blender wiki PDF manual

Ifollowed a small Character Animation Course for beginners, in the city where I live and they used Maya PLEwhich it's free to download but does watermarked renderings and does not import

Blender Wiki PDF Manual

About Blender Wiki PDF Manual

This is an unofficial PDF version of the Blender Wiki Manual pages

I produced this PDF copy for my personal use since I needed it to learn using Blender, and I could not find an

up to date alternative to my knowledge I've read that Blender documentation is released under the OpenContent License (http://opencontent.org/opl.shtml) This license is reported at the end of this pages, below I

am trying to stick to this licence, but i'm no license expert: if you feel something is wrong, just let me knowwhy and possibly how to fix

The short story

I did not modify the content of the wiki pages except for removing the parts typical of a web page, which arenot needed in a "book", since you don't have to browse through web links, but scroll pages

Since Blender developers are incredibly fast, documenters have always hard times to keep up with that speed,but every week there is something new or updated on the wiki manual Documenters do a great job, but theirwork goes easily unnoticed because of the high number of the single pages involved: they're hundreds, andBlender developers they're fast!

Discussing this PDF conversion with other users, I explained that my "method" allows me to update the PDFwith the actual web pages quite easily so I told that, if needed, it won't be difficult to update that PDF everymonth Many people agreed, and that is what i'm trying to do I hope that one day there will be an

automatically generated PDF directly produced from the wiki Until then, I plan to keep this PDF updatedregularly, and possibly other useful sources of knowledge about Blender, found on its official wiki or website

The whole story

I needed an offline manual

I don't have an internet connection at home, where most of my Blender experiment take place, and alwaysneeded a help for learning something I didn't know, or a new feature i've read of on BlenderNation, or

elsewhere I always had to wait until tomorrow, or until monday, if you get what I mean It was frustrating Ifollowed a small Character Animation Course for beginners, in the city where I live and they used Maya PLE(which it's free to download but does watermarked renderings and does not import/export too much, btw), andalthough I hated the interface and find it much more uncomfortable than Blender, which I was used to, I had

no problem in learning stuff about it because there was a big complete manual and reference, also in the free,limited edition

I had to build one.

That was two years ago Recently, I investigated a bit and found out that there could be a method to:

retrieve all the links to the web pages of the wiki manual (http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual)

Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com/enưUS/firefox/): well, i needed a browser, and Firefox is my choice

•

PHP In order to have the correct sequence of pages in the PDF book, I needed to collect all theneeded wiki web page links (over 250 of them) in the right order Easily collect links is not difficult,there are many ways and utilities, but I had to be sure the order of the list obtained was the right one

In the past months I used Linky (http://gemal.dk/mozilla/linky.html), but I ended up not being

satisfied: it does a pretty job but always removes duplicate links and I had issues with this behaviour

In fact, *there are* duplicate pages in the current Blender Manual WIki pages, mainly because sometopics belong to or are referred from different chapters So I ended up writing a PHP script, based on asmall URLưretrieving script i found on the net (sorry i forgot where, search for "function crawl_page"

on google.com) that collects all the link that are needed, leaves duplicate links if I need and I'm happythis way

•

HTMLdoc (http://www.htmldoc.org/): this great GPL software can load html files or download webpages, convert them to a single pdf, ps or html file, allowing you to setưup the conversion in manyways With this software, you have to setup a "book" file, which contains all the needed settings(quality, options etc) and an ordered list of html files, or links to web pages to convert in a singleoutput document

•

Jpdfbookmarks: this is a free CLI and GUI java tool to import/export and edit PDF bookmarks, and itreally was the solution for this It requires a bit of manual work and patience but not too much to beworried :) I also reported some bugs /whishes to the author, and he was kind enough to fix bugs andadd features really fast Great!

•

The long road towards perfection ;)

When i had the first usable result, it became clear to me that other people could benefit from it, so i decided toshare it through a free web service At that time I got 19 small PDFs, one for each main section of the manual,and then I published the links to the files on the Blender forum

(http://www.blender.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13461)

There some user asked for a single PDF, which I thought was a good thing, but I was a bit worried of theresulting size, since most of the wiki manual pages have many pictures (both JPG and PNG formats); thenanother user, Nathan Letwory aka jesterKing, kindly offered a permanent space on a web site he owns, and so

I did I simply joined the 19 small files into a big one, obtaining a huge PDF that was over 1700 pages andabout 87 MB in size

That result was a bit rough, though: all the menus, logos, navigational links were still there, as HTMLdocdecided to keep them as part of the information of the source web pages Plus, a part of the many (over 1500)images of the wiki were PNGs, part JPGs, part GIFs PNGs are good for quality because they use a losslessalgorithm but also bigger than JPGs So I improved that document a bit: removing headers, footers, menus,and other unneeded things in a book, inserting te creation date/time, page numbers, some headers, and

converting all the images to JPGs (i was worried to preserve the PNG quality, so i converted them using a100% quality setting in HTMLdoc), and that alone reduced the size to a much smaller 52 MB In order toremove part of the HTML before passing it to HTMLdoc, i ended up writing a small CLI php script whichdownloads all the pages, preprocess them a bit, and saves the fixed files in a local folder

Then I noticed that other parts of the wiki could benefit (to be shared and printed) from being converted to ahandy PDF format They were:

Script Catalog from http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Scripts/Catalog

Some user complained about the size, and some problems in the PDFs: no bookmarks, and several brokeninternal links between pages I noticed those problems, too, but since there were no alternatives to those PDFfor blender users i preferred to share the documents as they were anyway, for the moment.

