‘Relevent Arrow Key’.

MWM