I should have done this as soon as I started using Blender - My Blender interface

This was probably one of my largest mistakes when I started using Blender, I jumped straight into modelling and didn't take 15mins to set up my interface to help me in the modelling process. Instead I changed it gradually over the next 2-3 months, really slowing down my workflow and my learning.
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[@AnthonyHortin]

Some great tips here. Turning on Cavity (& also shadow) was one of the most useful things I did when I first started with blender, just over a year ago. I’d probably also add Node Wrangler to the list as well. So many tutorials make use of it so it helps when learning, and you’re following along with their keystrokes. Loop Tools is also super useful.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Thats a really good point about Node Wrangler, it really saves a LOT of time. I was debating if I should include loop tools. I use it a lot but for some uses it seemed like the average person starting would get less use out of it... 👍

[@CosplayZine]

Awesome video!I really needed this to refresh my memory. Happy new year.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Thanks so much and Happy New Year to you too!

[@kidgoldenarm]

Fantastic!! Thank you for your works!

[@ArtisansofVaul]

My pleasure man 😁

[@Sam-pm9vy]

Very useful video. One thing I found very useful to discover - the Q menu. Early on I kept hitting it by accident and it kept telling me nothing was set up for it - I had no idea what that meant. Then by chance it was mentioned in passing in a completely unrelated tutorial on a tiny channel. Game changing

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Yeah it's really handy. I have avoided it as it can also link to Hard Ops if its an addon someone has aand I don't want to cause confusion on a beginner video. I will cover it separately though and I really appreciate you mentioning it for other people when they read the comments 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[@DaellusKnights]

Ohmywow! Is it EVER! My mouse is a little glitchy and often when I right click it goes to town and clicks through several menu options at once... QUITE annoying! But it turns out, one thing it was completely accidentally doing was adding common things to my Quick Favorites! When I learned about Q in a similar fashion as you, it was already half setup on its own 🤣

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@@DaellusKnights 🤣🤣🤣

[@mr.spooky6134]

what is a Q menu? Is it a blender addon or a 3rd party addon? I've been using hardops when I started blender so I have no idea what that is.

[@surendrathapa1861]

This was really useful, thanks for your help man.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

😁 Cheers. Glad it got you sorted 👍🏻

[@devriv8983]

Very helpful tips. I also learned so much by observing your method of creating arched windows and using the shear tool. Thank you for these tutorials and Happy New Year to you.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Happy New Year Devriv. 😁 Great to hear you're finding the tutorials useful 👌🏼

[@AresGodofWargames]

I´m just learning blender and this has legit helped me way more than most other tutorials, what you mention happened a lot to me, that is watching tutorials and they doing something that was not enabled in my Blender, and me just being lost on how to enable it or look for it. So THANK YOU

[@ArtisansofVaul]

😁👍🏻 Really glad the videos been helpful. When I started I was constantly finding that so thought it was worth covering to help people not have to go through that annoyance

[@eitantal726]

Welcome, starter! Remember to have your time watching videos backed by at least 3x of that time doing actual Blender. Otherwise, you think you're learning, but you're not. Things always look really easy when other people do them

[@OblitusTerra]

The cavity and the 3Dprinting add-ons are game changer! Thanks

[@ArtisansofVaul]

My pleasure 😁😁👍🏻

[@OrangeDragonofDusk]

Really great tips, especially for the vertex size increase.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

😁👍🏻 Thanks.

[@Qudi19]

a really helpful and well made video... i did have a problem with the original blender setup when i started

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Thanks so much Qudi. I think there are some things that should be on as standard, cavity is probably the main one as the object edges are pretty hard to see in the default settings

[@Qudi19]

agreed and also the standard 3d objects colors are pain to look at for long periods of time @@ArtisansofVaul

[@TamerBayouq]

Thanks for this video.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Thanks so much man. Cheers for taking the time to comment 👍👌

[@DaellusKnights]

I'm SO glad you made this video. Back up to 2.79 I used to customize almost EVERYTHING for my startup file. Even removing ALL the view layouts and building my own. Unfortunately it was only a couple months ago that I finally got a laptop that can run any version newer than 2.79. 😱 I really need to get back on this, because my old startup file is useful for **some** of the color theme, but a LOT is different in 4.x! 😅 Thanks for the reminder! 😻👍

[@ArtisansofVaul]

My pleasure man. Congrats on the new laptop and I hope you enjoy the newer features of Blender 😁😁😁

[@Mr.McWatson]

oh no. Did they move everything around again?