So I tried to improve them a bit: for the size problem, i used 85% JPG compression (setting in HTMLdoc),and that alone squeezed the size by a rough 50%! And with almost no visible quality loss! I shoud have triedthat before

Then i found a way to overcome the lack of bookmarks: HTMLdoc should automatically generate bookmarksfrom HTML tags like H1, H2, and so on but unfortunately it did not work with my HTML files In such ahuge wiki work, there are differences organizazion, styles and tags between the over 250 web pages it's buildof! And HTMLdoc gives strange result or even crashes if you set it to build bookmarks Fortunately i triedanother solution! Jpdfbookmarks

Now, the size of the manual is about 25MB, it has full bookmarks and almost no trace of its specific web pagedesign External links (tutorials, tools, references,) are working, and as in the online wiki, you can click onany image to get its original version You can print the manual, and you can search it full−text Good!

Still, there are some (minor) problems:

internal links are broken: some of them work and some do not I don't know why When they work,often they jump to the "previous" page they refer to Try to advance of one page, in case;

•

there are strange symbols here and there: the HTMLdoc version I heve is not UTF−8 compatible, itrenders web pages using ISO−8859−x encodings I use ISO−8859−1 since i think it's the best forenglish Language New versions or other tools may improve this aspect, in the future Is not

something that makes text difficult to understand, though

•

As soon as i'll find a good and easy solution, i'll fix them!

How i get it as it is now.

The workflow i use now is this:

Open the Wiki Manual main page (http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual) in Firefox

I could post the php scripts, but I'm not a great programmer, you know :D and PHP it is so easy

About this file

This is the last result I had: due to PHP preprocessing pages, I got:

much improved readability, i think Let me know

Over 1750 images included.

Size is huge (well, no more huge but still big!) : there are many many big images and they're useful

I could reduce quality setting for JPGs below 85%, if needed but quality will suffer Compressing thePDF does not change much the size (tried 7z ultra)

•

There could be wrong PDF bookmarks: that's my fault since, still assisted by Jpdfbookmarks, i have

to make bookmarks and page numbers refer each other :) thell me what's wrong, i'll fix it

difficult to understand, though

•

My modifications to wiki pages

The "processing" I'm referring to is, basically, remove graphical page headers, footers, menus, and otherminor html tags that could alter the PDF page structure or distract the eye from the real docs text and pics Thebasic principle I follow is: I want to keep only the documentation text and pics, and external links if needed,without anything else, and keep the readability as best as I can

I hope to be able to be able to convert those wiki docs to pdf until there's a better alternative but, as webcontent can obviously change, something may go wrong I can't double check all the pages any time It willsurely improve my Blender knowledge :D but there are simply too many pages If you note some weirdness orbroken section, let me know, i'll try to fix it

Where to find this PDF

Up to now, you should be able to find it here: http://www.letworyinteractive.com/b/category/blender/ If anychange should happen, i'll post on major forums/blogs for everyone to know

Obviously, there are other books or tutorials or videos/dvd about Blender you can download or buy They're

all useful stuff Here I am referring only to offline versions of the official Blender manual.

How to contact me

I do this in the spare time so i can't spend too much time on it but if you want to suggest me improvements orother ways to do this, or alternatives, please feel free to do so Here's how: "m.ardito" is the username and thedomain is "libero.it" you know how to use them ;) Please don't post the "reconstructed" address, in no webpage, blog, mailing list or newsgroup, anywhere I already have enough spam to deal with! Thanks

Have fun! Marco Ardito

About Blender Wiki PDF Manual How to contact me

Open Content License

OpenContent License (OPL)

Version 1.0, July 14, 1998.

This document outlines the principles underlying the OpenContent (OC)

movement and may be redistributed provided it remains unaltered

For legal purposes, this document is the license under which

OpenContent is made available for use.

The original version of this document may be found at

http://opencontent.org/opl.shtml

LICENSE

Terms and Conditions for Copying, Distributing, and Modifying

Items other than copying, distributing, and modifying the Content

with which this license was distributed (such as using, etc.) are

outside the scope of this license.

