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User Manual: Contents | Guidelines | Blender Version 2.46

User Preferences and Themes

In Blender, you can customize your defaults, and once you are satisified, save them via File->Save user Defaults. If you ever want to start completely over, simply restore "factory" settings via File->Load Factory Settings

Description

Blender has a few options that are not saved with each file, but which apply to all of a user's files instead. These preferences primarily concern the user interface handling details, system properties like mouse, fonts, and languages.

As the user preferences are rarely needed, they are neatly hidden behind the main menu. To make them visible, pull down the window border of the menu (usually the topmost border in the screen). The settings are grouped into seven categories which can be selected with the violet buttons shown in (User preferences window).

Options

Because most buttons are self-explanatory, or display a helpful tool-tip if you hold the mouse still over them, we won't describe them in detail here. Instead, we will just give you an overview of the preference categories and some suggestions.

Pull down the User Preference Window to reveal many customization options. Each section of User Preferences Window displayed in default state.

View & Controls

Settings concerning how the user interface should react to user input, such as which method of rotation should be used in 3D views. Here you can also activate 3-button mouse emulation if you have a two-button mouse. MMB can then be input as Alt LMB .

In particular, I just want to call out the Smooth View setting used in transitioning your 3D window from one view to another (e.g. from Top view to Side view). A higher value (e.g.1000) smooths the transition from view to view, instead of jumping. A very nice effect found in other packages, and is pleasing on the eye.

Edit Methods

Lets you specify the details for the workings of certain editing commands like duplicate. You can also change the amount of undo steps and whether the undo should work globally or locally. For more information on Undo and Redo, click here.

Add New Objects:

Enable Switch to Edit Mode if you want the Blender to automatically go into edit mode when you add an object.

Enable Aligned to View when new objects are added, and they will be automatically rotated to face the view you are in. Otherwise, they will be global axis-aligned.

Auto key framing for animation is also controlled from here.

• Automatic Keyframing Options
  • Auto-Keying Enabled Automatically sets keys after a transformation of either objects or bones, removing the need to use the I key.
    • Add/Replace Keys The default behavior. It Adds new keys on transformation, and, if a key already existed on the Ipo on that frame, the key is replaced with the new one.
    • Replace Keys Will not add new keys to Ipos. This option will only replace existing keys.
  • Other Automatic Keyframing toggles
    • Available Only adds keyframes to existing Ipo curves. For example, with this enabled, translation and rotation can be set in the 3D view, but only a translation key will be created if there exists only a translation Ipo, but no rotation Ipo.
    • Needed The default behavior for autokeying is to create a key anytime a transformation occurs, in all available channels. With the Needed option, values that do not change between the previous and next keys do not receive new keys. In other words, if you move an object along the Y axis only, new keys will not be set for the X or Z axes as their value does not change.
    • Use Visual Keying Uses the Visual Keying method for objects and bones that have certain Constraints that can affect the key values. For example, setting a key on an object with a Copy Location constraint would normally set the key for it's unconstrained location. Enabling this option causes the key to be set for the constrained location.

Language & Fonts

International Fonts, when enabled, allow you to use English fonts as well as foreign fonts such as Kanji and Pharsi as the labels for Blender's buttons. When enabled, you must Select Font which will load the font file. Optionally, you can change the default font size in picas. Blender's default is a nice, clean sans-serif font, but you can use anything you want, even Wingdings!

Along with International Fonts, you can choose your native language (English by default), and whether Tooltips, Buttons and Toolbox text should be displayed in that language. Use Textured Fonts for better display of characters.

Themes

Blender allows the utilization of Themes to define custom interface colors and icons. You can manage themes from here, and two are built-in: Default and Rounded. Many others are available from the Internet, such as Dark Alpha and GONX. Each theme is a python script, usually ending in *_theme.py. You can import other people's themes by simply copying their .python script into your Blender/Scripts directory and restarting Blender. Once Blender has restarted, switch to the script window, click "scripts" and choose "themes", then you can select each theme that is there one at a time. Close Blender. When you restart Blender, you will see your themes listed under user preferences -> themes. Finally, press Ctrl U to save it as your default.

