Datasheet

User Preferences n 25
Themes Enables you to tweak the colors and some other properties of visual elements of
Blender. The visual elements of all editor types can be adjusted in this way.
File Enables access to file-related preferences including default file paths and options for
how many backup versions to save and how often to autosave.
System Gives you access to some miscellaneous prefer-
ences such as sound-handling preferences, OpenGL
lighting and clipping in the 3D window, the color
picker type, custom weight paint range, and lower-level
operating-system-related preferences. As a new Blender
user, you will probably not have much cause to vary
these settings from the defaults.
After you have the configuration the way you like
it, press Ctrl+U or click Save As Default at the bottom
of the User Preferences window. When you do this,
the entire current state of Blender (except for the User
Preferences window itself) will be saved as the default
state when you open Blender. This means any model
or scene in your 3D viewport will also be loaded as the default state of Blender. To return
your start state to the original default, choose File
➔
Load Factory Settings in the Info
header. You can save that state again by pressing Ctrl+U.
You should experiment with user options. There’s a lot to play around with, in terms
of look and feel. As long as you don’t press Ctrl+U, all settings will return to their defaults
on your next startup. For the rest of this book, we assume most things to be in their
default configuration, and the figures will all show the default theme.
Now that you’ve looked at the basics of the Blender interface and the datablock system,
you’re ready to get your hands dirty and begin modeling.
Figure 1.22
Editing the hotkey
combination for
saving a Blender file
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