1 You may copy and distribute exact replicas of the OpenContent

(OC) as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously

and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice

and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to

this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other

recipients of the OC a copy of this License along with the OC You may

at your option charge a fee for the media and/or handling involved in

creating a unique copy of the OC for use offline, you may at your

option offer instructional support for the OC in exchange for a fee,

or you may at your option offer warranty in exchange for a fee You

may not charge a fee for the OC itself You may not charge a fee

for the sole service of providing access to and/or use of the OC via

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2 You may modify your copy or copies of the OpenContent or any portion

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a) You must cause the modified content to carry prominent notices

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These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole If

identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the OC, and

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if you do not accept this License Therefore, by distributing or

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Buttons and Controls

Your First Animation

Your First Animation in 30 + 30 MinutesPart I

Your First Animation in 30 + 30 MinutesPart II

The Vital Functions

File Open/Save, Quick Render, DefaultUI

User PreferencesUndo and RedoBlender's Library and Data SystemHelp Me! Help Me!

SurfacesEditing SurfacesSurfaces Skinning

Text

Editing Text

Meta Objects

Meta ObjectsEditing Meta Objects

Duplication

Duplicate at Vertices(Dupliverts)

Duplicate for each Frame(Dupliframes)

IntroductionRadiosity RenderingRadiosity Baking

(see also Materialsư>Ambient

WindowưNodeEditor

GeneralưUsingNodes

Node MaterialsMaterial NodeTypes

Ambient LightSubsurfaceScattering (SSS)

Textures

EnvironmentMapsTexture Plugins

UV Unwrapping & Texturing

Using Texture Paint

Worlds & Backgrounds

Animation Basics

Introduction

General Principles and Tools

Ipo Types

Creating Ipo Keyframes

Editing Ipo Curves and

Absolute Shape KeysDeforming by a Lattice

Animation by Moving Objects Around

Following a Path

Changing Object Layers

Hook Modifier to animate meshdeformation

Character Animation & Armatures

Advanced Animation

Introduction

Open Content License Character Animation & Armatures

The Render Passes

Perspective (Architectural) RenderingPreparing Your Work for VideoYafRay

Rendering From Command LineTips to Speed Up Rendering and Avoid / Work−Around RenderCrash

Common composition node setups

Using Vector BlurUsing Nodes to Blur Your BackgroundUsing Nodes to Simulate Depth of Field(DOF)

Using Nodes to Enhance Photographs

Open Content License Effects & Physical Simulation

VSE Preview Modes

Using the Video

Sequence Editor

Using Built−in Effects

Using Plugin Effects

Common Tasks and Workflow

Working with Blender for VideoEditing

Organizing your Video FilesExamples of Video Editing

Catalog

of allScripts

User Manual: Contents | Guidelines | Blender Version 2.48a

Introduction

Welcome to Blender! The documentation of Blender consists of many parts: this user manual, a referenceguide, tutorials, forums, and many other web resources The first part of this manual will guide you throughdownloading Blender, installation, and if you elect to download the sources, building an executable file to run

on your machine

Blender has a very unusual interface, highly optimized for 3D graphics production This might be a bit

confusing to a new user, but will prove its strength in the long run You are highly recommended to read oursection on The Interface carefully, both to get familiar with the interface and with the conventions used in thedocumentation

graphics application in the world

Aimed world−wide at media professionals and artists, Blender can be used to create 3D visualizations, stills

as well as broadcast and cinema quality videos, while the incorporation of a real−time 3D engine allows forthe creation of 3D interactive content for stand−alone playback

Originally developed by the company 'Not a Number' (NaN), Blender now is continued as 'Free Software',with the source code available under the GNU GPL license It now continues development by the BlenderFoundation in the Netherlands

In 1988 Ton Roosendaal co−founded the Dutch animation studio NeoGeo NeoGeo quickly became the

largest 3D animation studio in the Netherlands and one of the leading animation houses in Europe NeoGeo

created award−winning productions (European Corporate Video Awards 1993 and 1995) for large corporateclients such as multi−national electronics company Philips Within NeoGeo Ton was responsible for both artdirection and internal software development After careful deliberation Ton decided that the current in−house3D tool set for NeoGeo was too old and cumbersome to maintain and upgrade and needed to be rewrittenfrom scratch In 1995 this rewrite began and was destined to become the 3D software creation suite we all

now know as Blender As NeoGeo continued to refine and improve Blender it became apparent to Ton that

Blender could be used as a tool for other artists outside of NeoGeo

In 1998, Ton decided to found a new company called Not a Number (NaN) as a spin−off of NeoGeo to furthermarket and develop Blender At the core of NaN was a desire to create and distribute a compact, cross

platform 3D creation suite for free At the time this was a revolutionary concept as most commercial modelerscost several thousands of (US) dollars NaN hoped to bring professional level 3D modeling and animationtools within the reach of the general computing public NaN's business model involved providing commercialproducts and services around Blender In 1999 NaN attended its first Siggraph conference in an effort to morewidely promote Blender Blender's first 1999 Siggraph convention was a huge success and gathered a

tremendous amount of interest from both the press and attendees Blender was a hit and its huge potentialconfirmed!

