Blender3

UPDATE 21 Mar 09:
See Hirsig's Unit #4 Camera Constraints video. He shows how to lock the camera on an object so you can easily move the camera around and it will automatically look at that object. The YouTube tut below makes the animation much more difficult than it has to be. I would recommend working thru Hirsig's tuts instead. WAY better.

Blender Tutorial Lesson 4
Animation

Notes/Comments:

Right Click on Camera to Select it.

Lock Camera to 1st frame:
I - Insert
LocRot - Locks location and rotation angle of camera in frame 1 so it sits right where it is and puter knows where to find it.
Type 30 where it says 1 for frame.
Now we are on frame 30.
G - grab camera and swing it to a new location.
I, LocRot again to lock camera for frame 30
Now enter 1 to go to frame 1.
0 (zero) to view thru Camera and
Alt/A - Animate

Whoa, hyper vertigo spin.
Did it animate all/some rotations I did to move the camera in position for frame 30?
Yuk!
Moving, rotating, and positioning the camera correctly is just too hard to do for a newb.
I also notice a 250 countdown going on? (Explained further down.)

Went looking for more help...

Wiki Noob Ani
Not written very well, but might be useful later—with additional info from elsewhere.

Wiki linked to: YouTube Ani Tut
Super3boy's Seventh Blender Tutorial (Animation)
Blah, blah for first few minutes or so, then starts the tut.
Moves the cube instead of the camera, which would be WAY easier for a Newb.

("Super3boy" sounds like he's about 9 years old. Not that, that's a bad thing. hey hey He has 28 Blender tutorial videos up at YouTube, and has since had a voice change.)

Showed me the Animation Screen Mode. (Menu at top of screen, from Model to Animation.)


At the bottom I see 250 frames, so Blender creates 250 frames by default. Have to change that to 30.


Once in Ani Scrn Mode, I had to change Draw Type to Solid (Mentioned in the YouTube tut).


I didn't mess with animation any further. I'll go back to it once I have more experience using Blender. I did appreciate getting the general idea of how it works in Blender, though.

I need more practice on moving and rotating the camera.
Another thing I find difficult to do is using the mouse wheel to change the plane angle.
A mouse wheel just wasn't designed to use as a press down button, IMO. It's designed to roll/scroll. The alternative was?...Alt/LMB, I think.

At this point, I'm going to type up a list of shortcut keys I want to memorize and then I'm moving to Super3boy's tuts. (Can download the videos along with the Blender project file at link.)