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@Mr.McWatson They haven't moved everything I hope. This is just to sort everything for someone relatively new to Blender

[@Mr.McWatson]

@@ArtisansofVaul I meant, b/c he said a lot is different in 4.0 😅

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@@Mr.McWatson It's more the things you can do, not the layout.

[@TechnicJelle]

I also really like the built-in adding called F2! It makes the F key a lot more useful in some cases. It can even do autofill stuff. I highly recommend watching a video about it!

[@ArtisansofVaul]

I do need to play around with that more. As you say it looks great 👍😁

[@TechnicJelle]

It's really incredibly useful! I cannot live without it anymore. It's the first thing I enable whenever I install Blender (2nd one is LoopTools, and 3rd one is Node Wrangler) Hmm.. maybe LoopTools should also be mentioned if you ever do a video like this again? It's also incredibly useful

[@fergadelics]

It’s a popular letter. I wish addon devs would leave it alone. Always having to track down who nabbed the F

[@TechnicJelle]

@@fergadelics the F2 addon does not interfere with the default behaviour of the F key in Blender! It only adds to it!

[@fergadelics]

@@TechnicJelle oh, not f2. Some other addons will nab it and f2 won’t stand up and fight. Ie Machin3 Tools uses it for focus. I have to reassign. Hassle

[@taerog]

Great video .. saving this for everyone I recommend Blender to for sure! And people I already did.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

😁👍🏻 Cheers Taerog

[@jangohemmes352]

Thanks a lot!! Been asking in your various vids how you set up the viewport

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Did I not reply with the link to an old video on it? I always try to reply to all the comments on videos so if I haven't I wonder if KZbin didn't put it through for some reason. Glad I got to see and reply to this comment though and sorry if the messages didn't get through before.

[@ValentinNadolu]

Copy and pasting colors can be done a lot easier by just hovering the mouse cursor over the color input and Ctrl+C or Ctrl+V, no need to click! Works for ANY inputs on the interface.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Good tip 👍🏻

[@manuel.camelo]

Happy New Year Dudeee !!! 👁️👃👃👁️🙏

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Happy New Year man! I hope it's off to a good start for you already 😁😁😁

[@manuel.camelo]

@@ArtisansofVaul Yep same to you Buddy, I'm sure this 2024 gonna be a Lucky year for all of us 🙏 About time ! 2020 to 2023 were absolutely awful. 😞

[@darrennew8211]

All great advice! Happy New Year! I'd also suggest turning on "automatically pack external files" for anyone who actually paints textures, even if only for bump maps. There's a video on Maker Tales (who also uses blender for 3d printing, but more functional vs artistic prints) describing how he sets up similar changes. Importantly, he shows you how to set up the scale to millimeters. And real important he shows you where to copy your default setup in a way that it adds a new entry to File->New menu so you're not clobbering "General" all the time. (And if you File->New->3DPrint and then make changes and save defaults, it goes back into the 3DPrint settings.)

[@ArtisansofVaul]

See I would VERY strongly recommend against setting the scale to mm. The Blender units are generally vastly better with how Blender interacts with other programs. So that was missed out very intentionally.

[@darrennew8211]

@@ArtisansofVaul Huh. It's never given me a problem, really. If you set it up right, it's mostly just display things, unless you're doing physics. It's still one blender unit that you're modeling in. I just export STLs which don't have units anyway and I've never had a problem after following his advice. You *do* have to change it in multiple places to make it all consistent. For sure if you're doing physics (even cloth) or exporting an FBX to a game engine or such, I can see it being problematic.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@darrennew8211 That it's exported without units is the issue, Blender looks at mm not as "1" even if you set it to mm, it thinks of them as 0.001 Blender units. Which then means some programs will interpret that incorrectly, especially if you tell the program (like 3D Builder) as the object is coming in in mm. It causes confusion and work that just isn't needed. So I'd never suggest to change the units to mm if you're going to be taking the stl to other programs.