On the wings of a successful Siggraph in early 2000, NaN secured financing of €4.5m from venture

capitalists This large inflow of cash enabled NaN to rapidly expand its operations Soon NaN boasted asmany as fifty employees working around the world trying to improve and promote Blender In the summer of

2000, Blender v2.0 was released This version of Blender added the integration of a game engine to the 3Dsuite By the end of 2000, the number of users registered on the NaN website surpassed 250,000

Unfortunately, NaN's ambitions and opportunities didn't match the company's capabilities and the marketrealities of the time This over−extension resulted in restarting NaN with new investor funding and a smaller

company in April 2001 Six months later NaN's first commercial software product, Blender Publisher was

launched This product was targeted at the emerging market of interactive web−based 3D media Due todisappointing sales and the ongoing difficult economic climate, the new investors decided to shut down allNaN operations The shutdown also included discontinuing the development of Blender Although there wereclearly shortcomings in the then current version of Blender, with a complex internal software architecture,unfinished features and a non−standard way of providing the GUI, with the enthusiastic support from the usercommunity and customers who had purchased Blender Publisher in the past, Ton couldn't justify leavingBlender to disappear into oblivion Since restarting a company with a sufficiently large team of developers

wasn't feasible, in March 2002 Ton Roosendaal founded the non−profit organization Blender Foundation.

The Blender Foundation's primary goal was to find a way to continue developing and promoting Blender as acommunity−based Open Source project In July 2002, Ton managed to get the NaN investors to agree to aunique Blender Foundation plan to attempt to release Blender as open source The "Free Blender" campaignsought to raise €100,000 so that the Foundation could buy the rights to the Blender source code and

intellectual property rights from the NaN investors and subsequently release Blender to the open sourcecommunity With an enthusiastic group of volunteers, among them several ex−NaN employees, a fund raisingcampaign was launched to "Free Blender." To everyone's surprise and delight the campaign reached the€100,000 goal in only seven short weeks On Sunday October 13, 2002, Blender was released to the worldunder the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) Blender development continues to this day driven

by a team of far−flung, dedicated volunteers from around the world led by Blender's original creator, TonRoosendaal

Version/Revision Milestones

Blender's history and road−map

1.00 Jan 1995 Blender in development at animation studio NeoGeo

•

1.23 Jan 1998 SGI version published on the web, IrisGL

•

2.43 Feb 2007 The Multi release: multiưresolution meshes, multiưlayer UV textures, multiưlayerimages and multiưpass rendering and baking, sculpting, retopology, multiple additional matte, distortand filter nodes, modeling and animation improvements, better painting with multiple brushes, fluidparticles, proxy objects, sequencer rewrite, and postưproduction UV texturing whew! Oh, and awebsite rewrite And yes, it still has multiưthreaded rendering for multiưcore CPUs With Verse it ismultiưuser, allowing multiple artists to work on the same scene collaboratively Lastly, render farmsstill provide multiưworkstation distributed rendering

•

2.44 May 2007 The SSS release: the big news, in addition to two new modifiers and reưawakeningthe 64ưbit OS support, was the addition of subsurface scattering, which simulates light scatteringbeneath the surface of organic and soft objects

AO, and render baking; a mesh deform modifier for muscles and such, better animation support viaarmature tools and drawing, skinning, constraints and a colorful Action Editor, and much more It wasthe the release following Project Peach

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2.48 Aug 2008 Bugfix release

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2.48 Oct 2008 The Apricot release: cool GLSL shaders, lights and GE improvements, snap, skysimulator, shrinkwrap modifier, python editing improvements

•

About Free Software and the GPL

When one hears about "free software", the first thing that comes to mind might be "no cost" While this is true

in most cases, the term "free software" as used by the Free Software Foundation (originators of the GNUProject and creators of the GNU General Public License) is intended to mean "free as in freedom" rather thanthe "no cost" sense (which is usually referred to as "free as in free beer") Free software in this sense is

software which you are free to use, copy, modify, redistribute, with no limit Contrast this with the licensing

of most commercial software packages, where you are allowed to load the software on a single computer, areallowed to make no copies, and never see the source code Free software allows incredible freedom to the enduser; in addition, since the source code is available universally, there are many more chances for bugs to becaught and fixed

When a program is licensed under the GNU General Public License (the GPL):

you have the right to use the program for any purpose;

Getting support − the Blender community

Being freely available from the start, even while closed source, helped a lot in Blender's adoption A large,stable and active community of users has gathered around Blender since 1998

The community showed its best in the crucial moment of freeing Blender itself, going Open Source underGNU GPL in late summer 2002

The community itself is now subdivided into two, widely overlapping sites:

The Development Community, centered around the Blender Foundation site Here you will find thehome of the development projects, the Functionality and Documentation Boards, the CVS repositorywith Blender sources, all documentation sources, and related public discussion forums Developerscoding on Blender itself, Python scripters, documentation writers, and anyone working for Blender

1

development in general can be found here.

