Now that you’ve come familiar with the main areas of the interface, it’s time to talk a little about settings before we dive in. Yes, we know… settings it’s not such an exciting topic to cover, but believe us when we tell you that this is necessary. Hopefully, this will be the “driest” part when learning Blender.
Right after you install Blender for the first time, just before the initial screen pops up (remember the one that showcased your recently open projects and gave you options to create a new one?), it will show you a Quick Setup Screen.
If you had a previous version of the software installed, you can click on the “Load [previous version number] Settings” button and it will automatically load your previous preferences into the new version. However, if this is your first time downloading and using Blender — which is the situation we assume you’re in — we are going to do the Quick Setup from scratch:
First, select your Language, we’re going to leave it in English, as it comes as default.
After choosing your language, in the “Shortcuts” setting, just leave it on “Blender”. This option was designed for people who have experience with another 3D modeling software such as Maya, so they can use the shortcuts they’re familiar with.
Next, choose your preferred mouse button to Select With: Left or Right (yeah, there was a time when you selected things on Blender with the right click, in case you were wondering). We will assume you will pick the Left Click, since it is the most common way to select anything with your mouse nowadays.
Moving down the menu, we can assign a specific setting for the Spacebar on our keyboard. We recommend you to bind it to the “Search” option. Many times, you’ll need to use a very specific operation that you might not remember exactly where it’s located. In these cases, it is really helpful to just hit the Spacebar and type for the operation you need.
Lastly, the Theme setting is completely up to you. It is totally aesthetic. It will change the color of the background, the menus, and pretty much the whole UI. We recommend you to pick the Dark Mode if you think you’ll be spending several hours in front of your screen. That way, it won’t fatigue your vision as fast as the brighter themes.
After you choose your Theme, hit the “Save New Settings” button, and your Quick Setup Screen is done!
Tip: Don’t stress too much about choosing a Theme or any specific setting. You can always change them later!