[@darrennew8211]

@@ArtisansofVaul Ah, no. That's why you have to change it in two different places. :-) One says "how big is a blender unit" and the other says "how big should units be on screen" if I recall correctly. As I said, after following his instructions, I have *never* had to adjust the size after export.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@darrennew8211 I think making changes when they aren't needed if you leave it seems like an issue people new to Blender don't really need 😅

[@richardokeeffe8375]

A mine of useful information!

[@ArtisansofVaul]

👌🏼😁 Cheers Richard.

[@buraktabakoglu]

There are some reeaally good advice in this video, leaving face orientation on while turning off the alpha is just genius. I immediately applied that to my Blender settings. HOWEVER, if you are new to Blender and rely heavily on tutorials, i don't recommend changing your Selected Object colors just yet (Orange and Yellowish colors), because it can lead to confusion while following tutorials. Some Blender operations rely on object selection order (Weight Paint transfers, booleans, joining objects etc), you need to select your objects in an order, or it will do the operation the other way around. Until the muscle memory settles in, leaving it as is might be the better option.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

That's a fair point though I find the colouring of green for selected and blue for active makes it either to differentiate between the two compared to orange and a lighter orange. But each to their own.

[@buraktabakoglu]

@@ArtisansofVaul Yeah i see where u're coming from, and it makes %100 sense to change it if u're experienced. What i most def. recommend for ppl to change is that the Sharp Edge color (cyan color). It is impossible to see selected edges if the edges are sharp since cyan and white is indistinguishable fr each other. I've changed it to a normal blue color, and i can see selected sharp edges perfectly now. This is more relevant now that the Auto Smooth is replaced with Smooth by Angle operator.

[@fergadelics]

I’ve been in text styles lately, bumping up pt size. Not the whole UI, just the text. Nice to see in tutorials too…

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Good call on the text size too 👌🏼👍🏻

[@AvantNovis]

Ty

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@@AvantNovis 😁👍🏻

[@bobcharlotte8724]

Thank you! Amazing stuff. As a Maya user of over 20 years and a Houdini user of about 4, I'd immediately recommend duplicating the default Blender hotkeys and adjust ONLY the camera controls to make the Blender camera behave like all other 3d software. Don't bother with the industry standard preset because it removes other important Blender presets.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

That's interesting. I don't use the camera much as I don't use Blender for animation so I didn't know it seems to be different to other software 👍🏻

[@bobcharlotte8724]

@@ArtisansofVaul Ah I meant just when modeling, pivoting and panning around objects is way different and I think could be a hurdle for some coming from other software. Keep up the great work!

[@wyattblends7643]

LOL My list of things to learn just keeps getting longer and I keep getting more excited about it :)

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Haha. Blender has a way of going that for sure 😅😅😅

[@chrisreeves4110]

Awesome video as always, I've learnt 90% of what I know about blender from your videos. A trick I discovered for applying multiple modifiers is just to convert the mesh to a mesh even though it already is. I've never had problems with this method but would be interested to know if it does cause any.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Oh that's interesting. I haven't used that before so I'll try that out. I have looked at the other methods to see which is quicker so there are multiple ways to do it, I'll have to add this to the list and try it out. You can see some other ways here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ioPPcmuhhamMfLM

[@KrazyKaiser]

Great video. I have been watching your videos for a while when I got into blender for 3D art reasons, and while your content is mostly focused on blender for 3D printing and miniatures, it's obviously got a lot a generally useful blender knowledge in it. But I also just happened to get a really good deal on a 3D printer on craigslist so now your channel is even more relevant to me lol.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Oh awesome 👌🏼 Have fun with the printer! What are you planning on doing?

[@Akumeitakai]

Oh my god. I can actually see myself using Blender for the first time in AGES! You mean to tell me this program was usable this entire time?! When was I going to be exposed to this anywhere else?! Sheesh!

[@ArtisansofVaul]

😂😅 It's not only usable it's actually a very VERY good program.