The User Community, centered around the independent site BlenderArtists Here Blender artists,Blender gamemakers and Blender fans gather to show their creations, get feedback on them, and askfor help to get a better insight into Blender's functionality Blender Tutorials and the Knowledge Basecan be found here as well

2

These two websites are not the only Blender resources The Worldwide community has created a lot of

independent sites, in local languages or devoted to specialized topics A constantly updated listing of Blenderresources can be found at the above mentioned sites

For immediate online feedback there are three IRC chat channels permanently open on irc.freenode.net Youcan join these with your favorite IRC client

The IRC channels are #blenderchat for general discussion of blender; #blenderqa for asking questions onBlender usage; and #gameblender for discussion on issues related to game creation with Blenders includedgame engine For developers there is also #blendercoders for developers to ask questions and discuss

development issues, as well as a meeting each Sunday at ?; #blenderpython for discussion of the python APIand script development; #blenderwiki for questions related to editing the wiki

Who uses Blender?

New releases of Blender are downloaded by more than a million people around the world just in the first 10days of release This figure spans all platforms (Windows, Linux, and MacOS) and does not include

redistribution, which is fully authorized and unrestricted We estimate there are in excess of two million users.This manual is written to serve the wide array of talented people that use Blender:

Hobbyist/Student that just wants to explore the world of computer graphics (CG) and 3D animation

We can divide the 2−D and 3−D teams that produce movies and animations further into individual job

categories Those that use Blender include:

Director − Defines what each Scene should contain, and the action (animation) that needs to occurwithin that scene Defines shots (camera takes) within that scene

Special Purpose talent − Fluids, Motion Capture, Cloth, dust, dirt, fire, explosions, you know, the funstuff

Therefore, this manual is written for a very broad audience, to answer the question "I want to do something;

how do I do it using Blender?" all the way to "what is the latest change in the way to sculpt a mesh?"

This manual is a worldwide collaborative effort using time donated to the cause celeb While there may be

some lag between key features being implemented and their documentation, we do strive to keep it as

up−to−date as possible We try to keep it narrowly focused on what you, the end user, need to know, and notdigress too far off topic, as in discussing the meaning of life

There are other Blender wiki books that delve deeper into other topic and present Blender from differentviewpoints, such as the Tutorials, the Reference Manual, the software itself, and its scripting language So, if aquestion is not answered for you in this User Manual, please search the other Blender wiki books Okay, if

you must know, the meaning of life is to create, and Blender is excellent at helping you create beautiful

imagery

About this Manual

This manual is a mediawiki implementation that is written by a world−wide collaboration of volunteer

authors It is updated daily, and this is the English version Other language versions are translated, generally,from this English source for the convenience of our world−wide audience It is constantly out of date, thanks

to the tireless work of some 50 or more volunteer developers, working from around the world on this codebase However, it is the constructive goal to provide you with the best possible professional documentation onthis incredible package

To assist you in the best and most efficient way possible, this manual is organized according to the creativeprocess generally followed by 3D artists, with appropriate stops along the way to let you know how to

navigate your way in this strange territory with a new and deceptively complex software package If you read

the manual linearly, you will follow the path most artists use in both learning Blender and developing fully

Learning CG and Blender

Getting to know Blender and learning Computer Graphics (CG) are two different topics On the one hand,learning what a computer model is, and then learning how to develop one in Blender are two different things

to learn Learning good lighting techniques, and then learning about the different kinds of lamps in Blenderare two different topics The first, or conceptual understanding, is learned by taking secondary and collegecourses in art and media, by reading books available from the library or bookstore on art and computer

graphics, and by trial and error Even though a book or article may use a different package (like Max or Maya)

as its tool, it may still be valuable because it conveys the concept

Once you have the conceptual knowledge, you can easily learn Blender (or any other CG package) Learningboth at the same time is difficult, since you are dealing with two issues The reason for writing this is to makeyou aware of this dilemma, and how this manual attempts to address both topics in one wiki book The

conceptual knowledge is usually addressed in a short paragraph or two at the beginning of a topic or chapter,that explains the topic and provides a workflow, or process, for accomplishing the task The rest of the manualsection addresses the specific capabilities and features of Blender The user manual cannot give you the fullconceptual knowledge − that comes from reading books, magazines, tutorials and sometimes a life−time ofeffort You can use Blender to produce a full−length feature film, but reading this manual and using Blenderwon't make you another Steven Spielberg!

At a very high level, using Blender can be thought of as knowing how to accomplish imagery within threedimensions of activity:

Integration − rendering computer graphics, working with real−world video, or mixing the two (CGIand VFX)

1

Animation − posing and making things change shape, either manually or using simulation

2

Duration − producing a still image, a short video, a minute−long commercial, a ten minute indie short,

or a full−length feature film

3

Skills, like navigating in 3D space, modeling, lighting, shading, compositing, and so forth are needed to beproductive in any given area within the space Proficiency in a skill makes you productive Tools withinBlender have applicability within the space as well For example, the VSE has very little to do with the skill

of animation, but is deeply applicable along the Duration and Integration scales From a skills−learningintegration perspective, it is interesting to note that the animation curve, called an Ipo curve, is used in theVSE to animate effects strips

At the corners/intersections is where most people's interest's lie at any given time; a sort of destination, if youwill For example, there are many talented artists that produce Static−Still−CG images Tony Mullen's book

Introducing Character Animation With Blender addresses using CG models deformed by Armatures and

shapes to produce a one−minute animation Using Blender fluids in a TV production/commercial is at theShape/Sim−Integrated−Minute intersection Elephants Dream and Big Buck Bunny is a bubble at the

Armature−CG−Indie space Therefore, depending on what you want to do, various tools and topics within

Blender will be of more or less interest to you.

