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Blender Donut Tutorial Part 1 (2026)
Blender Guru
Overview
This video introduces Blender, a powerful 3D creation suite, by guiding beginners through the initial steps of creating a donut and a coffee mug. It covers essential navigation within the 3D viewport, including orbiting, panning, and zooming, along with fundamental object manipulation like deleting, adding, moving, rotating, and scaling. The tutorial emphasizes understanding Blender's interface, utilizing hotkeys for efficiency, and introduces the concepts of object mode versus edit mode, modifiers (Solidify and Subdivision Surface), and non-destructive workflows. It concludes with advice on saving projects effectively.
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Chapters
- Blender is a comprehensive 3D software for modeling, texturing, lighting, and rendering.
- The 3D viewport is the primary workspace for creating 3D scenes.
- Navigation in the 3D viewport is crucial: middle mouse button to orbit, Shift + middle mouse button to pan, and scroll wheel or Ctrl + middle mouse button to zoom.
- Users can adjust interface scaling for better visibility, especially on high-resolution monitors.
- A downloadable cheat sheet of hotkeys is available to aid beginners.
Understanding how to navigate and interact with the 3D viewport is the foundational skill for any 3D artist, enabling efficient creation and manipulation of objects.
Using the middle mouse button to drag and orbit around the default cube in the 3D viewport.
- Objects can be deleted using the 'Delete' key or 'X' key followed by confirmation.
- New objects (primitives like cubes, cylinders, toruses) are added via the 'Add' menu or Shift+A hotkey.
- The 'Torus' primitive is the starting point for creating a donut shape.
- Immediately after adding an object, its properties (like size, resolution) can be adjusted in the bottom-left 'Add [Object]' panel or by pressing F9.
- Holding Shift while dragging a value allows for finer, smaller adjustments.
Learning to add and delete objects, along with adjusting their initial properties, allows you to build the basic forms of your 3D models efficiently.
Adding a Torus and then adjusting its 'Major Radius' and 'Minor Radius' to make it look more like a realistic donut shape.
- Objects can have 'flat shading' or 'smooth shading'; right-clicking and selecting 'Shade Smooth' improves the visual appearance of curved surfaces.
- Smooth shading approximates smoothness by averaging angles between faces without adding actual geometry.
- To create a coffee mug, a 'Cylinder' primitive is added.
- When adding objects like cylinders, initial settings like radius and depth can be adjusted, and importantly, the number of vertices can be lowered if a subdivision surface modifier will be used later.
- Objects can be moved using the 'G' (Grab) hotkey, which can be constrained to specific axes (X, Y, Z) by pressing the axis key after 'G'.
Understanding shading affects how objects look, and learning to position objects relative to each other is key to building complex scenes, like placing a mug next to a donut.
Adding a cylinder, resizing it to be roughly mug-sized, and then using 'G' + 'Z' to move it upwards so it doesn't intersect the donut.
- Blender has two main modes: 'Object Mode' for manipulating whole objects and 'Edit Mode' for manipulating the object's components (vertices, edges, faces).
- The 'Tab' key is a hotkey to quickly switch between Object Mode and Edit Mode.
- In Edit Mode, vertices (points), edges (lines), and faces (surfaces) can be selected and modified.
- Hotkeys 1, 2, and 3 select vertex, edge, and face selection modes, respectively.
- Objects can be deleted in Edit Mode using the 'X' key, with options to delete vertices, edges, or faces.
Switching between Object and Edit modes is fundamental for refining the shape of your models, allowing detailed adjustments to the geometry.
Entering Edit Mode on the cylinder, selecting the top face, and deleting it to create an opening for the mug.
- Modifiers are non-destructive tools that add effects to objects without permanently altering the base mesh.
- The 'Solidify' modifier adds thickness to a mesh, essential for creating objects like mugs that shouldn't be paper-thin.
- The 'Subdivision Surface' modifier increases the mesh's resolution by adding more geometry, smoothing out sharp edges and creating a more organic look.
- Modifiers are applied in a stack, and their order can affect the final result.
- To control the sharpness of edges smoothed by Subdivision Surface, additional geometry can be added using 'Loop Cuts' (Ctrl+R) or 'Insetting' (I key) in Edit Mode.
Non-destructive modifiers like Solidify and Subdivision Surface are powerful tools that allow for flexibility and iteration, enabling complex shapes and details to be added and adjusted easily.
Adding a 'Solidify' modifier to the mug to give it thickness, then adding a 'Subdivision Surface' modifier to smooth its edges, and using 'Ctrl+R' to add a loop cut near the rim to keep it sharp.
- Saving projects regularly is crucial to prevent data loss.
- Use 'File > Save As' or Ctrl+S to save your Blender file.
- A common saving convention is to use a base name followed by an underscore and a version number (e.g., 'donut_001.blend').
- Blender allows for easy incrementing of save numbers using the '+' and '-' keys on the numpad or within the save file field.
- This versioning helps in keeping previous iterations of a project accessible.
Properly saving and versioning your work ensures that you can always revert to earlier stages if needed and protects against accidental data loss.
Saving the current project as 'donut_001.blend' and then using the '+' key to automatically change the filename to 'donut_002.blend' for the next save.
Key takeaways
- Blender's interface is designed for efficiency, with numerous hotkeys significantly speeding up common tasks.
- Navigation and object manipulation are core skills that must be mastered early on.
- Understanding the difference between Object Mode and Edit Mode is essential for modeling.
- Modifiers provide a powerful, non-destructive way to add detail and complexity to models.
- Controlling geometry density and edge sharpness is key to achieving desired visual results with modifiers.
- A non-destructive workflow allows for easy iteration and changes throughout the 3D creation process.
- Regularly saving and versioning your work is a critical habit for any digital artist.
Key terms
3D ViewportOrbitPanZoomHotkeyPrimitive MeshTorusCylinderObject ModeEdit ModeVertexEdgeFaceModifierSolidify ModifierSubdivision Surface ModifierLoop CutInsetNon-destructive WorkflowEngon
Test your understanding
- How do you navigate around the 3D viewport in Blender, and what are the primary methods for orbiting, panning, and zooming?
- What is the difference between Object Mode and Edit Mode, and how do you switch between them?
- Explain the purpose of the 'Solidify' and 'Subdivision Surface' modifiers and how they contribute to creating realistic 3D models.
- Why is it important to use hotkeys in Blender, and what are some examples of essential hotkeys for object manipulation and mode switching?
- What is a non-destructive workflow in Blender, and how do modifiers facilitate this approach to 3D modeling?