Well, Blender Underground’s first Blender video tutorial is finished and uploaded. This is Blender Basics Part 1, and it’s just over an hour in length. You can download it here: Blender Basics Part 1 AVI. If you’re interested in what’s covered, check out the outline. Take a look, and if you get a moment, come on in and give some feedback…
Part 2 is going to be about a week more in coming, if this one is any indication. It really took longer than I expected. Particularly time consuming was adding the keystroke overlays. I’d be interested to know if anyone thinks they add a whole lot to the presentation. If so, I don’t mind taking the time. If not, I’ll gladly dump them. Although, I can imagine that the number of required overlays will go down as the tutorials progress from the raw beginnings of Blender. I must’ve added between 120 and 150 of them for the entire hour.
So expect Part 2 in about a week, if all goes well; and expect Part 3 a week or two after that, although I can’t be sure how long that will be, the script’s not even written yet, and I want to spend some time with Introducing Character Animation with Blender.
Here’s a list of the tutorial segments and their start times:
- Startup Scene – 01:20
- Preferences – 03:02
- Saving Settings – 06:37
- Interface – 07:43
- Navigating 3D – 16:29
- Layers – 20:18
- Manipulating Objects – 23:34
- 3D Transform Manipulators – 32:56
- Origin Point – 42:30
- Pivot Modes – 46:33
- Viewport Shading – 55:20
LINKS:
Due to hosting issues, you’ll need a username and password to access the AVI, MOV, and ZIP files.
user: theman
pass: hasfoundus
XviD AVI 136MB 1 hour 2 minutes
- Blender Underground: Blender Basics Part 1 (AVI)
- University of Hawaii: Blender Basics Part 1 (AVI)
7-Zip Archive 96.6MB
- Blender Underground: Zipped Part 1 (AVI)
- University of Hawaii: Zipped Part 1 (AVI)
MOV Format 91MB — provided by river-valley.tv
- Blender Underground: Part 1 with Chapters (MOV)
- University of Hawaii: Part 1 with Chapters (MOV)
Related Posts:
- Blender Basics Part 2
- Blender Basics Part 3
- Blender Basics Part 3 Supplemental
- Blender Basics Part 4
- Blender Basics Part 5
Streaming Video from Viddler.com
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 18th, 2007 at 8:40 pm and is filed under Video Tutorials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
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woah! …that was dam good!
I liked the pace of the material and the snappiness of the transitions. I use Camtasia Studio and its transitions are limited to 1 second minimum (ugh). I’m considering moving away from Camtasia, maybe towards using Blender for production. I also liked the sound quality and clarity of your narrative.
My only issue with covering Blender basics at this time is the looming Blender 2.5. I get the feeling that most tutorials will instantly become obsolete. The good news is that because you’re just getting started, you’ll have fewer tutorials to redo.
Congratulations on a great start…bookmarked!
July 22nd, 2007 at 8:50 am
Kernon,
Welcome to Blender Underground. Those comments mean a lot coming from you. After all, your tutorials and web site (blendernewbies.blogspot.com) helped me get started, and the quality of your video tutorials inspired my own attention to detail. I’ve watched Pretzels, Solid/Wire rendering, Glints, Time Savers, and others. Thanks for those.
Part 2 is going to be done in the next few days. Perhaps I’ll look into Blender 2.5 a little more before I record Part 3 (I have not much of an idea how extensive the changes for 2.5 will be).
However if they have to be redone, they have to be redone. Continued updates to Blender are more than welcome, even if they persecute us poor tutorial grunts. The show must go on, and I’m looking forward to contributing to a fine Blender tutorial tradition begun by yourself and others.
Thanks for dropping in and classing up this joint a little. I’ll look forward to watching and reading your work going forward.
July 22nd, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Well done on the tutorial, congrats! In response to your open question, yes, keep the keystroke overlays. Even if you use a tool like ShowOff, you can wrap the keystrokes bar inside a smart looking graphic. Thanks again.
July 23rd, 2007 at 5:34 pm
I have had Blender on my machine for the last 4 years and have never had the time to learn it. I learned more in the last hour from your tutorial than I have in the last 4 years using tutorials, books, and experimentation. Thank you so much. Someday, perhaps I’ll be able to use Blender in my workflow. I am a Shooter/Editor and not a 3D artist, well, in my heart sure, but not in my profession. Thanks again and keep them coming!!!