A fourth dimension is Game Design, because it takes all of this knowledge and wraps Gaming around it aswell A game not only has a one−minute cinematic in it, but it also has actual game play, story line

programming, etc −− which may explain why it is so hard to make a game; you have to understand all thisstuff before you actually can construct a game Therefore, this Manual does not address using the GameEngine; that is a whole 'nother wiki book

Previous: Manual Contents Next: Manual/Installing Blender

User Manual: Contents | Guidelines | Blender Version 2.4x

Installing the Binaries

Blender is available both as a binary executable and as source code on the Foundation site

(http://www.blender.org/) At the main page click on the 'Downloads' section

For the online manual hosted at the wiki, you can generally use the most recent version of Blender located atthe Blender Foundation website (although all of the features from the newest release version may not be fullyupdated) If you are using a published version of this manual it is recommended that you use the Blenderversion included on the Guide CD−ROM In the following text, whenever "download" is mentioned, thoseusing the book should instead retrieve Blender from the CD−ROM

Downloading and installing the binary distribution

The binary distributions are provided for 6 primary operating system families (please click your OS for moreinstallation info):

Some unofficial distributions may exist for other operating systems It's not supported by the Blender

Foundation, you should report directly to their maintainers:

MorphOS

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Binaries for the Linux operating systems are provided for two different hardware architectures x86 (Intel andAMD processors) and PowerPC, and the choice between statically linked or dynamically loaded libraries.The difference between the dynamic and the static binaries is important The static binaries have the OpenGLlibraries compiled in This makes Blender run on your system without using hardware accelerated graphics.Use the static version if the dynamic version fails! OpenGL is used in Blender for all drawing, includingmenus and buttons For this, you will need OpenGL installed on your system This dependency makes aproper and compliant OpenGL installation at your system a requirement Generally speaking integratedgraphics chips and older low end graphics cards will perform poorly or not at all with Blender due to theirpoor support for OpenGL (It is ofter possible to work around the poor OpenGL support of such cards byusing software based OpenGL solutions such as by turning down or off hardware acceleration on Windows, orusing software MESA 3D on Linux)

Rendering is done by the Blender rendering engine in core memory and by the main CPU of your machine, so

an unsupported graphics card will not have an impact if you use the machine only for rendering (as would bethe case for a rendering farm)

The installer will create files and several folders in two locations on your computer: one set of folders is forBlender itself, and the other is a user set of folders for your user data You must have administrator

authorization to create these The folders are:

.blender − configuration information (mostly prompts in your native language)

Python, the Scripting Language

Python is a general purpose scripting language and there is a special interface to access all of Blender's

internal functions from that language Scripts are written in this language that extend the functionality ofBlender, without having to re−compile and link the binary distribution These scripts are written by

user−programmers The recommended version of Python is normally included and installed with the

distribution, however you may also download and install it directly from the official Python website, andinstall it separately Most functions do not rely on Python; a notable exception is the Help menu which opens

a web browser pointed to a specific location Help text is not bundled into Blender; you must download thelatest wiki or pdf user manuals, found here or at www.blender.org

In general, wherever you install Python, you need to establish an operating system environment variablePYTHONPATH and point it to the Blender Scripts directory where python modules are installed, e.g

"C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\scripts\bpymodules" for Windows machines EnvironmentVariables on Windows machines are set in the advanced Systems settings in the Control Panel

When Blender starts on a machine with Blender properly installed, you will see this message in the consolewindow:

Compiled with Python version 2.5.

Checking for installed Python got it!

The above messages means that you have installed Python and have the full development and executionenvironment, and will be able to access, execute and run all Python scripts that are bundled or available forBlender If you see a different message, such as:

Could not find platform independent libraries <prefix>

Could not find platform dependent libraries <exec_prefix>

Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to <prefix>[:<exec_prefix>]

'import site' failed; use −v for traceback

Checking for installed Python No installed Python found.

Only built−in modules are available Some scripts may not run.

Do a search on your machine for a file name with the words 'Scripts'

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you will see the scripts folder appear after the initial search C:\Program

Files\Blender−2.46/.blender/scripts or something similar

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About this Manual Python, the Scripting Language

open the script folder from the search window you will see all the scripts You can leave em there orput them on your desktop temporarily

In Blender, the top menu bar hides all the preferences Drag it down and then you will see a button

marked file paths.

