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Introduction to 3D and the Blender User Interface

Welcome to the wonderful world of 3D graphics! This section of this book will help you jump-start your knowledge with some terminology and the basics of working in 3D. We'll keep this brief and try to get through the boring stuff as quickly as possible so you can get right into creating amazing 3D projects in Blender 2.8!

Blender 2.8 is a series of releases. There is usually an update for the software every 3 to 4 months. The first release in the series was 2.80, then 2.81, 2.82, and so on. The projects in this book can be completed with version 2.80 onward, with some optional features requiring 2.81 onward. You can read more about Blender's release cycle here:
blender.org/download/releases.

First, we will take a look at the fundamentals of a 3D scene. We will learn how the 3D coordinate system uses three dimensional axes, as well as how 3D objects are manipulated with transformations. We will answer some basic questions, such as: what are objects? What are polygons? What is topology? What are materials and textures? What is the difference between Perspective and Orthographic views? The answers to these questions are key to working with any 3D software.

After we've provided you with some general 3D knowledge, we will learn about the specifics of Blender. We will cover how to install the software, as well as how to download the source files for this book. We will take a look at Blender 2.8's user interface. Then, we will learn about the basic 3D navigation controls, which include Rotate, Zoom, and Pan. We will also learn how to use Blender's hotkeys effectively. At the end of this chapter, we will provide an overview of the projects in this book.

We will cover the following topics in this chapter:

Overview of the 3D workflow
Blender 2.8's user interface
Basic 3D navigation controls
A brief introduction to the projects in this book