2.1 Navigate and Save 2.2 Windows Explorer
2.3 The Append or Link Command 2.4 Packing Data
2.5 Importing Objects
2.1 Navigate and Save
Th is section has been titled “Navigate and Save” since it is most important to understand where you are saving your work. As with all computer work, being organized will save you a lot of frustration down the road when you have created many fi les and want to fi nd some-thing. Blender is all about building up your own library of things that you have created or things that you have downloaded and want to use in future Blender masterpieces.
It is impossible to teach everything so I will assume that you know how to navigate around your computer system and create places where you store your fi les (if you are un-familiar with this, see Section 2.2 on Windows Explorer). In a Windows system, Windows Explorer is an invaluable tool for doing just that. It is recommended that you become famil-iar with your computer’s fi le system. At some stage you will want to save fi les, images, web pages, audio fi les, and obviously your Blender fi les and movie fi les.
We will discuss how you navigate in the Blender fi le browser and save your work to a location of your choice. Th e assumption is that you have created a fi le to save and a folder in which to save it. Th e creation of the folder is where Windows Explorer comes in. As a demonstration, we will use the default Blender scene with the cube object, the lamp, and the camera. I know that is not very exciting but we haven’t learned to do anything yet at this stage.
Open Blender with the default scene. In the info window header, click on “File.” In the drop down menu that is displayed, you will see “Save” and “Save As” (Figure 2.1).
Opening – Saving – Autosaving Files
Learning Unit 2
t Use “Save” to save a new file or to save work you have added to a file.
t Use “Save As” to save a copy of a file. You will have to give this a new name if you are saving it in the same folder as the original.
With our new default scene, click on “Save.” The Blender file browser window should open with the option “Save Blender File” in the top RH corner of the window. Where you see “untitled.blend” is the name of your file (Figure 2.2). Blender automatically names the file untitled.blend. Click on the name to highlight it, press Delete on the keyboard, then type in a new name and hit Enter. I have named my file Demo.blend. It is good practice to add the “.blend” suffix—
older versions of Blender did not automatically add it.
Just above where you have typed the name you will see the file path to where your file will be saved. On my computer this is “c:\temp\.”
Blender has automatically decided that if I do not say otherwise my file will be saved in the temp folder on the C: drive. You can see there is a previous .blend file already saved to this folder. The temp folder is
Figure 2.1
Figure 2.2 Drives on my PC
File path File name “Save Blender File”
41 2.1. Navigate and Save
not where I want my file to go, so I have made a new folder named “ABlenderDemo” on my C: drive for this new file (Figure 2.3). To navigate to this folder, I go into the system panel at the top LH side of the screen. In the panel you should see all the drives on my computer listed, the top one being the C: drive.
When I click on the “c:” in the panel all the folders on my C: drive display in the main browser window. ABlenderDemo is third from the top of the list. Note that just above where I typed in my file name Demo.blend, “c:\” is displayed. This tells me that I am looking at the C: drive. To put my new file into ABlenderDemo I click on it in the window. The main window is now showing the contents of folder ABlenderDemo, which is empty as it should be since I haven’t put anything into it. Now I click on “Save Blender File” at the top RH side of the screen. Blender displays the default blender scene again.
If you have followed these directions on your computer and want to prove that you have saved your file, change the window type to the file browser window. Click on the 3D window header icon and choose “File Browser.” And there’s Demo.blend in the c:\ABlenderDemo\
folder (Figure 2.4)!
Figure 2.3
Figure 2.4
Note: In the Blender default 3D window, the 3D window button/icon is in the lower LH corner of the window in the window header. In the file browser window, the but-ton is in the header at the top of the window at the LHS.
That should keep us out of trouble for the time being as far as saving our work, but it is a good idea to play around and find out what all the buttons in the file browser window do.
If you hit on one that says “Create a New Directory,” Blender just names it “New Folder,”
which isn’t all that helpful. With “New Folder” newly created, press Delete and retype a new name, then press Enter.
This has been a brief insight into navigating in the file browser window as well as show-ing how to save your work. Of course you can use the file browser to find other stuff as well.
Just click on a folder in the window and it opens showing what’s inside. There are some buttons at the top of the window that let you choose how the contents of the folders are dis-played (Figure 2.5). One helpful button lets you see files as thumbnails (pictures) so if you have photo images you can see them from within Blender (Figure 2.6).
Figure 2.5
Figure 2.6
Choose how the
files are displayed. Thumbnails
43 2.2. Windows Explorer
2.2 Windows Explorer
Let’s make a folder where we can save our stuff. Open Windows Explorer. There are several ways of opening Explorer depending on what version of Windows you are using. You can usually find the application by clicking the “Start” button, clicking open “All Programs” and going to “Accessories.” Windows Explorer is usually in Accessories. You could have a quick start icon somewhere else.
