Creating a USEFUL Startup File for Blender!

[@CurtisHolt]

Have you made any interesting personal changes to your own startup file? Let me know! 😀

[@genesis2303]

I'd love to use workspaces more, but they just need pie menu so badly(not as add-on but by default), so I'm using really 3 maybe general shading and compositing, and vid editing separately sometimes.

[@traderz13]

🎬 have u made a video explaining how to make a start up file? I would like to see how each of the features you described is coded so i could make my own.

[@karlduckett]

Some really cool tips! Thanks Curtis! :)

[@NoadiArt]

Yeah, I'm the opposite of you, I have a bunch of workspaces, all customized just how I like and also customized my theme to be darker (and larger fonts since I find the default too small for comfort). Though I hadn't thought to have default nodes and stuff set up.

[@niemanickurwa]

Was all good Curtis I will steal some of your ideas :) Only thing I'd add is a basic human mesh for checking scale. Also I have a spare parts collection for... spare parts/copies of mesh that I later might regret changing.

[@TheVolgun]

🎬 Today I learned that you can have a custom startup file in Blender, haha ... i really do learn something new every day with this software! Thanks Curtis!

[@automatic241]

Eyyy love your work

[@kolupsy]

Guess what. You can even have multiple different startup files with different names, addons enabled, auto-executed scripts and splash screens :D

[@MegaShot12]

Damn! I never knew that you were into blender too Volgun! LOVE your SCP vids! ^^ Happy creating! :3

[@chicao.do.blender]

very insightful, having a value node just because you can't remember the preferred density for the volume is my favorite idea to grab from this video

[@3DRodney]

🎬 I love this. It never occurred to me to have two shader panels with one devoted to the world, I always dealt with toggling back and forth in one window, and optional color nodes for the background is fantastic. Thank you for sharing this.

[@poisonsgrcrw]

Nice ideas, I'm going to cherry-pick from :) Thank you! My weapon of choice: - turn on UV sync selection in the UV editor - in UV editor add to quick favorites: average island scale, pack islands, live unwrap, align auto (those used to have shortcuts in the past) - switch snapping to vertex instead of increment both in UV editor and 3D view (+ affect rotation and scale + turn on project individual elements for face snap mode) - turn on auto merge vertices in edit mode - turn off unified brush size in sculpt mode + set affect front faces only for at least the basic brushes (draw, smooth, ...) - set default shading to matcap (+ cavity (both), + backface culling (yep, I'm working in the game industry ;) ), turn off outline ) - set tweak tool instead of box select as default for both object and edit mode - turn on statistics in the overlays - turn on memory statistics in the status bar - set the basic cube shade smooth + turn on auto smooth with an angle of 65 degree (even slightly bended, six sided pipe stays smooth with this setting) It's about preferences, not startup, but I use to set these together: - turn off splash screen - turn off antialiasing in viewport - turn off autosave + turn on incremental save (5) - turn on emulate 3 mouse button (needed for sculpting) - turn on a few default addons (node wrangle, add images as planes, bool tools) - set system for CUDA with supporting both CPU and GPU - turn off all hide selection shortcuts in the keymap (because of old habit form the 90s to toggle layers :) )

[@pardismack]

setting up the rendering to both CPU and GPU is generally slower than setting it up to just the GPU. I also don't recommend "front faces only" for some brushes such as Inflate, Scrape, smooth, Grab, snakeHook. other settings depend on the user preferences I guess.

[@krysidian]

🎬 There are some really cool tips here. You finally pushed me over the edge of making my own startup file. Was always too lazy but I think my default cube deserves a nicer home!

[@LonnonFoster]

🎬 Some nice additions in here from the last time I looked at your startup file. Definitely going to steal the world setup, because I'm tired of building it from scratch for every. Damn. Project. Thanks for sharing!

[@aim__freakz8499]

this feels a little like optimizing your arch linux until it fits perfectly for just you :D absoloutly love it!

