What we will learn
In this post I am going to
tell you about how to add objects in Blender. In previous post I have
gave you a teaser of adding objects in blender. But here we will talk
about the different methods to add objects and a little about placing them in 3D
space. If we talk about placing the objects the 3D cursor have a very
important role to play, and we will talk about that also. Placing the objects in depth will come in the following posts. So without
wasting time lets get started.
3D Cursor
First we should know about
the 3D cursor. Peoples switching from other 3D development softwares
like 3Ds Max or Maya will found themselves dealing with something
new. Yes its very unique feature the blender has. At start it will
feel awkward how your left click places the 3D cursor rather than
doing a predictable action like selecting an object. Well you can
change this behavior from user preferences, but I will suggest not to
do so. The following image is showing the 3D cursor in viewport :
3D cursor and Object's Position
Whenever you are adding a
new object it will be added at the position where the 3D Cursor is.
The 3D cursor mainly deals with placing the objects. You can snap any
object to cursor, the cursor to any selected object or sub object
like vertex. Different snapping options are available for 3D cursor
and objects. You can access these options by pressing Shift+S inside
the viewport.The following image is showing the options that will
open after pressing Shift+S :
Changing the 3D Cursor Position
By default the 3D cursor
is placed at the center (0,0,0) of the viewport. If by mistake you
have left clicked somewhere else in the viewport, the cursor would
have been misplaced by now. To place the cursor at the center (0,0,0)
again press Shift+S and then choose 'Cursor to Center'.
Another way to change 3D
cursor's position is from properties. Press N key to toggle
Properties in viewport, and then go to 3D cursor segment to enter the
position. The following image is showing the position of 3D cursor
segment in Properties:
As we will keep talking
about the 3D cursor wherever its needed, lets focus on adding objects
in detail.
Adding Objects in blender 3D
Adding different kind of
objects to the scene in blender is pretty easy. There are two methods
by which you can add objects, and these methods are
- From menu bar
- By using shortcut
Adding objects from menu bar
To add objects from menu
bar just click on Add menu and choose the object from there
respective categories. For example if you want to add Cube you have
to choose it from Mesh category. You can add different kind of
objects like Mesh, Curve, Surface, Text, Armature(Bone in 3Ds Max),
Empty (Helpers in 3Ds Max), Camera, Lamp ( Lights in 3Ds Max) etc.
Adding objects by using shortcut
The same list of objects
can be opened for adding objects inside the viewport by using
shortcut Sift +A while mouse pointer is inside the viewport. From
this list you can add all these objects which you can add from Add
menu.
Precautions for adding objects
There are two things that
you should know before adding an object into blender.
The first thing is that
new object is always added at the position of 3D cursor. 3D cursor's
position can be changed by left clicking anywhere in the scene.
Wherever you left click somewhere, the 3D cursor will be placed
there. So if you have by mistake placed the 3D cursor somewhere else
or outside the view the object will be placed there, if you want to
add the object at the center, place the 3D cursor at the center, read
the 3D cursor section of this post to do so.
The second thing is the
properties of the objects you added like radius of sphere, size and
radius of cylinder etc. You can tweak these properties for one time
only when you added the object. These properties are tend to lost as
soon as you transform the object or add another object. So you should
tweak these properties immediately after adding the object before
doing anything else. You can change these properties from bellow the
toolbar.
The name of some of these
properties are a little different in blender. Cube always have
similar sided so rather giving it height, width and depth they gave
it only one property Radius. Another thing is the sides of the
objects like Cylinder and Cone became the vertices, means if you want
8 sides in the cylinders then you have to enter 8 vertices in the
properties. The place from where you can change the properties is
shown in the image bellow:
 |
These are some general
information about 3D cursor and adding objects in blender. We will
talk about the methods of adding some specific objects like Text and
Curves in the following posts.
And now hear is a tip for
you, you can press F12 to take render of your scene, and after render
press Esc to return to the 3D view.
Well I think its enough
for now, see you in the next post and Happy Blending :)
