Our old friend the buttons window is still there at the bottom, and of course the user preferences window is still at the top. The 3D view is still there, but it's been resized smaller to fit the new stuff. You can probably recognize three of them. Blender has just opened a set of new windows, each with its own functions and commands. No, Blender didn't just go crazy, but as you can see, there are some changes that need to be explained. Click the button on the left side that looks like two little arrows to open a drop down menu. It should read something like: 'SR:2-model' with little buttons on both sides of the text. What we want is the little drop down menu next to 'help' that you've probably never touched much less noticed. Now the first thing we need to do is enter 'animation mode.' To do so, look at the top of the window, the 'user preferences window.' You should see file, add, timeline, game, render and help.

This is the default setup for modeling, but now that we are starting animation, we are soon going to be looking at a new(ish) set up. If you haven't done anything to the default blender startup, starting blender will produce the basic 3D window with a light, a camera, and cube, the buttons window, and the ever-present basic drop down tabs at the top of the screen known as the user preferences window.

Blender intro animation