Workspaces are customizable groups of panels or editors that can be used for specific workflows
Blender comes with predefined workspaces that can be found in the tabs at the top
These are labeled as Layout
Modeling
Sculpting
UV editing
Texture painting
Shading
Animation
Rendering
Compositing
Scripting
and an option to add your own.
If you can't see all the tabs just know that you can use scroll wheel or middle qlick drag to show more.
Simply left click any of these tabs to switch to them and you'll notice they look different
The modeling workspaces use for creating models by manipulating vertices directly
This is why you'll notice at the vertices or corners of your mesh are now selectable
That's because the modeling workspace automatically brings you into edit mode instead of object mode
as you can see in the top left corner of the viewport
You can change into edit mode in any work space you work by changing the value of this drop down menu or pressing the Tab Key
But the modeling workspace tries to make itself as convenient as possible for you to get started modeling
It also removes the timeline as modeling typically does not require any animation
The sculpting work space is similar to the to the modeling workspace
But is used for creating models by manipulating meshes with a brush
Sculpting is a more free form method of creating models
and typically results in higher polycount not usable for animation
However it is a great way to start your creation process to then we optimize your mesh later on
This workspace automatically put you into sculpt mode
Which is also accessible through the same drop down menu in the top left-hand corner
However there is no hot key for this mode
The UV editing work space is used for editing your UV projection maps
Which is another way of saying
I skin this object and stretched its skin across a flat surface
Anyway this is a very handy tool for texturing your objects as textures must be represented in 2D,
but projected onto a 3D object
You can see the 3D viewport on the right with an object's corresponding UV map on the left
If there was an image link to this UV map,
that image may become visible on the 3D object on the right-hand side,
which would show you visually how the two detector has been projected
Texture paint is probably what some of you were thinking,
when I mentioned the complexity of UV's.
Why paint on a 2d surface and project that to a 3D surface,
when you can simply paint on the 3D surface directly,
like painting an Easter egg
Well, in this case you can paint any object like an Easter egg
With texture painting you can paint directly onto the 3D object
and blender will protect your painted texture
onto a 2D surface based on the UV.
The Shading workspace is a very important workspace used for manipulating materials.
Particularly with node based shaders.
The workspace puts your viewport into LookDevMode,
showing you in real-time what your shaders would approximately look like at render
You can also access this from any viewport window using these buttons here
For hotkey users simply press Z and use the Pie menu that appears
If you want a more accurate display of your shader you can also change it to rendered mode
If you play around with the numbers in the node editor below,
you'll be able to see some changes in real time in the viewport above.
It also includes an image editor and file explorer for any necessary image files.
The animation workspace is created specifically for animators to have all the tools they might need.
The 3D viewport is where most of the animation will happen
But the dope sheet which looks similar to the timeline,
will be where all of your keyframe manipulation happens
You may also notice that there is a sliver of the timeline editor below the dope sheet
That is simply to provide all the playback options,
start and end frames,
and keeping navigation buttons that the dope sheet does not have
For example you can click the circle flash record icon
to start automatically recording changes in your objects location, rotation or scale
as keyframes for animation
The camera view on the left is also a 3D viewport panel but focused on the camera's perspective
This is great for getting an idea of what the animation will look like at render
Now there may be some of you who are wondering where the graph editor is?
If you want to use the graph editor,
simply create a new panel and out of there from the other options in the drop-down
However the dope sheet is so powerful with keyframe manipulation, compared to other 3D animation software,
that the graph editor is not used nearly as often, but it can still be useful.
The Rendering workspace is used for testing or finalizing the output of your file
If you had a recent render, it likely be displayed here.
It's important to note, that this is the same image editor that we see in other workspaces
However the image selected is render result,
giving you access to slots, which serve as great temporary vendor test comparisons.
These slots are accessible both through the top right drop down
As well as the right hand side quick menu pulled up with the "N" hotkey under image
For hotkey users you can use "J" to toggle between the most recent two slots,
or use any of the numbers on the number roll to go to a specific slot corresponding to that number.
The Compositing workspace is used for post processing and after effects,
that would add beautification to your renders, such as glow, blur, masks etc.
The compositor in blender is node based and it's very similar to this shader editor in the shading workspace.
But has its own editor in the drop-down menu.
In order to start using the compositor, simply check "use nodes" at the top here.
This will automatically generate a view layer node and a composite node
The composite node is simply the end result receiver –
– your final output.
And view layer node represents how you can use view layers to combine different passes
so just character and background in this compositor
Now you may notice that there is a dope sheet provided at the bottom,
which is blenders keyframe manipulator for animation.
So why is it here?
Well, let's say you're doing an animation where you want one particular part of the animation
to have heavy directional blur because the camera is moving fast.
But you want to turn it off after a certain point
In this case you want to keyframe your blur properties.
The dope sheet is provided to help you keep track of those compositor specific frames.
The Scripting workspace is for those instances where we might have to write some code
The text editor is very flexible
You can download and save files externally,
enable syntax highlighting,
enable word wrap,
enable word lines
and a number of other useful coding tools.
It can also provide easy to set up templates for common blender script functions such as UI elements or gizmos.
You'll notice there's also a console panel provided on the left.
This is for seeing error messages at run time.
And at the bottom we have what's called the info panel.
This is a list of recent operations, that have been performed by blender,
which usually correspond to actions the user has taken somewhere in the software.
For example if you select an object into 3D viewport and transform it,
you'll notice a new line appear in the info panel.
You can copy and paste these operations onto your text editor for reference on how to use certain functions.
And finally we have our Create New workspace option.
This will bring up a few options, but you'll notice many of them are grayed out.
This is simply because they already exist in your tab.
However you can celect "Duplicate Current", which is a great way to start customizing your own
Simply duplicate the workspace and double click the tab to rename it to whatever you like.
If you'd like to bring a certain workspace to the beginning of the list for easy access,
you can right-click the tab and choose reorder to front.
You can also remove workspaces from the list by right-clicking and selecting "Delete".
Keep in mind that if you delete a custom workspace it will be lost forever.
In order to save a custom workspace I recommend setting up a custom startup file.
By opening up a new file, setting up your workspace and then going to File > Default > Save Startup File.
Your workspace will then be included in every new blender file you create.
however while you were looking through the new workspace options,
you may have noticed that there are a few workspaces in the creation options that we haven't seen yet
We may go over these in the another video,
but I highly recommend looking into the strength of Blender's 2D-animation capabilities,
as well as its powerful VFX and motion tracking capabilities.
And that's the general summary of how workspaces works
Will be going over specific workspaces in more detail in their separate videos.