Welcome to Blender 3D : Day 2

Continuation from Session 1

Started the session with the Welcome .blend file. Introduced them to the outliner and the types of data it displays. Introduced the concept of Object and ObjectData and selecting them from the Outliner. When selecting the ObjectData for meshes we noticed that the 3D view mode changed to edit mode. Various 3D view modes per object type were demonstrated and the most common hotkeys were revealed. While we were at the 3D view header, layers were quickly introduced. Each object could be on multiple layers, if needed. Also, Object context panels were quickly glossed over and we also turned on the axis display for the Camera object.

With a basic introduction to Object and ObjectData out of the way, focus shifted to the way Blender keeps track of data by using the concept of  'users' and the visual cue that is displayed in the UI. If the number of users for any piece of data goes to zero, Blender will discard that data upon saving the session.

A quick demo of creating a new scene with linked objects ensued and investigating the users counts followed. Also the procedure for breaking the links to shared data was shown from the Object menu in 3D View header.

With some major fundamentals of Blender covered, It was time to get on with the exercise for the day. Firstly we delinked the World data and creating a new world and loading a HDR image. Next step was to make the Camera object local to the scene so that we can transform it. It was a good time to demonstrate the 3D view pivot modes and especially use the 3D cursor as the pivot. Once that was done, we framed the camera and enabled Cycles render view in the viewport.

Show my setup of multiple scenes and start
Outliner
Data System in Blender
Object, ObjectData, Users