Be careful though if you have already done stuff in blender at this point every time you start it it will

be the default start up

In−depth Instructions

Download the file blender−2.##−windows.exe from the 'Downloads' section of the Blender Website.Choose to download it (if prompted), select a location and click "Save" Then navigate to the location yousaved the file in and double−click it to start the installation The first dialog presents you with a helpfulreminder: You must be logged on to your PC as ADMINISTRATOR! You will be denied access if you do nothave the rights (Vista user especially) to the C:/Program Files folder and/or are authorized to install

executable software on the PC I have Vista install as Administrator (in the file explorer, right−click on thedownloaded 'blender−2.46−windows.exe' and select 'Run as administrator' from the right−click menu)

The second dialog presents you with the license You are expected to accept it if you want the installation to

go any further After accepting the license, select the components you wish to install (there is just one,

Blender) and the additional actions:

Add a shortcut to the Start menu,

After the files are unpacked, Blender will check for required system components, like DLLs, which you mustget from Microsoft or your hardware vendor Most common is a VCRT dll that is/was not bundled with oldversions of Windows After confirmation, you will be able to run Blender!

Portable Install

If, like many people, you are a) obsessed with Blender, and b) have a USB drive, you'll be glad to know thatBlender runs beautifully off a USB key Just download the zip version and extract it You may want to avoidhaving it store the animation output or other temporary files on the drive, as it may shorten the life, but

otherwise, Blender runs fine

OSX

Install

Download the file blender−2.##−OSX−10.3−py2.#−[platform].zip from the downloads section

of the Blender Website

2.## is the Blender version,

[platform] is either powerpc or i386 (Intel), depending on which type of processor your Mac has.

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Python 2.3 is included with the installation If you wish to use the latest version of Python, please refer to thePython section on this page

Extract the download by double−clicking the file This will open a directory with several files

Mac Users: Since Blender uses OpenGL to render the user interface and Mac OSX draws the entire Desktopwith OpenGL as well, you will need to verify that you have sufficient VRAM in your system Blender will notrun with less than 8MB of VRAM With up to 16 MB VRAM, you will need to set your display to "1000s ofcolors" (System Preferences −> Displays)

You now can use Blender by double clicking the Blender icon, or drag the Blender icon to the Dock to add itsicon there Blender starts by default in a small window Hints and tips about the OSX version can be found inthe file OSX tips.rtf in the installation directory If Blender doesn't launch, make sure that you

downloaded the correct version; oftentimes, newcomers to Blender will accidentally download the Python 2.5version by accident; try the Python 2.3 version if Blender doesn't seem to launch

Linux

Quick Install

Download the file blender−2.##−linux−glibc#.#.#−ARCH.tar.gz from the 'Downloads' section

of the Blender Website Here 2.## is the Blender version (currently 2.45), #.#.# is the glibc versioninstalled on your computer and ARCH is the machine architecture−−either i386 or powerpc Pick the onematching your system, keeping in mind the difference between static and dynamic builds

Unpack the archive to a location of your choice This will create a directory named

blender−2.##−linux−glibc#.#.#−ARCH, in which you will find the blender binary

To start Blender, open a shell and execute /blender, of course while running X

In−depth Instructions

Download the file blender−2.##−linux−glibc#.#.#−ARCH.tar.gz from the 'Downloads' section

of the Blender Website Choose to download it (if prompted), select a location, and click "Save" Then

navigate to the location you wish Blender to install to (e.g /usr/local/) and unpack the archive (withtar −xzf /path/to/blender−2.##−linux−glibc#.#.#−ARCH.tar.gz) If you like, you canrename the resulting directory from blender−2.##−linux−glibc#.#.#−ARCH to something shorter,e.g just blender

Blender is now installed and can be started on the command line by entering /path/to/blender followed

by pressing the enter key in a shell If you are using KDE or Gnome you can start Blender using your filemanager of choice by navigating to the blender executable and double−clicking on it

If you are using the Sawfish window manager, you might want to add a line like ("Blender" (system

"blender &")) to your sawfish/rc file

To add program icons for Blender in KDE

Select the Menu Editor from the System sub−menu of the K menu

Command, Type and Work Path

The Name field should already be filled in, but you can change it here at any time

To add a Desktop icon for Blender, open Konquerer (found on the Panel by default, or in the System

sub−menu of the K menu) and navigate to the Blender program icon where you first unzipped it Click andhold the program icon, and drag it from Konquerer to a blank spot on your Desktop You will be prompted toCopy Here, Move Here or Link Here; choose Link Here

To add program icons for Blender in GNOME

RMB click the Gnome Main Menu panel (depending on the chosen theme the Icon for the GnomeMain Menu panel could be displayed differently)

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Location of Gnome Main Menu panel

and select Edit Menus from the menu of options that appear,

Right clicked panel menu options

or LMB click on the Gnome Main Menu panel and navigate to System > Preferences > Look and Feel >Main Menu (Your menu layout may be different, if so the next option may help)

Location of Main Menu editor

Yet another method for accessing the Gnome Main Menu editor is to open a Terminal/Console/xtermwindow

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Location of Gnome Terminal

and type the following:

alacarte <PRESS THE ENTER KEY>

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An open Gnome Terminal window

After using one of the above methods (hopefully) the Main Menu editor is displayed

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The Main Menu editor windows (alacarte)

Select the Graphics sub−menu from the Main Menu dialog box (or which ever section you want theBlender icon to be contained in),

