First Day in Blender 4

Download blender from blender.org and install the version you need, including stable and alpha releases for Windows, then customize settings and choose the Blender dark theme.

Explore blender's interface by navigating 3d viewport, outliner, and properties, and learn to add and transform objects with shortcuts. Master editor layouts, splits, and workspaces for sculpting and uv editing.

Master blender navigation by rotating, panning, and zooming with the middle mouse, switch between front, right, and top orthographic and perspective views, and view through the camera.

Add objects in Blender using Shift+A or the menu, search with F3, and reposition them with the 3D cursor, then reset it with Shift+S.

Left-click to set the active selection and shift-click to add objects. Deselect by clicking outside, use box, lasso, circle tools, and press A or double A to select and deselect.

Master Blender's transform tools—move, rotate, and scale—with axis locks, numeric typing, and precision tweaks, while using origin points and orthographic views to control object transformations.

Explore global versus local axes in Blender, learn to transform objects with move, rotate, and scale along both axes, and visualize axes with x ray.

Enter edit mode with tab to model shapes, switch among vertex, edge, and face selections, and transform with g, s, and r; use x-ray or wireframe to reveal hidden vertices.

Explore smooth shading, flat shading, and auto smooth in Blender, using shade smooth, shade flat, and shade auto smooth, with auto smooth at a 30-degree threshold.

Explore how to work with lights in Blender, switch to rendered view to see lighting effects, adjust light properties and shadows, and compare point, sun, spot, and area lights.

Compare Eevee, cycles, and workbench, noting real-time versus physically accurate rendering. Tune samples and denoise, enable GPU rendering, and experiment with bloom for better shadows.

Explore Blender materials, including base color, metallic and roughness, transparency with alpha, and emission; learn to create multiple materials in one object by using slots and face-based assignments.

Learn to set up blender camera for final renders. Align camera to your view using ctrl+alt+zero, lock to view, adjust focal length, and use depth of field to keep focus.

Create a minimalistic final project in blender by building a simple scene with planes and cubes, setting up a camera, soft area lighting, and rendering in cycles with denoise.