Introducing Character Animation with Blender [Paperback]

Tony Mullen (Author), Ton Roosendaal (Foreword), Bassam Kurdali (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 27, 2007

Let this in-depth professional book be your guide to Blender, the powerful open-source 3D modeling and animation software that will bring your ideas to life. Using clear step-by-step instruction and pages of real-world examples, expert animator Tony Mullen walks you through the complexities of modeling and animating, with a special focus on characters. From Blender basics to creating facial expressions and emotion to rendering, you’ll jump right into the process and learn valuable techniques that will transform your movies.

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Open your mind to the possibilities

Let this in-depth professional book be your guide to Blender, the powerful open-source 3D modeling and animation software that will bring your ideas to life. Using clear step-by-step instruction and pages of real-world examples from talented Blender users, expert animator Tony Mullen walks you through the complexities of modeling and animating, with a special focus on characters. From Blender basics to creating facial expressions and emotion to rendering, you'll jump right into the process and learn valuable techniques that will transform your movies.

• Walk through the complete process of building a character
• Master mesh modeling tools and organic modeling
• Fashion skin, hair, and clothing with material shaders, textures, and other tools
• Learn to sync lip movements with a sound file
• Understand interpolation curves, keyframes, and the basics of animating

Model your characters using a variety of mesh editing techniques

See how armatures, lattices, and IK interact

Light and render your work for exactly the effect you want

Valuable DVD with complete Blender installation

The companion DVD provides the Blender installer for Windows®, Macintosh®, and Linux®. You'll also find:

• All the source files you need to produce the examples and tutorials in the book
• The short film Elephants Dream and all the files used to create it
• An impressive gallery of short animations created by Blender artists around the world
• Plenty of useful links to related Blender resources
• A large collection of third-party software and plug-ins, including Audacity, Python, and the popular BlenderPeople

www.sybex.com

About the Author

Tony Mullen, Ph.D., teaches at Tsuda College, Tokyo, where his courses include modeling and animation with Blender as well as the Python programming language. Mullen has been a cartoonist and an illustrator. His screen credits include writer, co-director, or lead animator on several short films, including the award-winning Gustav Braüstache shorts.

Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Sybex; 1 edition (February 27, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470102608
• ISBN-13: 978-0470102602
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #223,040 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #82 in Books > Computers & Technology > Graphic Design > 3D Graphics

More About the Author

I'm a lecturer in computer science at Tsuda College, Tokyo and an independent filmmaker. I'm interested in animation of all kinds, but especially in CG animation using Blender, the open source 3D modeling and animation package.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More than an introduction--it's an invitation to a whole new world!, March 6, 2007

By 

Michael Tiemann (Chapel Hill, NC United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Introducing Character Animation with Blender (Paperback)

The blender community has accomplished some amazing milestones in the past few years, creating an open source 3d production environment that rivals the best (and most expensive) proprietary systems in terms of power, performance, and flexibility. It is truly amazing that one can download for free software that's been used to create artistic and commercial works that have been seen at film festivals and mainstream television worldwide. Sooner or later, one who is interested must ask: what shall I do with all this power? This book helps answer the question, at least when it comes to character animation.

I have been to Blender workshops around the world, and I have seen amazingly talented artists demonstrate methods they've developed over the years to create all sorts of characters, from humans to monsters, from animals to dragons. Watching these creatives who are half my age do more in 30 minutes than I ever thought I could do in a lifetime has been a humbling experience. When I learned that some of these folks would be sharing their knowledge in the form of this book, I pre-ordered it right away.

I have now had the book for a week, and I am *thrilled* that it has turned out as well as it has. The examples are well organized, the methods are completely explained, and the book ships with a DVD that contains everything, and I mean *everything* you need to follow along and/or check your work. The quality and quantity of information is perfectly balanced with the pace of instruction, and I cannot wait to continue reading it in more detail, practicing the methods, and bringing new characters to life.

Well done!

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just buy this and think about it later, March 10, 2007

By 

Theodore Gage "FStopDigital" (Brooklyn) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Introducing Character Animation with Blender (Paperback)

Blender is a free open source 3d application that includes a complete compositing and non-linear video editing system, with a ton of user-created extensions, plugins, scripts, tutorials and guides. However it can be intimidating to people starting out and let's face it, you have to be pretty motivated to teach yourself anything (downloading and collecting all the files you need to start, finding a good tutorial to get started, peering back and forth between two screens if you're lucky to look between the web page and blender as you slowly pick it up after a few weeks. it's annoying there are so few print resources for this amazing tool that collect everything in one place. combing blender with a program like aftereffects and photoshop and you are a one-man production studio. you don't even need that great a computer.

so anyway, this is a complete class in a book. The price is ridiculous, at a minimum because it includes many files and programs that although are free, most people either haven't heard about or are too lazy to find all together. it is excellently written, with great diagrams and a long section of glossy color renders, and really "gets it" in terms of focusing on the aspects of blender you will need to know for character rendering and modeling in general. THIS BOOK WILL TEACH YOU 3D ANIMATION FROM THE GROUND UP. while never insulting your intelligence. incredible value for what it is and even advanced users can get a lot out of it. highly recommended

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars DVD is nice, but not required, March 23, 2007

By 

Orinoco (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Introducing Character Animation with Blender (Paperback)

An earlier reviewer thinks the book is useless without the included DVD.

Not so.

While it's very nice of Tony to include Blender, the Gimp, Audacity, VirtualDub, InkScape, Python, YafRay, BlenderPeople and VLC on the DVD, these are also freely downloadable from the web. [...]

Tony also provides animations and examples from the blender community, including the open source film Elephant's Dream, which are wonderful and inspirational, but not really required to learn character animation by reading the book and doing the projects in the book.

Other files on the DVD are blend files for the projects in the book, projects that Tony walks you through. Projects that, if you really want to get the most out of the book, you'll work through yourself, not simply read about them and then get the finished blend file off the DVD.

It is a great book, and not at all useless without the disk.