Utterly confused

First things first: I’m not sure I’m posting in the right place. If not, please let me know and I can repost in the right place.

Second, I’m using Blender 2.71

After a few years of not messing around with Blender at all, I’ve rediscovered its usefulness and I’ve found that I have a great need to learn to use it. Now, I’m not like some people… I have no (zip, zilch, zero) skill when it comes to using art or artistic programs such as this. Everything I learn to do is a struggle. I know that once I learn enough, I’ll find it easier, as I’ll begin to make the necessary connections between ‘this’ and ‘that’, and things will get a bit easier. For now, even the “simplest” things totally confuse me.

I’ve decided that the best way for me to start is probably going to be figuring out how to make and manipulate certain basic geometric shapes. Incredibly simple things like turning a square cube into a rectangular cube, turning a smooth circle into a faceted one etc, just to get a start and learn some of the basic commands and functions. Once I can do that kind of thing without having to look up a tutorial, I’ll move on to other things (if I’m lucky, I’ll actually be able to create something really nice by the time I’m about 196).

At the moment, because I’m having such a difficult time finding tutorials for such simple things (probably because the average person doesn’t actually need tutorials for such things) I’m working on dice. I thought that, perhaps, if I could learn that, I might be able to figure out how to manipulate the cube in other ways.

Ok, here’s my problem (aside from the fact that I’m long winded):

TL/DR: Whenever I hit “subdivide”, my cube puffs up nearly to the point of becoming a sphere. I’ve found two separate tutorials, followed them to the letter (one of them is actually a youtube video) and those who created said tutorials are not having this issue. What am I doing wrong? Or, what am I not doing?

Thank you!

When you subdivide is the smoothness set to zero?

I don’t know. I’ll check in a few (my dog is demanding a walk) and let you know. Thanks


I have no idea how I even found the smoothness just now (I didn’t see it initially, so I’ll have to play around and see where it was to know what I did), but it’s now set to 0, and now it’s remaining a cube! Thank you!

EDIT: So, I just checked it out and discovered that, now, the default value for Smoothness (I didn’t even notice it before, right under “Number of Cuts”) is 0, so it’s remaining a cube. I played around with it for a bit and discovered that the value had to have been 1 before, though I’m not sure why the default has changed… Anyway, that worked, and I appreciate the help!

Thanks JA12, very much! I’m putting these on my desktop for quick selection and will be watching them repeatedly, I’m sure.