To preserve your current theme when opening a new file, disable the Load UI button.

Customizing Theme

Click on a custom theme from the selection box, or Add a copy of the default. When you do, many more columns of buttons will be shown. The second column of buttons, in order:

Name of the theme. Click into the field and change what is there)

Section of the theme to change, mostly organized by window type, and has the tool tip "Specify theme for...". (3D View is the default choice)

Element within that part to customize (Background is the default choice)

The next column over shows the current color for that element. Change it using the RGB sliders, or clicking on the color swatch and using the eyedropper.

Creating / Saving a Theme

File -> Export ->Save Current Theme

Customizing Icons

Blender uses LOTS of icons to represent functions; clicking an icon invokes that function. You can change many icons to suit your preference.

To use custom icons within Blender, first create an icon file. It is a graphical image, created as a Blender Render or your favorite graphical image manipulation program as a 14x22 pixel image. Create a directory "icons" inside the ".blender" directory in Your Blender's installation. Copy the icon file set there.

In Blender, enter the "Themes" area in the "User preferences" window. Click on a custom theme, or Add a copy of the default. When you do, many more columns of buttons will be shown as described above. In the second column, the top field allows you to change the theme name. The button below it allows you to select what part of the theme to change and has the tool tip "Specify theme for...". Select 'UI and Buttons' from the drop down selection that reads '3D View'. After you did this you can select 'Icon File' from the drop down selection that's named 'Outline' (the Element to change within that . A new selection next to 'UI and Buttons' will appear and you can select your icon set there.Now You can browse icons that are in mentioned in the "icons" directory and use your favourite ones!

Auto Save

The creative process is very involving, and the artist often gets so deep into modeling and animation that he or she often forgets to bathe, eat, and especially save copies of their work. A computer crash, power outage, or simply taking a bad fork in the creative path can result in lost work or corruption of the desired product. Have no fear of immersing yourself, because Blender provides several ways to automatically save backup copies of work in progress. This sub-panel allows you to configure the two ways that Blender allows you to regress to a prior file version.

Save Versions

The "Save Versions" button tells Blender, when you manually select File/Save, to save the specified number of previous versions of your file. In your current working directory, these files will be named .blend, .blend1, .blend2, etc. on up to the number of versions you specify, with the older files named with a higher number. Typically, 9 versions are more than sufficient.

Auto Save Temp Files

Clicking the "Auto Save Temp Files" button tells Blender to automatically save a hot backup copy of your work-in-progress to the temp directory. Selecting this button reveals two more buttons. The first, "Minutes" button specifies the number of minutes between automatic saves. The second "Open Recent" button allows you to open the most-recent auto-save file. The auto-save file is named using a random number, has a .blend extension, and is placed in the Temp directory (refer to the "File Paths" tab). We recommend that you use these buttons to autosave into your temp folder filepath, and set how many minutes go between automatic saves (5 to 10 minutes is sufficient).

Then, when you have done something terrible to your beautiful model, you have four choices: 1) keep working forward and try to cover up or build on your accident, 2) undo with Ctrl Z, 3) regress to (open) a previously saved version in your working directory, or 4) regress to the prior auto-saved version (which is where the next button comes in). To regress to the last auto-save version, simply click the "Open Recent") button and the most recently saved work-in-progress version from the Temp directory will be loaded.

Upon loading the Temp version, you may File/Save it over the current file in your work directory as a normal .blend file.

Recent Files

When you use File -> Open Recent, this control specifies how many recent files to keep track of, and how many will appear in that list.

Save Preview Images

TBD.

System & OpenGL

Solid OpenGL lights

When working in solid view, you can "light" the objects in your workspace with up to three light sources. The direction of each source is set by dragging inside the light sphere, and the colors of the diffuse and specular shading is set by clicking on the color swatch and using the popup color picker

Auto Run Python Scripts

When enabled, selecting a script from any menu runs that script. However, Python is a powerful language and If you suspect a virus or get a blend file from an untrustworthy source, disable this prior to opening the blend file to prevent the script from running.