July 23rd, 2007 at 7:59 pm
ebswift,
Yeah I think you’re right. They add something, and I’m going to keep them. I’ll take a look at ShowOff when I get some time. I do it manually now, and it gives me a lot of flexibility, and it leaves the source video clean, but it takes hours to do them. Thanks for the tip.
Monkus,
Very kind of you to say. I’ll keep the tutorials coming, glad they’re helping!
And welcome, both, to Blender Underground
July 23rd, 2007 at 10:18 pm
You should upload this tutorial to Youtube or Google video.
Edit:
The tutorial should also cover mouse gestures since newbies often accidentally tricker them and then wonder what is going on.
July 24th, 2007 at 3:51 am
Hello, I watched Part 1 Basics. I found it quite informative. I think it was time well spent. You can bet I will be back to watch part 2. I like the format of your site to. Thank you for assisting all of us new comers.
July 24th, 2007 at 8:23 am
Glome,
already did, although it only has 9 views as of right now. It was also down-res’d by Google, so it doesn’t look very good.
Yep, that’s missing. I should have added it, at least in passing. If I redo any work for Blender 2.5, I’ll see if I can add it.
Rudedog,
Thanks for the comments. Part 2 is right around the corner, next few days at my current pace.
Welcome, guys, to Blender Underground.
July 24th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
This tutorial is awesome. I’ve BOUGHT lots of others instructional DVD, and most of them are not well done and professional like this.
Regarding the overlays, please leave them. They are very usefull for guys like me that don’t speak english very well.
July 25th, 2007 at 3:56 am
f.remiddi,
Welcome to Blender Underground, and thanks for the positive comments. Please check back for Part 2, coming soon.
July 25th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Fantastic video. The high clarity of the graphics is essential, and much better than others.
One suggestion: I think you used an internal microphone. I can hear the hard disk sometimes. If you use an external mike, then it will be even better. Just like another poster, I have learned more in 1/2 hour than I did in a few years of opening and closing manuals!!
July 25th, 2007 at 10:56 pm
kaveh,
Thanks for the compliments, and welcome to Blender Underground.
What you’re actually hearing is the fan from my notebook. When I’m using Blender and the capture software (Camstudio 2.0) together, the fan revs up pretty high to keep the CPU cool.
I use a Sony external mic, and it does a decent job but picks up the fan noise. I messed around with noise reduction and hiss reduction in Audition, but it actually sounded better with the noise than when I tried to take it out.
My next computer will be a desktop, and I’ll be able to position the tower well away from the mic, so I should get less background noise.
My email address is apollos[at]blenderunderground[dot]com.
July 25th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Very well done tutorial.
The true success of Blender is due to all the people who have the desire to share and teach others how to understand and use this great 3D program.
July 26th, 2007 at 9:01 am
Matro, thanks. Welcome to Blender Undergroud.
July 26th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
Superb tutorial! Thank you very much. I wish I found it earlier. I strongly encourage you to send the videos to blender.org, in order to be posted there as featured videos for beginners.
As of a quality of the sound/voice, it was better than ok.
Keep up the good work.
July 31st, 2007 at 10:35 am
Hey lukasz,
You’re welcome. Of course, blender.org is welcome to use the videos, but I’ve found no way to submit them. Thanks much for the compliments. Check back for Part 3 as soon as I can get it done. Welcome to Blender Underground.
July 31st, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Very well made intro tutorial.
I (re)learned a few short keys! A must see to get started!
Thanks!
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:19 pm
I’ve been using blender for some time now, but god how much I learned nevertheless!
I don’t speak English as my native language, but it was perfectly easy to understand thnks to your clear voice and pronounciation!
BTW: you should submit this site to blender.org community- section.
August 14th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Thanks Hx! I hope to subtitle the videos someday, which will allow for subtitled translations; but I’m glad to hear that you had no trouble understanding me.
Actually I submitted the site to blender.org weeks ago, right around the time I posted Part 1. Nothing has showed up yet, but I’ll keep waiting.
Welcome to Blender Underground!
August 14th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Hi.
I discovered this site just today, and downloaded the video tutorial. I am not completely new to Blender, so I already knew part of the contents. Anyway, I have to say that this is a VERY GOOD tutorial, both clear and rich of information. I agree with the other posters, please keep the keystroke overlays, they are precious to better follow the video instuctions, and also an aid to memorize.
