Customer Reviews

Blender For Dummies

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I officially fell in love with Blender 6 months ago after years of picking it up, staring at the screen for a few days, and putting it back down. Blender takes a certain amount of dedication, I wasn't willing to devote until recently. I consider myself still in the noob stage, but I have spent a fair amount of time doing online tutorials and familiarizing myself with the program.

This book attempts the daunting task of reigning in as much information about Blender for the beginner as possible. This is an exceptional presentation of reference material collected in one book. The title is a bit misleading, but if you are already familiar with "Dummies" books, it's no surprise. Jason runs pretty fast right out of the starting gate, and doesn't waste any time getting right into it. The order in which the book takes, is a logical one, and is similar to other methods of learning Blender. You start out learning the interface, then modeling, materials and textures, lighting, animating, etc.

What I liked about this book is that it explains certain functions and concepts, that I had never really fully understood through my adventures online trying to cherry pick bits of info here and there. There were a few Eureka! moments as I read through.

One of my gripes though is that some of the images in the book of the interface are too small and dark to see clearly, so it definitely helps to have Blender open.

If you are seriously interested in learning Blender, do not hesitate to get this. I have a couple of other Blender books like "Introducing Character Animation" and "Bounce Tumble and Splash". These are great in their own right, but they are a little more advanced and specific than I had expected. Blender for Dummies is kind of a bridge to these books.

I recommend to anyone starting out in Blender to use this book in conjunction with various online tutorials. It gives you the chance to just work with the program, and will help you to visualize the concepts explained in the book. Jason does not present the info through a bunch of tutorials, and I like that. There are tutorials coming out of the digital woodwork online, and it's great to see a book just explain why something happens the way it does. Since I have worked with Blender some, I was comfortable sitting back on the couch and reading through it. I didn't necessarily feel that I had to be tethered to the computer through a tutorial.

I will have to say, that Blender is no joke. It takes time to wrap your head around it. This book is for those who are serious about learning Blender. You may have to go over a few things many times before before your synapse screams out "I got it!". Blender for Dummies will meet you half way.

Blender to me is why I like using a computer. It really has to be one of the greatest contributions to the digital world I've ever seen, and it's free. I am completely hooked. Blender For Dummies takes a comprehensive approach to a very in depth and challenging piece of software and succeeds.

Blender for Dummies should be titled Blender for Smarties. It's one of the smartest purchases I've made yet. I'm pretty descent with other 3D pachages, but I'm a noob to the Blender environment. Blender for Dummies got me understanding first of all how intuitive the environment really is, then taught me all the shortcuts to doing what I want, very efficiently. I still use it as a reference guide. The speed and temperment of the book allow for an enjoyable technical read sitting in front of my computer. Thank you Dummies!

Since the 1980s, I've tried my hand at a number of 3D drawing programs, always with the hope of creating something stunning. It has never worked out that way.

I stumbled upon Blender in my web wanderings and thought I would give 3D another try.

"Blender For Dummies", according to the author, is intended to be a reference with tutorials. He isn't kidding. The book is actually kind of sparse on follow-the-steps tutorials. But it is an excellent teaching reference.

Walk through this book page by page and you will most certainly learn Blender. You'll have to spend more time experimenting than you would with a bunch of "by the numbers" tutorials, but you'll learn a lot more about the product.

I learned enough to realize that I simply don't have the time and interest to learn Blender in detail. It is a massively powerful and complex program that goes far beyond my needs - and probably my artistic capabilities.

Were I dedicate the time to mastering Blender, this reference would be by my side for a long time to come.

Jerry

First and foremost, be aware that version of this book covers Blender 2.4x, which is now no longer the current iteration of the software. That having been said, all of the core principles and topics covered in this book are still relevant to the software, and can go a long way towards getting you started.

If you're looking for something more relevant to the 2.5x version of Blender, I'd suggest "Introducing Character Animation with Blender" by Tony Mullen as a fine option.

That having been said, this book is a great way to get into the guts of what has been, historically, a piece of software with a steep learning curve. Jason van Gumster takes each topic and thoroughly explores it, providing examples and exercises to give the user a hands-on experience right from the beginning. After reading just a couple of chapters, I had already created some impressive, albeit simple, renders in the software.

Blender for Dummies promises how to teach us to create eye-popping 3d animations, work with meshes, curves, add material and create animations, among many other things.

Well, let me start by saying that it is very thorough as a REFERENCE guide, but to learn Blender from scratch it is a little less helpful. Don't get me wrong, it is a great book. The author clearly is very enthusiastic about Blender, and knows how to convey it.

There are a few reasons why I can't give it 5 stars, though. Personally, I learn the fastest when I am shown a finished project, and then taken by the hand re-creating it step by step and click by click, with explanations along the way and being taught the basics of the program on the fly.

This book has a totally different approach. It offers an odd mixture of a general description of what Blender is capable of, and then a highly detailed explanation of different techniques and tweaks. The author spends so much time explaining the interface, yet he seems to forget that when somebody has no CLUE yet what 3d modeling is about (after all, this IS a book for supposed dummies), knowing all there is to know about the interface and windows is not exactly exhilarating.