[@dimlymirrored]

Ah I think this will finally give me the push I needed to come up with a thoughtful startup file, and your defaults here are really going to be a great jumping off point, thanks! 🎬

[@Vertrucio]

Thanks, you've really improved my blender workflow.

[@605dave]

I like the way you think! This is exactly the way I will approach things if I ever get time to use Blender more..

[@anotherguycalledsmith]

Thank you so much, I am very happy to have stumbled upon your channel!!! Oh yes, I made it up to the clapper board of course ;-)

[@submerg5d383]

Great tutorial...took me 1 year to realize how critical being organized in my blender scenes was.

[@tdsw]

Love the idea of having an empty at the world origin, that's been added to my start up file. Thank you!

[@MrPitki]

You changed the way I think about the start up file! Thanks a lot. Never would have thought about materials and node setups WOW 😲

[@TomasHradckyComposer]

Definitely will add some of these. 🎬

[@mind_of_a_darkhorse]

Extremely helpful! I get a lot out of your explanations for why you do things and how it helps! Great work! You are appreciated!

[@felixmakesart]

This is a very informative video, it’s cool to see the little personalized things that you use to make your work, it’s a neat sort of window into your creative process which I always enjoy. However, I use workspace tabs!!! Trust me, people do!! 🎬

[@johntnguyen1976]

🎬 Not dry or boring at all! On the contrary...I was taking copious notes! LOL

[@defaultname171]

Really appreciate this content. Love any vids on better workflows, especially as an independent, primarily self-taught Blender user.

[@melwasthis]

Great insight and ideas to a subject one rarely looks into :D Made me rethink how I approach my next projects. I know a trick from traditional painting and sketching: put a dot into the middle of the canvas, so you don't stare at a white square and get anxious about creating something. 🎬

[@MaxwellSerna]

🎬 amazing videos as always thanks so much for sharing your Startup file!

[@metaimago]

Brilliant thanks, will definitely download. Enjoying the bygen addon too, super fun. That light setup and world shader setup looks awesome. 🎬👏🏼🔥

[@KainEden]

🎬 thanks for sharing all your work. you are a great inspiration. i have been thinking about using a custom startup file for a long time, but i couldn't figure out a concept. i really like your idea and give i`ll give it a try. you are awesome!

[@JohnWesleyDavison]

I use the workspace tabs. Putting on my boxing gloves.🎬

[@MrFarkasOfficial]

this was super interesting. I'm switching to vertical right now.

[@DavoGalavotti]

Curtis, amazing content as always. A ton of value packed on a 15 min. video! 🙏 🎬

[@ByronKindig]

Thank you this was very useful.BTW I like the clapboard too.

[@shinnahu]

🎬 Thank you for the startup file, I find it pretty useful since I have a similar workflow as yours. Also you left some cool tips that it will be pretty handy too. I'm gonna stick around your channel 😁

[@jakeclew2165]

🎬 very helpful, def confirmed some things I had thought like: “why am I hitting shift+a 20 times to get where I want to start!” I gotta go show some love on your ‘next things for blender in 2023’ video, you explain things very well and I’m excited for Gi in eevee, I’m one year into blender, thanks!

[@reikihealingvedjonussing5119]

🎬 thanks Curtis

[@forsakendoe]

Awesome and yes ill like to see the breakdown! 🎬

Tanks for all your work 🎬

[@pepemaron]

Thank you! 🎬

[@IvanFlack]

Excellent Tutorial with some great advice and tips...already had my own file where i just removed tabs which I don't really use and changed the colour scheme to make it easier for my crap, old eyes to work with! I have stolen your tip for the World Object item...superb idea! Thanks Curtis! 🎬

[@jdtx63]

and ....Action..🎬Really interesting. Thanks for going through your reasons for your startup file, makes a lot of sense to me.

[@dougiedw]

🎬I didn't know this was a thing. Very useful. Thanks again.

