Datasheet
24n Chapter 1: Blender Basics: Interface and Objects
they are all a matter of taste, so experiment with different settings. I recommend you
check the Rotate Around Selection option, particularly if you plan to do mesh modeling.
This ensures that whatever you are working on stays centered on your screen when you
rotate the space.
Editing Presents options for editing objects, animation curves, grease pencil sketches,
and other kinds of editing. Settings for the Undo feature are also accessed in this panel.
You can adjust these settings to save memory, but I recommend keeping your undo steps
as high as your resources allow.
Input Presents options related to user input. You can find the options for Emulate 3
Button Mouse and Emulate Numpad in this panel. You can switch between trackball
and turntable orbit styles for rotating the 3D space. Blender’s default setting is Trackball,
which can be disorienting for users of other 3D software that uses the more constrained
turntable style of 3D orbiting.
This panel is also where you can set your preferences for hotkey combinations. The hot-
keys are organized in a functionality-based tree structure. You can access the hotkey
settings for each area of functionality by clicking the triangle next to the functionality
label to reveal the full list of hotkeys related to that functionality. Figure 1.22 shows the
hotkey settings for saving a Blender file revealed under the Window functionality list.
The default hotkey for saving is Ctrl+S. As you can see in the figure, both the pressed key
and the help keys can be edited in this panel, as well as some options specific to the func-
tionality. In addition, the Python call related to this function is also shown, making this
panel a handy quick reference for scripters also.
Add-Ons Enables you to select which add-ons will be available in your Blender environ-
ment. Add-ons provide additional functionality coded in Python, and they integrate
seamlessly into the Blender interface. For example, some mesh add-ons provide a selec-
tion of additional mesh primitives available through the Add menu.
Figure 1.21
The User Prefer-
ences window
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