[@DaellusKnights]

Also... Do you have a video on the custom Tools thing? I've seen it mentioned in several videos but not covered. I've created a few procedural node trees I use, and I think that's supposed to make them reusable tools? Am I misunderstanding? Thank you!

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Sure thing. I think you're meaning using Geometry Nodes. I've got a video on it here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eKrTYpd5ZcmFhtE

[@derekablackburn]

Great tips! I worked these all into my startup file.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Awesome 👌🏼 Glad to hear its helpful Derek and thanks so mu h for the super thanks, it's hugely appreciated.

[@Mile2112]

Great video as always Artisan. How do you go about working in certain dimensions for 3D printing? Do you work in millimeters or use native Blender units? This always confused me quite a lot.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

So Blender's interactions with other programs can cause issues with scale that sometimes seems a bit odd. Ive got a video on it here and it goes through why I would recommend not putting in a units and just using Blender's own unit system. You can check it out here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nobJgal-hcmaiJY

[@Mile2112]

@@ArtisansofVaul Thanks went through it and understanding your reasoning. Also one tip, instead of using the eyedropper to match colors you can also just hover your mouse over a certain color, click ctrl+c and pase into the desired color bar with ctrl+v. Hope it helps smooth out your process further :)

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@Mile2112 Oh that's a great tip! Love it. It's like you can do the same with profile curves as well, which is crazily useful!

[@elijacks8269]

This is driving me absolutely bonkers. I have done the Matcap-Cavity thing, and the fancy bright edges show up when I'm tilted at an angle, but if I go to ortho view, those edges vanish, making the whole endeavour pointless. I;'ve got the ridges and valleys set to 2, I've messed with the samples, distance and attenuation, but nothig gets the results like in this video! Help!

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Thats odd, that really shouldn't happen. Can you check you aren't in Solid Display for the viewport shading and not the Material Preview or Rendered Display?

[@jackgartlan]

Great video. One 3D print modelling question I have is when I have two objects (e.g. cubes) overlapping, is there a non-destructive way to remove the internal geometry when I’m ready to export as an STL? Otherwise my slicer shows a ton of inside vertices/faces and I’m worried it will cause issues - such as being difficult to check for cavities in my slicer program.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

You need to boolean the objects together. This is in the modifier tab and only becomes destructive when you apply it.

[@jackgartlan]

@@ArtisansofVaul sorry poor example, is there a better method once you’ve finished a model with dozens of objects (include some with difference booleans or other modifiers)? Essentially I’d like to duplicate all objects, apply all modifiers then do one giant union Boolean.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@jackgartlan So that's a bit more limited. I'd separated everything and use booleans and speed it up using the Bool Tool addon (included with Blender). The other option is to use Geometry nodes which can boolean parts of the same object, I've got a video on that here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nJabd4Brn62Ch80 Finally you can use a remesh modifier but I'd avoid it as it ruins the geometry and doesn't give clean edges where parts connect. But it's an option.

[@CJ-ur3fx]

If like a follow up to this video, about how to set measurements to mm, and change some of the view clipping options, for 3d modelling minitures. Edit: I see that you’ve addressed this in other comments.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

👍🏻Good call on the viewing distance. I'll cover that in a short. As for the distance for 3D modelling I'd actually recommend not using units at all. I've played around with it quite a lot and it's easier for other programs like slicers/file checkers to understand. I have a video on it here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nobJgal-hcmaiJY

[@Undertuck34]

Hey, great video! I'm not sure where I messed up but the matcap, deleting camera and light, and floor/axis settings don't save in my preferences and I was wondering where I would go to fix that? Thanks

[@ArtisansofVaul]

That won't save as a preference. Instead you have to save the startup as shown towards the end of the video.

[@Undertuck34]

@@ArtisansofVaul OHHH I thought that just saved windows so I didn’t try it, that makes sense thank you

[@mipe7755]

Hi, would you consider covering the new CAD Transform 2.0 addon for Blender 4.0+ by Stephen Leger?

[@ArtisansofVaul]

It's on my list of things to cover so I'm slowly working my way down to it. It looks interesting though so I will be at some point for sure. 👍

[@azrael7133]

Great work! would be great to know BEFORE i start learning blender years ago:) nevertheless it was fun to learn and find grains of sand in the ocean of Blender info. But one of the most things i didnt reach is working cavity for x10 scale objects - tried different values for it but it didnt worked, just wont appear for big scale objects. Maybe you face it too?

