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Contents [hide] 1 User Preferences and Themes 1.1 Description 1.2 Options 1.2.1 View & Controls 1.2.2 Edit Methods 1.2.3 Language & Fonts 1.2.4 Themes 1.2.5 Auto Save 1.2.6 System & OpenGL 1.2.7 File Paths 1.3 Saving your Preferences

User Preferences and Themes

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.

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.

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. Auto key framing for animation is also controlled from here.

Language & Fonts

Select an alternative TrueType font for display in the interface, and choose from available interface languages.

Themes

Blender allows the utilization of Themes to define custom interface colors. You can create and manage themes from here. Each theme is a python script. You can import other people's themes by simply copying their .python script into your Scripts directory and restarting Blender. Then, open a Script window and select the script; then press Ctrl U to save it as your default.

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. 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. 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 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 sufficent).

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.

Warning: Clicking the "Open Recent" button will immediatly load the most recent save, and you will lose any changes that you have made in the intervening minutes.

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

Exit No Save: When you close Blender and exit the program, Blender does not prompt you to save your work if changed. However, it automatically saves the current work-in-progress in a file called "quit.blend" in your Temp directory. If you realize that you have forgotten to save before exiting Blender, simply manually navigate to the Temp directory and open the "quit.blend" file, and save it over your work file.

System & OpenGL

You should consult this section if you experience problems with graphics or sound output, or if you don't have a numerical keypad and want to emulate it (for laptops). Furthermore, you can set the light scheme for solid and shaded draw modes. If you are using the Video Sequence Editor a lot, you might want to increase your MEM Cache Limit.

File Paths

Choose the default paths for various file load dialogs. Remember that the // at the beginning of a pahtspec 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

Python

Blender's customization scripting language and functionality extensions. Suggest: C:\Blender\scripts

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

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.

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.