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The Main Menu editor windows (alacarte), with the left hand Graphics menu section selected

then click the New Item button

The Main Menu editor windows (alacarte), with the right hand New Item clicked

In the Create Launcher dialog box, make sure the Type: drop down menu has Application selected

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The Create Launcher dialog box (alacarte)

In the Create Launcher dialog box also fill in the Name:, Comment: and Command: fields Fill theName: field with the program name, for example Blender You can name this whatever you'd like,this is what appears in the menu, but does not affect the functionality of the program Fill the

Comment: field with a descriptive comment This is what is shown on the tooltips popups Fill theCommand: field with the full path of the blender program executable/binary, for example,

The Icon selection/display box (alacarte)

When the mouse is positioned over the icon button it will highlight) There may or may not be an icon forBlender in your default location You can make one, or look for the icon that goes with KDE This should be

in directory /opt/kde/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps/blender.png (assuming youinstalled KDE) If your installation directory is different, you can search for it using this command in a

Once you have found the icon you wish to use for Blender, select it in the Browse Icons dialog boxand select the Ok button to confirm it.

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Browser Dialog displaying available icons in specified location (alacarte)

Then click the Ok button in the Create Launcher Dialog box to create the new menu and icon item inthe Main Menu editor dialog Make sure the Show item is selected to the left of the newly createdBlender entry

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Right click menu from Main Menu Blender Icon (alacarte)

To add a Desktop icon for Blender, it is almost the same as adding a Panel icon for Blender butinstead of Selecting Add this launcher to panel you instead select Add this launcher to desktop

To start blender just open a shell and execute /blender, of course while running X

Irix

Install

Download the file blender−2.##−irix−6.5−mips.tar.gz from the 'Downloads' section of theBlender Website Here 2.## is the Blender version (currently 2.45), Python version 2.4, 6.5 is the Irixversion and mips is the machine architecture

To start Blender just open a shell and execute /blender, of course while running X Blender was

originally developed for the IRIX platform, but is currently not actively being maintained for all IRIX

workstation versions For some workstations performance troubles have been reported

Solaris

Install

Download the file blender−2.##−solaris−2.8−sparc.tar.gz from the 'Downloads' section of theBlender Website Here 2.## is the Blender version (currently 2.45), Python version 2.5, 2.8 is the Solarisversion and sparc is the machine architecture

Currently no further instructions for Sun Solaris are available Please use the Blender Website forums forsupport

MorphOS

Install

Download the unofficial file blender_2.##−mos_bin−yyyymmdd.lha from

http://www.yomgui.fr/blender/ Here is 2.## the Blender version (currently 2.45) and yyyymmdd the datestamp Sources are available on the same link

Currently no further instructions for MorphOS are available Please use the Blender Website or MorphOSforums for support

Configure your Blender

The generic installation of Blender has tons of features and looks pretty cool, too When you install an

upgrade, there are a few things you want to do:

'Point' Blender to resources on your machine

at the top of the screen You can size and reconfigure each of these to suit your particular preference (fornewbies, the defaults are just fine) If you click the Render button, to top Output directory is where youranimations are put (by default), and you might want to point that to your temp directory Finally, save all yourchanges with Ctrl U

Info:

The key combination Ctrl U saves all the settings of the currently open Blender file into the defaultBlender file (which is usually called B.blend) The settings in the default Blender file are read whenBlender is first started or when Ctrl X is pressed to start a New file If you accidentally change thesettings in your default Blender file there are a few ways of getting back factory default settings:

Goto the File menu and select Load Factory Settings, once that is done press key combinationCtrl U to save the newly loaded factory settings to the Blender default file If you have an olderversion of Blender this method may not be available in that case try the second method

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Delete the B.blend file (location can vary between operating systems, check your system) andwhen Blender is restarted it will recreate it using inbuilt default settings

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Setting up a user directory structure

If you are new to setting up Blender on your PC, you may want to stay organized, as you will quickly

accumulate many models, textures, pictures, blend files, zip files, scripts, etc Mushing them all

together in one directory leads to confusion, so it is recommended that you spend a few moments creating afew folders to keep stuff organized The following is a recommendation based on a few years' experience.There are also free tools to help you manage larger projects (i.e CVS/Subversion and Verse) but those arebeyond the scope of this document

For casual users, a suggested structure to create on your workstation's hard drive is:

C:\Blender − a shared folder containing the following subfolders:

\bin\ − downloaded binaries (installation exe's) and utilities and add−ons such as Yafray,Python, Gocubic, Panocube, Virtual Dub, etc

Library: I know you want to create the world, but there are already a bunch of models and stuff outthere on the www that other creative people have created To hold this wealth of pre−built knowledge,create a library (/Blender/lib/) to hold this stuff Subdirectories under that could be /mesh (tohold blend files of meshes), /tex to hold texture images, and /pic to hold pictures, such as

reference pictures My /blender/lib/mesh folder has subfolders /animal, /human,

/machine, and /house, to name a few, holding blend files that contain models of those types of

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About this Manual Setting up a user directory structure