Blender uses the .blend file format to save nearly everything: Objects, scenes, textures, and even all your user interface window settings.

To load a Blender file from disk, press F1. The focused window then temporarily transforms into the File Selection Window as shown in Figure 3.18, “File Selection Window - loading.”. The bar on the left can be dragged with LMB for scrolling. To load a file, select it with LMB and press ENTER, or simply click it with MMB.

Figure 3.18. File Selection Window - loading.

The upper text box displays the current directory path, and the lower one contains the selected filename. The P button (PKEY) moves you up to the parent directory and the button with the dash maintains a list of recently used paths. On Windows operating systems, the latter also contains a list of all drives (C:, D:, etc).

Saving files is like loading files: When you press F2, the focused window temporarily changes into a File Selection Window, as shown in Figure 3.19, “File Selection Window - saving.”. Click the lower edit box to enter a filename. If it doesn't end with ".blend," the extension is automatically appended. Then press ENTER to write the file. If a file with the same name already exists, you will have to confirm that you want to save the file at the overwrite prompt.

Figure 3.19. File Selection Window - saving.

The save dialog contains a little feature to help you to create multiple versions of your work: Pressing NUM+ or NUM- increments or decrements a number contained in the filename. To simply save over the currently loaded file and skip the save dialog, press CTRL-W instead of F2 and just confirm at the prompt.

This section will give you only a quick overview of what you'll need in order to render your scene. You'll find a detailed description of all options in Chapter 17, Rendering.

The render settings are in the Scene Context and Rendering Buttons Sub-context (Figure 3.20, “Rendering options in the RenderingButtons.”) which is reached by clicking the , or by pressing F10.

Figure 3.20. Rendering options in the RenderingButtons.

For now we are only interested in the Format Panel. The size (number of pixels horizontally and vertically) and file format of the image to be created are picked here. You can set the size using the SizeX and SizeY buttons. Clicking the selection box below (in Figure 3.20, “Rendering options in the RenderingButtons.”, "Targa" is chosen) opens a menu with all available output formats for images and animations. For still images we might choose Jpeg, for example.

Now that the settings are complete, the scene may be rendered by hitting the RENDER button in the Render Panel or by pressing F12. Depending on the complexity of the scene, this usually takes between a few seconds and several minutes, and the progress is displayed in a separate window. If the scene contains an animation, only the current frame is rendered. (To render the whole animation, see the section called “Rendering Animations”.)

If you don't see anything in the rendered view, make sure your scene is constructed properly. Does it have lighting? Is the camera positioned correctly, and does it point in the right direction? Are all the layers you want to render visible?

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 user interface handling details, and 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 Figure 3.21, “User preferences window.”.

Figure 3.21. User preferences window.

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:

You don't like Blender's default window set-up, or want specific render settings for each project you start, or you want to save your Theme? No problem. You can use any scene file as a default when Blender starts up. Make the scene you are currently working on the default by pressing CTRL-U. The scene will then be copied into a file called .B.blend in your home directory.

You can clear the working project and revert to the default scene anytime by pressing CTRL-X. But remember to save your changes to the previous scene first!