Particles: In computer graphics, particle systems are often used to create special effects or manage the behavior of groups of objects. This subsection of the Properties editor is where you manage particle systems in Blender. Working with particles is a pretty advanced topic. Chapter 13 gives you a brief introduction to the possibilities that they have.
✔ Physics: In the spirit of making your computer do as much work for you as possible, having the computer simulate physical behavior in your objects is sometimes helpful. It lends realism to animations and can often help you work faster. The Physics properties subsection gives you controls for simulating physics on your objects. See Chapter 13 for more on these topics.
Customizing Blender to Fit You
You can tweak Blender's screen layout to virtually any configuration you can imagine. However, Blender's customization features go much deeper than just readjusting the areas in a Blender window. There are very few parts of Blender that, with a little time and effort, you can't completely overhaul to be as comfortable of a work environment as possible. This ability to customize is especially useful for people who are migrating to Blender from other 3D graphics programs. I won't say that you can make Blender behave exactly like any of these other programs, but sometimes little things like using the same keyboard shortcuts help make the transition smoother.
You can make a variety of layouts depending on the sort of work you're doing. In Blender, these workspace layouts are called screens, and, by default, Blender comes with nine presets: 3D View Full, Animation, Compositing, Default, Game Logic, Motion Tracking, Scripting, UV Editing, and Video Editing. When you first load Blender, you’re in the Default screen layout. You can cycle through these screens by pressing Ctrl+← and Ctrl+→. If you prefer to use a menu, you can use the datablock (for more on datablocks, see the “Understanding datablocks” sidebar in this chapter) at the top of the window in the Info editor, as shown in Figure 2-2, and left-click the screen icon next to the name of the current screen layout.
Figure 2-2: The Screens menu.
To create a new screen, left-click the plus icon next to the current screen name in the Info editor's header. Upon clicking this icon, Blender produces a duplicate of your existing screen layout. From here, you can make the changes to create your own custom layout, such as a materials editing layout or a multi-monitor layout with a separate window for each of your monitors.
You can also delete screens (including the default ones that ship with Blender, so be careful) by clicking the button with the X icon to the right of the Screen datablock. When you’re happy with changes you've made and you want to have these screens available (or not available, if you've removed screens) each time you start Blender, save your settings by going to File⇒Save Startup File or using the Ctrl+U hotkey.
.blend file called startup.blend that gets loaded each time it starts. So any models you have in the 3D View and any changes you make to other layouts are saved, too. Fortunately, if you've made a mistake, you can always return to the default setup by choosing File⇒Load Factory Settings and recreate your custom layouts from there.
startup.blend file is fine for setting up custom screen layouts, but it can be pretty inconvenient if you're just making changes in User Preferences (such as custom hotkeys or themes). For those kinds of changes, it's better to use the Save User Settings button at the bottom of User Preferences (Ctrl+Alt+U). Using this button ensures that your new settings in User Preferences are loaded each time you start Blender, without overwriting your default scene or screen layouts.
Understanding datablocks: Fundamental elements in a Blender file
In Figure 2-2, look at the widget that's used to manage screens. The interface gives you access to something called a datablock. A simple and obvious definition of a datablock is that it's literally a block of data. However, a datablock has more to it. Datablocks are used throughout both Blender's interface and its internal structure, so understanding how they work and how you can take advantage of them goes a long way to understanding Blender itself. Nearly every critical element in Blender is stored in a type of datablock, from screens and scenes to objects and animations.
Not only is a datablock a handy way to store information, but it also allows Blender to treat this information like a database. In particular, you can link datablocks and let them share information. As an example, say that you've created an excellent wood material, and you want to have two objects – a table and a chair – look like they're both made of the same wood. Well, rather than recreate that exact same material for each object, you can simply link both object datablocks to the same material datablock. Your computer uses less memory, and, more importantly, you have less work to do. And because datablocks are used throughout Blender, this same concept works in all kinds of situations: sharing textures between materials, sharing particle systems between objects, and even sharing worlds between scenes. It's an incredibly powerful feature of Blender and I refer to datablocks a lot throughout this book.
✔ Right-click in the header area and enable Header⇒Collapse Menus.
The