Win Codecs

Codecs are routines that encode and decode video streams. Enable this to use any codec found in your system. Some codecs can mis-behave, and can falsely assert themselves. If you have one of these pontificating codecs on your system, disable this.

Color range for weight paint

When weight painting, by default we use a colorful band of color to represent weights ranging from 0.0 to 1.0. If you want to use a different set of colors to represent the range of values when weight painting, click ColorBand and use the colorband control to set the colors that correspond to the range.

Audio Mixing Buffer

When mixing audio or using audio in the game engine, this allows you to set aside memory for sound.

Verse

Verse allows multiple users to work on the same blend file. Enter the URL of the Master and your username here. Then use the File->Verse menu to get connected to your buddies.

Keyboard

if you don't have a numerical keypad and want to emulate it (for laptops). if your fat fingers keep pressing the darn caps lock instead of the tab key, disable it.

System

Prefetch allows Blender to get anticipated frames into memory, allowing you work smoother. If you are using the Video Sequence Editor a lot, you might want to increase your MEM Cache Limit. If you are rendering frames on request as a slave, enter the port number to listen for requests on.

OpenGL

Allow you to fine-tune how OpenGL displays textures and functions on your system.

File Paths

Choose the default paths for various file load dialogs. Remember that the // at the beginning of a pathspec means "where the .blend file is currently saved".

YFexport

Blender communicates with YafRay by exporting an XML file. This entry tells Blender where to save it. Suggestion: C:\tmp\

Fonts

Where to find TrueType Fonts. Suggestion: C:\Windows\Fonts\

Render

Where to put rendered output. Suggestion: //render\

Textures

Where to find pictures and images for texturing surfaces. Suggest: C:\Blender\lib\tex where lib is your local library. As an alternative, you can use a local copy of the textures relative to your project. This is handy if you are going to be moving the .blend file from machine to machine and want to pack the textures. In this case, you would want to enter //textures\ to mimic the folder that is created when you unpack textures using the write files to current directory option.

Python

Blender's customization scripting language and functionality extensions. If left blank, Blender uses the distributed scripts which are located in your install directory under Blender\.blender\scripts directory. Suggestion: C:\Blender\scripts. The Python pathspec should NOT end in a slash; this is an exception. If you use a local library/repository of scripts, you should remember to refresh it with the latest distributed scripts when you upgrade Blender.

Tex Plugins

Plugin DLL's to augment texturing. Suggest: C:\Blender\bin\plugins\texture\

Sounds

wave files for soundtracks and sound effects. Suggest: C:\Blender\lib\wav\

Seq Plugins

When using the Video Sequence Editor within Blender, Blender has a host of nifty effects that can be augmented by DLLs. Suggest: C:\Blender\bin\Plugins\sequence\

Temp

The generic trash can, where your exist session save file is saved (quit.blend) as well as autosave files. Suggest: C:\tmp

You can manually enter a path, or LMB click the little file folder icon to the right of the field to use Blender's file browser to navigate you hard drive/network. Doing this is recommended in order to avoid typo's. The folder searcher puts in the pathspec ending in a slash.

If any folder name changes, or the folder is moved or deleted, you will have to come back here and change them again, since Blender has no way of being informed of those changes.

Saving your Preferences

When you press Ctrl U, you will save a file called .B.blend in the .blender folder underneath your Blender installation that contains the present setup, including all screens and scenes. Please note that because of its weird filename, Windows OS's may try to hide it from you. Also, it might be saved in an Application Data directory specific to your User Profile. If it is not saving your changes, be sure you have security rights set to allow changes to files in the folder; this is especially the case with Microsoft Vista OS, as it definately does not by default allow any program to change any file in the Program Files directory.

In any event, it is a plain old .blend file; so if you have objects etc in your file when you Ctrl U, those will also be the default the next time you start.

If the file is lost or accidentally deleted, Blender will re-create it on the next startup.