Datasheet
10n Chapter 1: Blender Basics: Interface and Objects
it rotate around the active object by setting the Rotate Around Selection option in the
Interface user preferences in the User Preferences window.
Ctrl+MMB (or mouse wheel) Zooms in and out in the 3D space.
Shift+MMB Pans 3D view.
If the Emulate 3 Button Mouse option is selected on the Input tab of the user preferences,
you can emulate the middle mouse button by Alt+clicking. This can be useful for laptops
that have no middle button or whose “middle button” is a difficult-to-push combination of
right and left buttons. In the case of a one-button Mac mouse, the mouse click is equivalent
to clicking. The middle button is Alt+mouse, and you simulate the right mouse button with
Apple(F)+mouse. This is not ideal. Do yourself a favor and spring for a three-button model
with a good, solid, mechanical mouse wheel.
In many cases, hotkeys and mouse movements have analogous results in different contexts.
A good example is the behavior of the Ctrl+MMB and Shift+MMB hotkeys. As just men-
tioned, these keys allow zooming and panning in the 3D window. However, if the mouse is
over the Properties window, they have results analogous to zooming and panning. Pressing
Ctrl+MMB lets you enlarge or reduce the vertical size of the Properties display. MMB lets you
drag the Properties display within the window.
You will use the 3D cursor frequently (see Figure 1.7). You can position it by clicking
where you want it in the 3D viewport.
Blender Units
Blender uses one unit of measurement, unsurprisingly called a Blender unit (BU).
A Blender unit is the size of a single square on the background grid in the Blender 3D
viewport. If you are working on scale models, you need to decide what real-world mea-
surement to assign to a single BU and then proportion your work accordingly. Some sim-
ulations assume a BU is equal to 1 meter, as does the Metarig functionality that you will
see in Chapter 4, so it’s worthwhile to keep this scale in mind, but there’s nothing strict
about it. A BU can equal whatever real-world measurement you want. For precision users,
Blender 2.5 also has access to metric and imperial unit measurements as well as custom
measurement scales.
Using Hotkeys
You will notice that Blender favors the use of a lot of hotkeys. Memorizing and becom-
ing comfortable with the various hotkeys and their specific configurations on your
Figure 1.7
The 3D cursor
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