Bounce, Tumble, and Splash!: Simulating the Physical World with Blender 3D (Paperback)

by Tony Mullen (Author), Erwin Coumans (Foreword)
Key Phrases: extend mode, texture type, copy location, Rigid Body, Game Play, Set Smooth (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Learn all about Blender, the premier open-source 3D software, in Bounce, Tumble, and Splash!: Simulating the Physical World with Blender 3D. You will find step-by-step instructions for using Blender’s complex features and full-color visual examples with detailed descriptions of the processes. If you’re an advanced Blender user, you will appreciate the sophisticated coverage of Blender’s fluid simulation system, a review Blender’s latest features, and a guide to the Bullet physics engine, which handles a variety of physics simulations such as rigid body dynamics and rag doll physics.

From the Back Cover
Defy the Rules of 3D and Get Physical with Blender

Bounce, Tumble, and Splash! is the only book to cover the advanced simulation features of Blender, the premier open source 3D software that is a must-have for your animation toolbox. Expert author Tony Mullen provides you with the real-world know-how to create dynamic, highly realistic images of flames, cloth, hair and other physical phenomena from the world around you. This unique guide will help you push the boundaries of 3D and take your Blender skills to the limit.

You'll discover the very latest Blender physics and dynamics tools, including simulations for soft body, fluid, rigid body, and rag doll dynamics. Hone the skills to create stormy seas, flowing hair, or fiery flames with the sophisticated coverage of advanced Blender features included in this beautiful, full-color guide.

• Set particle parameters, define systems, and discover new Blender particle functionality

• Explore the new cloth simulation, improved tools for soft bodies, and the Demolition Python script
• Style the latest look in hair with strand particles, new styling tools, and new features for hair and fur
• Make a splash with fluid simulations and modifiers
• Use the Blender Game Engine and the Bullet physics library to create rigid body physics simulations

• Build realistic trees and plants with Blender scripts and third-party tools

Create dynamic hair effects using hair styling and soft body simulation for particles

Use the improved soft bodies to create jiggling, bouncing objects

Valuable Companion CD
Access the CD for Blender 2.46 installers for Windows and Macintosh and a source tarball for users of Linux and other flavors of Unix. You'll also find a variety of .blend files to support the projects in the book.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Sybex; Pap/Cdr edition (June 30, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470192801
• ISBN-13: 978-0470192801
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 7.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #37,791 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You need this book. Definitely., July 18, 2008

By	Renato Perini (Italy) - See all my reviews

I ordered this book without much hesitation, once I discovered Tony was writing it. Having read his past book "Introducing Character Animation with Blender", I ordered this one without thinking twice. Now that this book is in my hands, I can't regret for my choice. The overall quality of the publication is impressive. Not only for the contents but also for the technical production: fine paper with color quality images. It's not common these days. The book is composed of 400 pages (7 chapters) plus an appendix and they are:

Chapter 1 - Re-creating the World: An overview
This chapter describes those tools and techniques that are not well explained elsewhere by the Blender literature. It covers topics like material creation with nodes, transparency, subsurface scattering, sky maps (sphere maps and angular maps) and those tools that can be used to fake physics, when accurate simulations are not necessary at all but you still need a "quick and dirty" method to achieve an effect efficiently and with sufficient speed (an example: water simulation with surface tension displacement or cloth simulation using a displacement modifier). Obviously, these techniques are useful for everyone involved using Blender. No doubt. Much appreciated.

Chapter 2 - The Nitty-Gritty on particles.
The first thing I thought after reading this chapter was:"WOW". *ALL* the latest development on Blender particles is covered here: emitters, reactors, positioning particles on a grid, chained physics systems, various types of visualizations, force fields (harmonic, magnetic, vortex, spherical, wind, etc.)
You will be guided through the creation of a convincing fire material using clouds and stencils textures! All is explained gradually and with great style. Highly informative.

Chapter 3 - Getting flexible with Soft Bodies and Cloth.
As you can expect, all that has been developed is covered here: baking, how to animate a spring, force fields and collision, using curves with softbodies (it will teach you how to animate a chain using an empty), stress maps, how to produce a fantastic cube of gelatin using lattices, simulating clothes. It will even explain how to use the demolition plugin to produce a window breaking in a spiderweb pattern!

Chapter 4 - Hair Essentials: The Long and Short of Strand Particles.
How to produce hair, fur and grass. After covering the basics, this chapter will guide you through the creation of an hairstyle on top of a practice head. One of my preferred chapters.

Chapter 5 - Making a Splash with Fluids.
One of the most interesting part of Blender: the fluid simulator. All is covered here: domains, resolution, inflow, outflow, fluid object intersection, kinematic viscosity, obstacles (considering animation, of course).

Chapter 6 - Bullet Physics and the Blender Game Engine.
One of the less undestood parts of Blender is certainly the game engine. So I was favourably impressed when I have seen an entire chapter dedicated to it. This chapter describes all the tools needed to produce hard bodies simulations, using the game engine and the powerfullness of the Bullet Physics Library. Actors, actuators, IPO curves, rigid body simulations with IPO curves, joints, ragdolls ... This is material that will be probably new to most Blender users.

Chapter 7 - Imitation of Life: Simulating Trees and Plants.
This chapter explores a few tools that can be used for creating trees and vegetation in general, like the L-System, ngPlant and Ivy Generator.

Each chapter is independent, so you don't need to read the book from the first page, with the exception of chapter 4, who strongly depends by the two previous chapters. This book is of course not intended for beginners. This book is completely updated with the latest Blender development and it covers the actual stable release. This is the documentation Blender needs. I highly recommend this book. It is well written, well presented, well structured and, most importantly, it's definitely fun!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The one-stop guide to all of the Blender's physical reality, October 28, 2008

By	H. Yamasaki - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a great book. The quality of the print, color illustrations (although they sometimes don't do justice to the original RGB artwork), the bundled DVD with examples and scripts... everything is top-notch.

The text is easy to understand, and illustrations give you a very clear picture of what you need to do, and where. It covers all (and I really mean all) aspects of physics simulation: materials, shaders, hair, soft bodies, cloth, water... everything. It presents everything in a well systematized way, so you can't get lost.

The only thing that bothered my a little, is that author makes references to previous chapters, so if you're jumping around the book, you may find you need to read a few chapters more than you thought you'd need. But that's okay, because anything you read in this book is good learning material.

For an aspiring Blender newbie, this book is, probably, the quickest way of getting up to speed, and even getting the hang of some pretty advanced stuff.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Particles, Soft Bodies, and Hair!, July 2, 2008

By	John R. Nyquist (Colorado) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I must say, I'm biased... I started liking this book the first time I read the title! The book is very impressive, it is full-color, lots of images, and the chapters are nice and modular so you can jump to the section the topic you're interested in. Tony Mullen did a great job in making the complex straightforward. The tasks in the chapters are clearly written in step-by-step style. He gets right to the point of the chapter and has you work through the material. Another nice touch is seeing pics and blurbs on various Blender artists/developers.