Blender Basic controls

blender v2.79 cup

basic camera control 

camera control in blender is centered around the middle mouse button by default 

clicking and dragging will rotate the camera around

shift clicking and dragging will pan the camera 

and ctrl clicking and dragging will zoom the camera in and out.

additionally there are hotkeys for specific camera angles view types 

"7" is the top view perspective

"9" bottom view

"1" front view

"ctrl 1" back perspective

"3" right side perspective

"ctrl 3" left side perspective

"5" switches between normal perspective and orthographic perspective

"/" will isolate the selected object from the rest of the scene. hitting "/" again will show the entire screen again.

left and right mouse buttons

while the left and right mouse buttons have a long list of functions depending on mode operation and mouse space they're most common functions i've attempted to list here.

the right mouse button is primarily used to make a selection and move objects around but is also used to set an operation to a default.

the left mouse button is used to confirm operation and set the origin point for any new objects.

Starting our cup project

open blender and delete the pre-generated box

(on the left side tool bar) open "create" and select mesh "cylinder"

(on the bottom tool bar) select object mode switch it to edit mode

(bottom tool bar) change your selection from vertex points to faces (the three cube icons in the middle of your toolbar.)

right click the top face of the cylinder.

(left side toolbar "tools" or hotkey "e") extrude left click (this will keep the extrusion selected without moving anything

(bottom tool bar) change from translate "the diagonal arrow" to scale "the box with a line coming off it in the same group.

left mouse click and drag the green "y"axis box located over the cylinder. towards the cylinder enough to make a lip.

(left side toolbar) under resize constraint axis click the "x" check box. this will repeat the scale in that direction

(left side toolbar "tools" or hotkey "e") extrude left click (this will keep the extrusion selected without moving anything)

(bottom toolbar) select translate

click and drag the blue "z" axis arrow down into the cup

this concludes the absolute basic shape of a cup.

Rounding out the edges of our cup

resuming from the last tutorial; select the bottom of the cup exterior and interior, then scale it to be slightly smaller than the top of the cup. Using the same method as creating the lip. (scale one axis then select the other axis' check box to apply it to both.)

(bottom toolbar) change your selection from faces to edges

now under "mesh", "edges", "bevel" adjust as desired and apply with left mouse click.

(left side toolbar) under bevel change segments to 4 for a relatively rounded base

repeat this process for the lip of the cup. a quick way of selecting multiple edges is to select one along the loop you desire than clicking "select edge loop" 

under select on the bottom tool bar.

after beveling the lip you'll likely want to scale the z axis to round out the edges a little more.

now our cup is less likely to cut your lips but it's still a little plain so lets change that.

(left side toolbar) under "tools", "add" "loop cut and slide" before applying hit the "9" key to add eight more 

perfectly spaced lines to the operation. click left mouse button to apply then click right mouse button leave the 

lines where they were generated.

now lets save ourselves the effort of repeating this process for additional cups

(bottom toolbar) change back from edit mode to object mode.

(left side toolbar) "tools", "edit", "duplicate" once clicked it will apply i suggest right clicking in the viewport to 

leave the duplicate overlapping the original then using the translate tool to move it over.

repeat the duplication process a couple times. you'll want 4 cups for this

now back to our first cup

isolate it with the "/" hotkey then switch to edit mode our loops from before should still be selected if not just reselect them

scale the blue z axis down so the loops are closer together

then translate them all down towards the bottom of the cup

now select every other edge loop and scale them out along the x axis just enough to give the cup some texture. then apply the change to the y axis

now hit the "/" hot key again to see all three cups. move on to the second cup i decided to make this one into a shot glass for my personal collection see if you can't recreate it from what we did to make the other cup doesn't have to be perfect but try and get the shape.

 i primarily used the scale tool and several edge loop selections starting at the base to make it wider than the top.

now for the third cup we're going to give this one a simple handle

start by using the "3" key to move your camera to the right side perspective then select the two central faces one row down from the top.

select the two central faces one row up from the bottom as well.

now use the "1" key center to the front perspective and extrude ("e" hotkey) those faces out a ways

repeat the extrusion and go a little further to give us a set of faces to extrude into the handle

select the smaller faces that face each other at the end of the two pillars. hit the extrude hotkey then right mouse click to exit extrusion.

use scale tool to bring them together (if you adjusted the base of the cup to be different from the top they wont align that's OK)

once there close hit the "delete" key and select faces. we wont be needing those anymore

now switch to selecting vertex grab two opposing corners

(left side toolbar) "tools" "remove" "merge" "at center"

repeat this step all the way around the handle

now bevel the edges of the handle

now we've gone a while without saving "ctrl s" is the hotkey but the function is located under file if you prefer.

the last cup i leave to you and your imagination. go as far as you can with it making whatever you can think of see how far you can go before the model breaks or your system starts to lag. blender v2.79 on a well used laptop from 2014 can handle around 1,000,000 verts before starting to lag. see what your systems limits are. you should note that edit mode will start lagging before sculpt mode and sculpt mode before object mode.