[@lasvador]

Hey Curtis, thank you so much for all your help. This is another amazing resource. Maybe I missed this part, but can you turn off reflections of the HDRI while retaining the light it produces?

[@anonypanfilov1768]

thx u! I am very grateful to you🤝

[@LondonCreativeCG]

Lots of great suggestions there, Curtis. One thing I'm unsure about : the 'Color' node (between 'Hue....' and 'Bright....'). Is this created from 'Mix Color' node ? Using v 3.6.0

[@Hattonz]

Very good and helpful video as always, Thanks a bunch ;) 🎬

[@Gundesalf]

Very nice and useful. Only thing left out, for newbies, how to save the startup file.

[@SavingThrw]

Thanks for sharing! How did you get the world origin into your collections? Btw, I got a denoising node in the compositor for the extra denoise as default.

[@CurtisHolt]

For the world origin, I just used a basic empty object: Shift+A - Empty - Plain Axes. That was placed at the centre of the world, and then scaled down to reduce the gizmo size, and put in the collection as a non-selectable object 🙂

[@Mocorn]

Workspace tabs are interesting in that they actually have quite a bit of thought going into them by default. I got into blender around version 2.8 so I've always used them since I thought that was the idea. It's been awhile now and I still use them every day actually. With an object selected you can hit the UV workspace tab and you will automatically be in edit mode with all polygons selected. That is just one example of many little things that are actually pretty nice with these tabs. More and more I find myself seeing old blender users use new blender versions and they'll say something like "let me just quickly set up what I need here" and by the time they are done setting up their windows i find myself thinking that I would already be done with the task they are now ready to demonstrate simply by clicking on the appropriate workspace tab. It's honestly frustrating seeing older users fiddle about with dragging Windows when they ultimately lose time. This is not a slight on OP here. I'm just saying, as a new user I never even thought about not using the tabs. What's more, you can easily create new perfectly suited tabs and save these in your startup file. I don't drag Windows because I want to save time and be effective. Workspace tabs is where it's at for me :)

[@niemanickurwa]

Old habits die hard.

[@shadowsketch926]

as much as it might seem good to you, that is YOUR workflow, that's not what the older users have in theirs, and undoing that will take active consideration and using them before it becomes a passive second nature.

[@Mocorn]

@@shadowsketch926 this is true.

[@dc37009]

Awesome ! ~Liked ~SubD (a long time ago) ! Gumroad'd your UI and ~TIP'd ! Thank-you, Thank-you !

[@GrassBuffalo]

🎬 nice tips, I'll have to work on saving my startup to be something more useful like yours :D

[@bloodywanker231]

GOOD STUFF!

[@sylpisophia5612]

Imma steal your default startup file hard core it won't be able to escape my blender installation 🤣 and uh... thanks!

[@yt_Ajay_]

lol I use the workspace tabs a lot. It's quicker than pulling out new windows and readjusting them over and over. The only ones I don't use are modelling, sculpting and scripting (I use layout for the first two, and I don't generally do any scripting)

[@vasim495]

You can throw on a cast modifier after subdiv, if you want that cube to look like a sphere. Unless you like it wobbly =D

[@roccoguglielmi4040]

🎬 Amazing as always!

[@aim__freakz8499]

14:20 if you use the DWAA codec with EXR the files are even smaller than .png so there's not really a reason to still use .png. especially if you use DJV :)

[@InfinitycgIN]

Useful indeed, I like the way you have them open but minimized, Hadn't thought about keeping them this way Workspace tabs are something I like using on the fly, but the way blender has done them is kinda annoying For focal length, if you guys want to try something new and experiment with focal length, try the focus lock addon, it is amazing, while keeping the content same in the viewport, it changes the focal length so you don't have to manually relocate your camera once you are happy with your composition 🎬

[@CurtisHolt]

Thanks, I'll check it out!

