(This is my try at making Shapes work in Blender…neat eh?)

Ok, so I watched two tutorials first…One in Portuguese http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGdcmofS0x4 , & then one in English- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5V0YC29AKU …These 2 tutorials are both about how to like make a mouth talk or eyes blink in Blender 2.66a(No I don’t speak Portuguese, but you get the point without understanding his words)…

Here are my notes:
1)Ok, so make an object…Give it a nose or a mouth or some part that can change shape…
2)Now you are in Blender render, Object Mode now (not Edit Mode where you were making the object)…Ok, so go to the far right menu & make sure you are in ‘Object data’…(The upside down triangle picture in the Modifiers choices…)
3)Scroll down to ‘Shape Keys’…Hit the ‘plus’ button on the right of the Shape key section…A new shape appears called Basis…This is like your basic pose…
4)Hit that ‘plus’ key again & a new shape appears, give it a name & type that in the Name: box…
5)Go back to Edit Mode…At the bottom right, choose Proportional Editing, Enable (from the menu choices)…
6)Deform a shape in your object…Like make the nose longer, or make the mouth open real wide…
7) Now go back to ‘Object Mode’…Under Object Data again, Look at the Shape Key box, now at the bottom is a box called “VALUE” with the opportunity to change the Value by pushing the slider to the right or left…try this by sliding that Value right or left…Your nose or mouth should deform or move to the position you just created in Edit Mode-by the degree that you slide that Value slider…!
8)Ok, now to see what you get do this…Set the Value slider to 0 or just normal…Now hover over that Value slider with your Mouse & click the Letter I to add a Keyframe…
9)Now slide the green keyframe slider along a bit in time(at the bottom of your screen)…
10)Now slide that Value slider over a bit so that your nose gets longer or your mouth opens or something…Hover over the Value box again & Press the Letter I again to add another keyframe…
11)keep changing the value slider, pressing the letter I to record a keyframe, until you have enough movement to make you happy…
12)Now press play & watch your object with its mouth talking or the nose growing or whatever you like…Happy Easter!
p.s.I render the movie in Quicktime at Mpeg4 setting…Then I stuck it into SimpleMovie, copied the segment, then pasted it back in 4 times, to get a repeating segment, then exported that as an Apple tv file (m4v)…Took that, stuck it into a new movie project in Garageband, then added an instrumental track & a vocal track, then saved the whole thing to iTunes, & then uploaded it here…(This is Sat. March 30, 2013-I started learning Blender this Monday, so I am new to this also…But making notes & saving each lesson will be helpful to me to remind me how to do things plus maybe I can help others like others have helped me…)