I look forward for the following tutorials, congratulations for now.
Ciao
Antonino
August 15th, 2007 at 9:59 am
Antonino,
The keystroke overlays are here to stay! Regardless of the fact that it take epochs to add them all, they are one of the things that stands out in the presentation. As a matter of fact, I’m in keystroke overlay hell for Part 3 as we speak.
Thanks for your comments, and welcome to Blender Underground!!!
August 15th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Discovered this site this morning August Sunday 19 2007 06:02 AM and would like to download on Mac what do I need to do ? Anyway to contact you?
August 19th, 2007 at 3:02 am
Just download the AVI files. Do you not have VLC to play them?
August 19th, 2007 at 5:52 am
Yeah I have VLC, but its loading the tutorial to play and not downloading the file itself. I think .
August 19th, 2007 at 8:46 am
Are you just clicking the link or doing “Save as”? You need to save it.
BTW, Apollos, do you want me to create a mirror download link at FileFront?
August 19th, 2007 at 9:55 am
DUH !
I had a blonde moment …..SoRrY
Apollos are you on Affiliated Program for Blue Host ?
August 19th, 2007 at 10:09 am
Hey hairball,
Yep, I’m on the Blue Host affiliate program. Not too much action there yet, but we’ll see what happens.
BTW I can be reached at apollos.blenderunderground@com. (spam ya know)
Welcome to Blender Underground!
August 19th, 2007 at 11:51 am
I’m looking for a new server, I have my site here temporarily http://home.comcast.net/~s.oravec/ and I hope to get hooked up by next week when I do I’ll hook ya up..
Thanks GLAD to be here
August 19th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
Duke,
Hey if you want to create a mirror, it couldn’t hurt. Is there any way to get stats from FileFront?
August 19th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
hairball,
That would rule. I’ve been happy with Blue Host, been here for almost a year. They use CPanel, so installing things like Wordpress and PHPBB happen with a few clicks of the mouse.
The server space and bandwidth allowance are pretty substantial too for the price.
August 19th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Yeah, but it’s very crude and simplistic. Just says “# of downloads by FileFront users”
August 19th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Hi Apollos!
GREAT TUTORIAL!!!
You said there didn’t seem to be any noticeable difference between pivot median point and pivot bounding box center. But there is a slight difference, allthough I have no idea as to the practical use of it.
If you make a row of evenly spaced objects e.g. cubes, say 9 along the x axis and 3 evenly spaced cubes along the y-axis, thus forming an “L”, you will see the 3D transform manipulator location change. This will not be noticeable when working with symmetrical objects, as in the tutorial.
August 20th, 2007 at 7:36 am
Hey thanks chapel!
That’s good to know, and I’ll check it out just the way you described. Eventually a practical use may be discovered.
Welcome to Blender Underground!
August 20th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Thanks for an excellent tutorial – very useful and well presented, goes at a good pace, so you don;t get bored, but doesn’t assume anything which is rare and helpful!
re pivod median point vs bounding box… tyhe bounding box puts the pivot point at the centre of a bounding box. if you take the 4 cubes from your demo, and move one of them some distance away (X or Y but not both), the bounding box becomes a rectangle, with the pivot point at the centre of this rectangle. The median point uses a weighted median, so will be closer to the centre of the original 4 boxes.
August 21st, 2007 at 12:59 am
MrHorner, you’re welcome!
Thanks for that explanation. It makes sense now. Between chapel’s and your comments, I have it figured out.
There’s an imaginary “bounding box” surrounding all selected objects. The center of this “box” is the key difference, rather than the weighted median that you mention. Terrific stuff!
Welcome to Blender Underground.
August 21st, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Paco, somehow I missed your post around the first of the month. My apologies!
A very belated, Welcome to Blender Underground for you, and thanks for the kind comments.
August 24th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
I just watched video 1 and appreciated very much how thorough and concise. This is good work you’re making here.
January 22nd, 2008 at 5:40 pm
dhoughto, thank you very much!
Welcome to Blender Underground.
January 22nd, 2008 at 10:38 pm
[...] Blender Basics Part 1 [...]
February 7th, 2008 at 3:14 am
That took me 3 days to go through, but it really helped. Thank you very much.