[@edit.r4k]

🎬 loved it

[@KevRyanCG]

I've never thought to do this with Blender, though I do have a Houdini set-up that I largely took from another Artist and made improvements to. I'm going to shamelessly copy this one and do much the same :D

[@matslarsson5988]

🎬 Great video, definitely gave me some ideas!

[@alexeidmitriev6235]

🎬 indeed. No personal changes in my file, but thats pretty much because I went through several version of my own already. And I am one of those people that actually uses workspace tabs.

[@1963fram]

🎬 Thanks for sharing!

[@Dr_Wub]

After a year, I finally did this last week!

[@bububirb]

Vertical shader editors do make sense after all 🎬

[@ianmcglasham]

All Good tips. 🎬 I like to have a simple camera rig with an empty as the camera's point of interest. Camera tracked to follow it,. And another empty for the cameras focus point. (selected in the camera's property page).

[@Tamer_Gomaa]

Hi Curtis, Thanks for sharing this. I'm wondering, how you made the object added by default to a specific collection? could you please clarify it?

[@sahilsen]

🎞⌚📽 Couldn't find the clapboard but I definitely want to learn to build a custom startup file for my regular workflows.

[@HeyEverybodyJesseHere]

I've scaled my default cube to 6 feet (about 2 meters) tall, so I always have a human scale reference.

[@stevenseehafer8428]

🎬Learned a few new things. Thanks

[@johnnyblu84]

🎬 Somethings are a bit over my head, But I still found the information useful and I thank you for sharing it.

[@hagbardceline1674]

QUESTION: Both the theme and the ideas for startup are great, but do you have any idea why making a cut with Boxcutter makes the rendered view go completely black? It seems to cancel out the lights and materials in rendered view. Very strange. - For some reason, viewing through the camera seems unaffected.

[@JoshuaAlbers]

🎬 Very informative!

[@aim__freakz8499]

8:43 tbh i love to use them^^

[@tuxgirl]

So, I love the idea of not using the workspace tabs because I find I am constantly switching to one, but never switching back, etc. My problem is that while I can create new panels/windows, it always takes me 5+ tries to get rid of a window in the blender UI. I'm sure there's a trick to it that I somehow havent figured out, but it drives me up a wall when I'm trying to get rid of a UI window and end up just creating more and more tiny windows!!!

[@eyusvila2014]

yo can make a pie menu to switch between workspaces . You can also use an the Pie Editor addon to do that.

[@tuxgirl]

@@eyusvila2014 yeah, I know how to change between workspaces. I just want to make it easier to split and unsplit regions/windows within a workspace. I usually end up making more and more splits!

[@bryanstone6140]

Like it, and I want to check out your layout but when I click the link I get this: Cannot render this widget. I know gumroad has switched up their format so how do we get back in to your site?

[@Lesaaaaa97]

I love this video and the whole setup you have going on here, but I do have a question about it that could very well be viewed as dumb but I can`t find my way around it. With the compositing tab, the bloom node group seems to be turned off or something, since when I change any settings nothing seems to change on the final image. If you or anyone else here could give me a tip I would greatly appreciate it. Like I said I love your videos and this setup especially, thanks!

[@sebbanestudio]

🎬 amazing

[@ShebanFPV]

🎬 thanks for the startup file guide 👍🏻 for some reason my viewport restriction toggles are being reset every time I startup blender (3.3.3) while the rest of the settings are saved ok (via save startup file) 🤔🤷🏻‍♂️

[@guyleung446]

i am quite new on blender, i am using your startup file for 3.0, its amazing! but when I try to add a sun light, it seems that cannot have any effects in the render result, may I know if I done anything wrong?

[@thefreshest2379]

I like to do the black, white, grey background in compositing

[@openroomxyz]

That's nice but can you show what is your setup for python plugin development. Do you write code in Blender text editor or you use visual studio or something else, how do you connect all this together. :)

[@CurtisHolt]

I use VIsual Studio Code with the Blender Development extension by Jacques Lucke :)

[@openroomxyz]

@@CurtisHolt ooo thanks xD I did wrote some python in blender build in text editor and it way kinda tedious.