If your computer is like mine it persists in opening Widows Explorer showing my “Doc-uments” folder (Figure 2.7). You can save your stuff there but it will soon accumulate and get all mixed in with your letters to Grandma and the Tax Man. This is not a good thing.
Figure 2.7
Figure 2.8
We will make a new folder in the C:\ drive. Close the folder list and get back to the basic directory (Figure 2.8). Right click on your C:\ drive and in the drop down that displays, click on
“New” and then click on “Folder” (Figure 2.9). Windows enters a new folder and names it “New Folder.” At this stage you can edit the name. Press Delete to delete “New Folder” and type in your
Desktop – Computer – Acer (C:) The directory is open.
The Documents folder is way down the list.
Click to close or expand the directory. In newer versions of Windows, the triangle is a + and - sign.
new name. I have named my folder “ABlend-erDemo” (Figure 2.10). I have put the A at the beginning of the name so that Windows will put it at the top of the directory list. If I named it “Xanado” it will go way down the bottom.
When you have typed in your name, press
“Enter” and you have a new folder.
IMPORTANT: Remember your folder name and where it is located. Th is will make your life easier later on.
2.3 The Append or Link Command
When you want to insert elements from one Blender (.blend) fi le into another, you can select the “Append” or “Link” com-mands from the fi le pull-down menu in the info window header (Figure 2.11).
“Append” takes data from an existing fi le and adds it to the current fi le. “Link”
allows you to use data from an existing fi le in the current fi le but the data remains in the existing fi le. Th e data cannot be edited in the current fi le—if the data is changed in the existing fi le, the changes show in the current fi le the next time it is opened.
Selecting “Append” or “Link” opens the fi le browser window allowing you to navigate to the Blender fi le you wish to select elements from. You can append anything from cameras, lights, meshes, materials, textures, scenes, and objects. For most purposes, use the object option. By appending objects, any materials, textures, and animations that are linked to that object will automatically be imported with the object. Clicking the LMB on an object will select it. Pressing the A key will deselect. Aft er you select your objects to append, click Figure 2.9
Right click.
Figure 2.10
Xanadu would be way down at the bottom.
45 2.4. Packaging Data
the “Link/Append from Library” button in the upper right corner of the screen (Figure 2.12).
2.4 Packing Data
If you plan to open a Blender file on other comput-ers, you will need to select the “Pack into .blend file”
option in the file menu under “External Data” (Fig-ure 2.13). Text(Fig-ures and sounds are not automatically included in your Blender file in order to keep the file size down. Every time your file opens, the textures and sounds are placed into your file. If the files can’t be found, you won’t have any textures and sounds. If you pack the data, those files are included with the .blend file so they can be opened anywhere. Remem-ber, your file size may become very large. When data is packed, a small package shows up on the top of your screen letting you know that the file is packed. You can also unpack data to bring the file size back down.
Figure 2.11
Figure 2.12
Folders in the C: drive 1. Click on C:.
2. Click on ABlenderDemo.
3. Click on Object.
4. Click on Cube to select.
1
2
3
4
2.5 Importing Objects
One of Blender’s strong points is its ability to accept several generic types of 3D files from other programs. Two examples are:
t The .mxh file format used by the Make Human program, which creates models of the human fig-ure, and
t The .dxf file format used by the Elefont program, which creates 3D solid text models.
Both the Make Human and Elefont programs are freely available.
Other programs save files in one format but also give the option to export in another format. You will have to find the “Export”
command in the program and match up the file type with one of the file types in Blender’s import add-ons. With every new release of Blender, the import/export format options list changes. This makes Blender compatible with a variety of other 3D modeling and animation software programs.
Note: There are only a few file type options shown in the default selection menu.
MXH and DXF are not shown. To conserve space in the GUI, Blender has limited the file type display. MXH and DXF as well as several other file types are available as add-ons in the user preferences window.
To import a MXH or DXF file into a Blender scene, open the user preferences window and click on “Add-Ons” at the top of the window. In the list at the LHS of the window select
“Import-Export.” A short list of the import/export file types will display (Figure 2. 14). Find the file type you require and place a tick in the box at the RHS of the panel. The ticked file type will now be available in the “Info Window – File – Import” selection drop down menu (Figure 2.15).
Note: When importing Blender files into other Blender files, remember to use the
“Append” command instead of “Import.” In the “Append” command, select the file, then select what you would like to bring into the current file. You will usually want the objects option.
Figure 2.13
47 2.5. Importing Objects
Figure 2.15
Figure 2.14 Add-ons in the user
preference window
The .dxf file format is ticked.
The imported .dxf file format is added to the import selection menu.