yofrankie.org)
sintel.org)
tearsofsteel.org)
caminandes.com)
cosmoslaundromat.org)
cloud.blender.org/p/glass-half)
caminandes.com)
cloud.blender.org/p/hero)
cloud.blender.org/p/dailydweebs)
cloud.blender.org/p/spring)
JOINING THE COMMUNITY
Congratulations! As a Blender user, you’re a part of our community. You’re joining a diverse group that spans all age ranges, ethnicities, professional backgrounds, and parts of the globe. We are a passionate bunch: proud of this little 3D program and more than willing to help others enjoy using it as much as we do. Have a look at Chapter 21 for a list of community resources that are invaluable, not only for discovering the intricacies of using Blender, but also for improving yourself as an artist.
You can find innumerable opportunities for critique, training, discussion, and even collaboration with other artists, some of whom might also be Blender developers. I’ve made quite a few good friends and colleagues through the Blender community, both through the various community websites as well as by attending events like the annual Blender Conference. I go by the name “Fweeb” on these sites and I look forward to seeing you around!
Figure 1-2 shows rendered images from a bunch of the open projects.
FIGURE 1-2: Open projects from the Blender Institute help drive Blender development (Blender Foundation, www.blender.org).
With the completion of each of these projects, the functionality and stability of Blender significantly increased. Much of the content of this book wouldn’t even exist without these projects. For example, Chapter 14 starts with using Blender’s particle system to achieve exciting effects along with hair and fur. All the content in Chapter 18 is focused on the Compositor, a way of combining and enhancing still images and animations. In fact, nearly all of Part 3 is devoted to features that were enhanced or directly added for one of these open projects.
All these projects continue to exhibit the strength of the Blender community. Each of them were financed in a large part by DVD presales (and now Blender Cloud subscriptions) from users who understand that regardless of the project’s final product, great improvements to Blender are the result, and everyone benefits from that.
Getting to Know the Interface
Probably one of the most daunting aspects of Blender for newcomers and seasoned 3D professionals alike has been its unique and somewhat peculiar interface. For a long time, the interface has arguably been the most controversial feature Blender has had. In fact, at one time, merely calling the interface a feature would raise the blood pressure of some of you who tried using Blender in the past, but gave up in frustration when it did not behave as expected.
Although the interface wasn’t the primary focus, the interface updates to Blender added in the 2.5 series of release made great strides toward alleviating that frustration, and the improvements continue through to today. In fact, with the release of version 2.80, Blender’s interface is more welcoming to newcomers than ever before. As a small example, when you first launch Blender, the “splash image” provides you with some quick setup options to configure Blender to your liking right from the start. If you’re more familiar with other programs’ hotkeys and mouse behavior, you may want to try using the “Industry Compatible” shortcuts. If you’re a long-time Blender user like me, you may choose the Blender 2.7X shortcuts. This book is written with the assumption that you’re going with the default choices in this splash screen. Figure 1-3 shows the splash image you’re presented with when you start Blender for the first time.
