ABSTRACT
This book assumes that you are already familiar with Blender, although no animation experience is required. You should be able to find your way around 3D views and properties windows with ease. The basics shortcuts (G, S, and R) shouldn’t be something new. If they are, you should seriously consider taking a several week long detour right now to make that happen. There are a number of great online resources as well as a few excellent books on the topic (Blender Foundations, hint hint) that can get you started.
Optimizing the Screen for Animation Fig. 2.1 shows the default animation screen that was shipping with Blender at the time I wrote this book. To my taste, it is way too busy. All of those controls and different displays kind of make my eyes go googly. Blender’s view-switching is so fast that I don’t need the camera view in the upper right. Likewise the Outliner. Organization is cool, but armatures are self-contained and when I’m focused on animation, I generally don’t need to play hunt-and-peck through the scene’s entire object hierarchy. So, take
