QuickTip: An Easy Way to Remember the Colors for the 3D Axis Lines in Blender

Admittedly, this is trivial, but it's the type of tip that can make life a little bit easier for the beginner trying to get up to speed in the world of 3D graphics.

The issue is how to determine your orientation within the 3d view while you're working on your scene. There's a 3d mini-axis icon located in the lower left corner of the 3d view, and the background grid has colored axis lines to help you understand the current orientation of the 3d view.

However, what if you keep forgetting the color associated with each axis? (It would be good if you didn't have to keep referring to the mini-axis icon.)

A simple solution:

The colors used are Red, Green, and Blue. Now, being involved in graphics, you quickly recognize that as the same order of the common abbreviation RGB.

The order of the axis letters are alphabetical, XYZ.

So, simply take those two easily remembered patterns and connect them.

(R)ed is the color for the X-axis.
(G)reen is the color for the Y-axis.
(B)lue is the color for the Z-axis.

That's it, no more disorientation! Hopefully, it will be of some use.

technorati tags: Blender3D, 3D, graphics, Blender tutorials

Time-Saver Tip: Auto-Fitting the Button Panels

Quite often, you need to pan or zoom the Button Panels when working in Blender. It's great to have the freedom to do that but, it can be a real time-waster when trying to reset their size and position or, when trying to get the Panels to fit nicely within a resized Buttons window. It often involves several adjustments and, too often, you probably just end up leaving it as it is just so you can refocus on your scene.

Well, here's a simple solution that takes advantage of an existing feature in Blender!

Simply Right-Click anywhere within the Buttons window to bring up the Panel Alignment menu. Select the desired orientation and the Panels will be oriented accordingly but, they will also be resized perfectly (within the Panel's sizing range) and left-aligned within the Buttons window. You're done! Now you can quickly get back to your scene.

Coming from a tip provided by someone (Mr(s). Anonymous) in the Blender community:
To save even more time, you also have the option to use the Home-key! That's one of the great things about Blender, there's often more than one way to solve an issue.

If you need more clarification, I've included a short video demonstration.


Watch the tutorial online
(FLV streaming, Length - 1:22)

technorati tags: Blender3D, 3D, graphics, Blender tutorials

Taking Blender 3D windows to the extreme...

This is an extreme example of just how flexible the Blender interface can be...not very practical but, I think it makes the point that you can pretty much achieve any layout you may need within the Blender interface.



You can download the .blend file here.

(To those having trouble downloading this file in the past, please try it now. I've changed the hosting location.)

technorati tags: Blender, 3D, graphics, interface

How To: Resize a window in the Blender interface

Before setting our default file paths in Blender, now would be a good time to learn how to resize a window in Blender's interface. It's very simple.

Blender uses window splitters (AKA separators) to allow resizing and other functions to be performed on any window area of the interface.



Simply drag them to resize the window.

technorati tags: Blender, 3D, tutorial, newbie, splitter, beginner, resize, graphics, interface