March 7th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Really great work. I’m not entirely new to #d modelling but the last time i did anything was in Imagine on an Amiga so you can figure how rusty I am. I really needed a tutorial that could keep my attention, else I would with no preference move to another ((possibly inferior) application. I think this one was fantastic, easy to understand with a good pace.
March 31st, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Apollos, you must be Zeus in Blender Universe!
I’m seeing some degree of light again. Thank you so much for your precious works. I learn more in one hour with your tutorials than in one week of strugling through the Manuals. To my view Hotkey Overlays add kind of a subconscious memory writing, so I’m realy grateful for your efforts there as well. Thanks again and keep up the excellent work you guys do at B-Underground and though choosing B amongst an infinity of 3d applications happened inicially due to personal shortage of financial resources, I’m seriously considering to use the donation-button some day soon.
April 18th, 2008 at 8:28 am
Thanks compaan, and welcome to Blender Underground.
I’m not a god, just a man with god-like powers.
Donations are certainly appreciated. Pop on into the forums if you have any questions!
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Magiccircle and Unicorn, thank you much, and welcome to Blender Underground.
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Glad I found this after only struggling for 2 days with the blender interface. Excellent video! and I’m off now to go and look at part 2
April 27th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Thanks frimm, and welcome to the boards.
Hope you enjoy parts 2-5!
April 29th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Very nice. I just listened to this tutorial last night and I’m looking forward to the rest. I have to say this is one of the best video tutorials for blender I’ve seen. You are very thorough, explaining many features that never get mentioned in most beginner guides. Additionally your delivery is spot on. No hesitations or long “uhms” while you figure out what you’re doing or backtracking because you made a mistake or forgot to demonstrate something. Very easy to follow along and very professional. Thanks for doing these.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Cunk, welcome to Blender Underground.
Thanks for letting me know. Hope you enjoy the rest of the videos!
May 15th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Apollos, for Blender novices like me, this video is a godsend, man! It definitely makes this intimidating application seem more friendly. That’s why (even though I only have a dial-up connection) I downloaded all 7 videos.
Regarding keyboard shortcuts for manipulating objects, it’s not just the “G” key that grabs a selected object. If my understanding of your presentation is correct, “G” grabs an object for the mouse to move it, “R” grabs to rotate and “S” grabs to scale.
Also, I don’t know if it’s because I’m using Blender Version 2.45 but when “Textured” mode is chosen in the viewport shading selector, my screen yields a different result than yours. Whereas your screen shows a solid white sphere, mine shows a normal looking sphere reflecting the lamp’s light. To ensure that I hadn’t inadvertently messed around with some setting which caused this difference, I loaded Blender’s factory settings and saved those as the default. That didn’t make any difference.
Nevertheless, I loved the tutorial and certainly plan to watch all of your “Blender Basics” videos.
May 19th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
abajan, glad they helped!
What you say about Grab is essentially correct, G grabs to “move” S grabs to “scale” and R grabs to Rotate. In Blender, Grab is really a synonym for move — so the GRS keys move, rotate, and scale.
As far as the Textured mode goes, only the latest one (part 5) was made using 2.45, so you’ll undoubtedly see a few differences here and there, but they should be very minor.
Welcome to Blender Underground.
May 20th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Video Reference: 3:42
Appollos, when I came to this part of the video, it struck me that something wasn’t quite right about your explanation RE: the view rotation settings in the preferences. It took me a while to figure out what was really happening on my screen when trying out these settings.
It seems to me that the real difference between Trackball and Turntable rotation is that whereas the former setting allows rotation around all axes, the latter does not allow rotation around the view’s Z-axis.
This can probably best be illustrated by setting the Transform Orientation to “View” and testing rotation with both settings.
P.S. Thanks for your welcome to BU!
May 28th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
I just found this site and it looks great!
I’m also downloading the first part of Blender Basics, it looks awesome!
June 17th, 2008 at 9:10 am
wells, welcome to Blender Underground
and I hope you enjoy them. 
June 23rd, 2008 at 7:25 pm
That tutorial was gold dust!
How do I download this for future reference? I tried to download it form the link at the top but it asked me for a username and password. My site log in username and password didn’t work
September 28th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Hi Nooblet, there’s a username and password combo right above the links that will work to get you in. Welcome to Blender Underground.