For example, he explains the difference between "box modeling" and "point-for-point modeling", but he never tells you HOW to actually MODEL something using the box or pfp method. The book just shows one picture of a human head created using both methods, and that is all you ever learn about it.

Another example: the author spends a few pages explaining the difference between a "good" and a "bad" edge loop, but the only explanation of what IS an edge loop is this: "Generally speaking, an edge loop is a series of edges that connect to form a path where the first and last edges connect to each other". This might be crystal clear to a professional 3d modeler, but to someone like me, a 3d dummy, this is almost gobbledygook. My first question would be "Nice, but what's it FOR?" The example of the car bumper made me scratch my head, and I think this could have been a perfect candidate to show us HOW to create this car in the first place, instead of skimping over it in five lines.

With every chapter you read, it seems, you are expected to find your own tutorials by surfing the Internet so that you can learn how to master what has been explained. It would have been more accurate if this book had been advertised as a reference guide, rather than a learning tool.

One of the fun tutorials was how to create a super simple skyscraper, but it does not really seem in place along the highly detailed explanations surrounding it. (Also, a little nitpicking note: if you follow the tutorial to the letter, it doesn't work. Between step 6 and 7 he forgot the mention you need to select the area first for the subdivide to work, and if you follow step 13 to the letter, the skyscraper implodes within itself.)
However, nitpicking aside, if there had been such a tutorial concluding each chapter to summarize what was taught, my review would have been at least one star more.

In my opinion, this book would have been infinity more enjoyable and less tedious to read through if it had used a cumulative approach: that is to say, in chapter 1 you learn how to view your default cube from all sides, in chapter 2 you would have learned how to extrude it, chapter 3 vertices handling, chapter 4 modeling it, chapter 5 material and texture... etc. In the end you could admire a beautiful skyscraper in technicolor and know you master all the techniques explained in the book.

I would recommend this book mostly to people who already know the basics of 3d modeling, and need a reference guide to get into the nitty gritty of Blender. If you expected a tutorial book that leads you by the hand from A to Z in 99 steps, you might be disappointed.

Summary, if you are serious about learning Blender, get it! But beware, it is not for the faint of heart.

If you're an experienced 3D user that needs to pick up Blender, this is the text for you. After struggling through the "Essential Blender", "Blender for Dummies" is a breath of fresh air. Unlike the other book, this book doesn't waste time telling you how awesome Blender is, but instead focuses on telling you how to get work done in this program. Where tools are, how they work in Blender as opposed to other softwares, why the interface is so strange, and so forth. Every page is useful and quickly built my understanding of this foreign program. My only mistake was hesitating in getting it.

If you are interested in 3d modeling or animation art with blender this book is a must have item. You can learn a great deal from the online wiki and from tutorials online, I know I have learned a ton from youtube alone. One thing this book has over all other sources is that you learn what the buttons actually mean, what each actually does on its own. This knowledge is needed in order to truely create your own works of art.

The pictures are in black and white but they are clear and easily viewed, for the reviews stating otherwise... turn on a light. If you are interested in 3d art with blender and are reviewing and thinking about purchasing this book then have no fear and place the order.

I find the index to be frustratingly incomplete. As a simple example, on page 117 the author refers to the "center line" of a curve. When I look in the index for "center line" I don't find it. There were several others including basic terms like "X-axis", "Y-axis", and "Z-axis". Also, given the extensive use of hot keys in Blender, I was disappointed that all or even most of the hot keys were not listed in one place. Finally, most of the figures in the book are too small and nearly impossible to read. Some examples are Figure 5-20 and Figure 5-21.

I know that Blender is a complex program, so I chose this book because I'm a total beginner with 3D stuff. Problem is, the book keeps giving you advanced stuff without ever letting you get your feet wet with some simple operations. It left me feeling annoyed and impotent as I just kept turning pages waiting for the equivalent of a "Hello world!" project to help me get my bearings.

For example, the first chapter goes into detail explaining why windows in Blender don't overlap (why should I care). Then the second chapter gives way too much detail on how to change my user interface and preferences (how can I have preferences if I've never used the program before, i.e., shouldn't this be in an appendix?). And so on.

The book also fails to explain all the terminology associated with 3D imaging, instead constantly comparing Blender to other 3D systems, which doesn't seem to be a big concern for people who are buying a "Dummy" book.

Perhaps as I come to understand Blender, I'll also come to understand why this book is written the way it is. If that day ever comes, I'll edit this review. In the meantime, I think I'm just going to do some of the Tutorial projects at the Blender website and then come back to this book when I'm feeling a bit less at sea (which is what this book was SUPPOSED to do for me!)

For individuals who have no experience with 3D software and are using Blender, this book is a good start. It is clearly written and gives a good overview of the program. It also provides the important shortcuts and tips for beginners. As with any introductory work, eventually you will move beyond it, but for getting started and as a basic reference it is definitately the best of the bunch.