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Hmm.... I can't say I've ever had that. Even when it's huge it will still highlight the edges of the object (though the highlight does get smaller).

[@lingyangmain]

How do I save the settings? Every time I close and open blender again, all the settings come back to default, except for the theme and colors. The animation bar, cavity, and everything comes back to default. What should I do? Please 🥲

[@ArtisansofVaul]

👍🏻 This video has a part that covers how to save your startup file: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oYqzhHyIobljr6M

[@lingyangmain]

@@ArtisansofVaul thank you! It worked perfectly

[@proza1957]

Great tutorial do you have one for snapping?

[@ArtisansofVaul]

I have a couple in fact depending how you want to do it. Movement tricks in Blender 4.0 (snap base): kzbin.info/www/bejne/rYWododqbbSUiZI Quick Snap (Free Add On): kzbin.info/www/bejne/aquucn6hipdjbK8

[@proza1957]

Thank you

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@@proza1957 My pleasure. If anything isn't clear pr covered let me knowm

[@richardlionheart3935]

Oddly when I've saved the startup file and open a new general I lose the cavity settings and the camera and light and timeline window is back..... This is in 4.02 also it goes back to general lighting rather than matcap.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Hmm.... I've never had that happen. I'd suggest trying it again and seeing if it still happens. If it does do you have any addons as there may be one interfering with it but I haven't heard of one.

[@richardlionheart3935]

@@ArtisansofVaul I found the cause of the problem. Once you click save default file the menu goes away and a single confirm button pops up.. however if your mouse isn't still in the same spot the confirm button vanishes. I was obviously moving my mouse away from the spot too fast to notice the confirm button. Still a silly option though having a confirmation button that vanishes once the mouse leaves the area.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@richardlionheart3935 Glad to know you've found the issue 👍🏻 And thanks so much for reporting back on the solution, I'm sure there will be other people that find the same issue so this will really help out 👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼

[@grandwaz0o]

When you set Last Selected Point to blue, was that a mistake? You had previously used "green" to denote "selected" on the other items.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

No that's intentional. I want everything selected to be green but the one that was selected last to be blue so it stands out. This can be important later in Blender because you can copy things from the last selected to all the other selected objects (like modifiers or materials) so you want to know which the last selected is. 👍🏻

[@grandwaz0o]

@@ArtisansofVaul OK, for Active Vertex, I understand, and it's working as expected. I set Last Selected Point to yellow, and then went around selecting multiple vertices, and then drew a bezier curve and selected multiple control points, but I couldn't get anything to turn yellow, they were all green and blue. Do you know what kind of entity is being referred to by Last Selected Point? The doc seems to be silent about this.

[@grandwaz0o]

I've gone down a rabbit hole, for sure I set the following colors: Vertex: black Vertex select: green Active vertex: blue Last selected point: yellow Active vertex/edge/face: white And I am not able to figure out how to make a vertex that is blue or yellow And I still don't know what a point is, or what distinguishes it from a vertex I'm running 4.0.2 if it matters This is a testimonial to you, @ArtisansofVaul -- your videos are endlessly interesting!

[@orvos1459]

10:04 I opened a new file, but the red color cube didn’t appear-it clearly didn’t save. Why?

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@@orvos1459 It seems like you didn't click "Save Preferences" in the preferences.

[@orvos1459]

@@ArtisansofVaul yes I did

[@orvos1459]

@@ArtisansofVaul is that supposed to only save the changes made in Theme?

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@@orvos1459 Yes. And also to addons if you change them.

[@chuth2768]

ngl this got me to redownload blender

[@ArtisansofVaul]

😁😁 Hope you enjoy another go with it.

[@dennisvvugt]

16:45

[@ArtisansofVaul]

👍🏻Good timing reminder.

[@user-vs8nb4sr7q]

there are so good addon free uopdated only one time buy that the best reason why I use Blender 🤣

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Yeah, its a huge benefit to to the program 😁