[@CurtisHolt]

@@openroomxyz Oh yeah it would be very tricky doing larger addons in the Blender text editor 😄

[@openroomxyz]

@@CurtisHolt Yea I felt little bit uncomfordable using it xD. The other thing that annoyed me is how to create a script that is not blocking the UI while executing ( for example doing compute intensive things ) .

[@hammerheadcorvette4]

🎬 Great video

[@pZq_]

Great vid. Make me create my own startup file. Thx! Why do you have 'Max samples' value lower for render than for viewport. Shouldn't be the other way around? Second how about denoising?

[@CurtisHolt]

300 is usually all I need for a render, so that's the default but when working in the viewport I don't always want it to stop resolving (especially when looking at material). I'll also get a good feeling for whether the render samples should be raised by keeping an eye on the viewport samples. If it still looks bad when they go above 300, then I'll know to raise the render value. For the denoising, I mostly use it for environmental scenes. It can give inaccurate results for fine details when working with procedural materials, so I don't often use it for close up renders (it depends on the artwork). Sometimes I also like to use noise for artistic effect, if you take a look at the final render for the artwork shown in the video (on my Twitter) then you can see how I've used it to give the background some texture.

[@josuedersoir9097]

🎬 Great content as always

[@samgordon9756]

There! Are! FOUR! LIGHTS!

[@Tarbard]

Is there a way to apply the settings from a startup file to an already in progress blend file, short of copying and pasting the whole scene into a new file? 🎬

[@aim__freakz8499]

13:33 my teacher used to tell us 55 should be the optimal focal length for a realistic view

[@alexfurer]

Me likes! Thank you! 🎬

[@fall190]

question. why do you not use Blender denoiser ? as in the denoise data from view layer properties/passes. isnt that superior to other denoisers because it has access to information that is not actually in the image file ? you are actually not using viewport denoiser as well and that is pretty weird.

[@CurtisHolt]

I use the viewport denoiser when it is needed to preview a scene, which it often isn’t. When working with procedural materials it can give inaccurate surface results for fine details. I use denoising more on a case-by-case basis depending on the artwork. It’s more common for me to use it for environment pieces. If you want to see me use the denoiser in my work, you can check out my previous collaborations with NVIDIA.

[@lauracamellini7999]

You're precious

[@CurtisHolt]

🤗

[@Yubetcha]

How do I get the gridlines to reappear in the viewport dropdown in tha blend3 file, It has grid selected but its greyed out, and the floor and X,Y are selected?

[@RaduButarascu]

🎬 🎬 🎬 Excellent video!

[@tmoneygamestudio]

How about a link to your text file. Yes I'm too lazy to make one or remember them as well. 😂

[@rsoulinternet]

My startup file is the same one that comes with Blender except that I've deleted the default cube.

[@jobanated]

🎬

[@baka_energy]

🤗

[@jasonwilliams8730]

👍

[@ddnnacheta]

🎬🎬🎬

[@paulmulvaney8885]

🎭🎬

[@DoctorRobotronic]

Was hoping to actually learn how to create a startup file, maybe I missed that but I'm still so confused.

[@CurtisHolt]

File - Defaults - Save Startup File. Any file you have open will become your startup file.

[@aim__freakz8499]

damn i dunno how to make emotes on my current OS lul and i'm to lazy to search for it online :D

[@d4veejones53]

QQ - how do you save your own blender layout?

[@CurtisHolt]

File - Defaults - Save Startup File :)

[@d4veejones53]

@@CurtisHolt Top lad! Cheers Curtis!

[@kimdesec]

🎬🐴

[@kevinphandy2]

THERE ARE...FOUR...LIGHTS!