September 28th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Doh! I was in such a hurry to watch the tutorials; I didn’t see the username and password. Thank Apollo. Keep up the great work.
October 1st, 2008 at 6:23 am
Hi! I have a problem watching the video-tutorials!
After downloading it, it´s not being shown on my media player.
I can only hear it, while seeing a black screen….
I tried to change some security adjustments in my PC, but nothing helped.
Doe´s anybody has an advise for me???
October 5th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Hi Surati, welcome to Blender Underground.
You’re probably missing a codec. Try watching the tutorial using VLC, available at http://www.videolan.org/. There’s practically nothing it won’t play.
October 5th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Yuhuuu, It functioned!
And I was struggling a few days long with the problem…
Thanks Apollos.
October 6th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Hi Apollos, I’m used to work with Maya but since i moved to Linux i’m using Blender and i’m loving it, your video tutorials are great and really boost my learning.
I’m plan to make video tutorials based upon your in Persian language to let other Persians who don’t understand English very well have a chance to enjoy your great work.
What codec for sound and video you did use to keep the file size down and in other hand a usable picture quality?
and what program i can use to capture the screen in linux?
Thank you again
December 31st, 2008 at 2:01 am
Thx so much for your tutorial……..Things are much clearer to me……..
January 2nd, 2009 at 1:38 am
@untitled67, apologies for the late reply. Thanks for your kind words about the Blender Basics video tutorials.
I use CamStudio 2.0 for capture, along with the CamStudio lossless codec. However the final encoding is done with XviD (an MPEG 4 codec), which makes for a good balance between file size and quality. The audio is encoded with MP3.
http://camstudio.org
http://www.xvid.org
I don’t think that CamStudio works under Linux, however XviD does have a codec for the Linux platform.
I wish you the best in your endeavors to produce Persian language video tutorials.
@jaguar, you’re very welcome.
January 9th, 2009 at 1:14 am
I found Blender the other day and have been learing alot. Mostly so far from a smart kid who posts tutorials on youtube and on his own site http://nystic.com. He does a good job but your tutorials show so much! they have helped me understand alot of the tools and are great for getting to know the key functions. During your tutorials you get us familiar with them by repeating the use. I love using the mouse wheel for some of the rotations and the numberpad is also a very good tool to know. There were things in super3boy’s tutorials that I knew about but you explained them so I understand them better. Thanks!
See you tomorrow!
I have to get some sleep now which sucks because I want to keep learinging about the program!
February 5th, 2009 at 2:36 am
first i would like to thank to the team of blender for give a learning point in web.
my english is not too strong to give more comments.
i want to be a 3d animation artist in my life it’s my big wish,
i am a new person in this site.
all the best with a lot of thanks
February 10th, 2009 at 5:12 am
Thanx Apollos …… I have had several versions of blender on various PC’s and Laptop’s.
I have followed numerous Tutorials and Walk-throughs, many of which were OK – most were rubbish though, and usually became a bit “hazy” just at the critical point.
I started being a self taught Blender user – but never really got to grips with it in detail.
I’ve just watched your 1st tutorial – and I have to say it was clear and watchable, definitely informative, Audio was excellent – often the main reason why some tutorials are rubbish – and you were very thorough.
Looking forward to the next one – I hope that you teach by example and create an actual scene ……
excellent job …..
Blundering Fool
March 14th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
How to download movi as it ask for password when i enter password it again ask for password
April 2nd, 2009 at 3:52 am
I have been using Blender for a couple months and have watched tutorials from others, so I went into part 1 assuming I would already be familiar with most of what was covered. I was wrong. Although there are things beyond the scope of part 1 that I know how to do, it really expanded and broadened my knowledge.
I’ll be watching the other parts, and I can’t wait for the video on UV mapping. A troubleshooting course on getting the python scripts to run would be cool, too.
June 6th, 2009 at 9:54 am
Can’t get the tut video’s to work:
Keep getting
eg:
500 Server Error
A misconfiguration on the server caused a hiccup. Check the server logs, fix the problem, then try again. URL: http://blenderunderground.com/tutorials/video/BlenderBasics1.avi
I’ll try again later to see if it was just a temp error.
September 17th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Yeah Very nice tutorial really, very helpful and make a great ideas about Blender in peoples’ minds !
December 26th, 2009 at 1:52 pm