Blender for beginners: 3D from scratch for free

Step 1

Download Blender and check your computer

Download Blender from the official site, blender.org. At the time of writing, the current version is Blender 5.2 LTS, which will be supported for two years. You don't even have to install it: it runs from any folder or USB stick and needs no internet connection. The developers' minimum requirements:

• •8 GB of RAM (32 GB recommended);
• •a 4-core processor with SSE4.2 support and a GPU with 2 GB of memory supporting OpenGL 4.3;
• •on a Mac: Apple Silicon and macOS 13 or later; Blender 4.5 LTS was the last version for Intel Macs.

💡 Only download Blender from blender.org. It's free, so "activation keys" or "full versions" on other sites are suspicious, to say the least.

Step 2

Learn to look around the scene

After launch you'll see the startup scene: a gray cube in the center, a light and a camera. Spend day one on navigation only; without it, everything else will be frustrating. Hold the middle mouse button to orbit around the scene, use the numpad keys (Numpad 2, 4, 6, 8) to rotate the view in steps, and press Numpad 0 to look through the camera: that's exactly how the final render will look.

💡 If your keyboard has no numpad, turn on Emulate Numpad in Blender's preferences (Input section): the regular number keys will then act as the numpad. No mouse with a wheel? The same section has Emulate 3 Button Mouse: Alt + left click replaces the middle button.

Step 3

Objects and basic modeling

Most actions in Blender are done with shortcuts, so learn a few key ones:

• •Shift + A: the Add menu; a cube, sphere, cylinder and other primitives appear at the 3D cursor;
• •G, R, S: move, rotate, scale; a left click confirms;
• •Tab: switch between Object Mode (the whole object) and Edit Mode (vertices, edges, faces);
• •E in Edit Mode extrudes a face, Ctrl + B bevels edges.

💡 Exercise: turn a single cube into a simple object, such as a stool, a box or a phone, using only G, R, S, E and Ctrl + B.

Step 4

Modifiers and materials

A modifier changes how an object looks without touching its geometry, and you can switch it off or adjust it at any time. Two are enough to start. Bevel softens sharp edges: nothing in real life is perfectly sharp, so the model instantly looks more believable. Subdivision Surface splits faces into smaller ones and smooths the shape, turning a simple low-poly cage into a soft, organic model. Then add a material: the standard Principled BSDF shader lets you set color, metallic, roughness and other surface properties.

💡 The order of modifiers in the stack affects the result. If the model looks odd, try swapping Bevel and Subdivision Surface.

Step 5

Lighting, camera and your first render

Rendering turns a 3D scene into a 2D image. Blender has three render engines: EEVEE works in real time and gives quick results, Cycles is a physically based path tracer, and Workbench is meant for modeling and previews. Position the camera so the object sits well in the frame, add one or two lights, set the image size in the Output tab and press F12: Blender renders the current frame.

💡 Share your first render in the community and ask for feedback on something specific: lighting, framing or the material.