Mastering Blender [Paperback]

Tony Mullen (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0470407417 | ISBN-13: 978-0470407417 | Publication Date: April 6, 2009 | Edition: 1

Blender, the free alternative for professional-quality 3D animation is a complex program to learn, but once users become familiar with its power, they begin to seek more from it.  This book is the first of its kind to explore the more advanced features of Blender so that you can get the most out of the software. You’ll take your Blender skills to a whole new level with the featured in-depth coverage of intricate uses for Blender's modeling, texturing, animation, and visual effects tools in a professional environment.

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

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Create Amazing 3D Animations As You Build Your Blender Skills

Are you ready to push the envelope on your Blender abilities? This professional resource takes you step by step through intermediate and advanced techniques for Blender's modeling, texturing, scripting, game-creation, and visual effects tools. It covers advanced topics on sculpting, compositing, and video editing, as well as provides a complete introduction to Python® scripting suitable for people with no programming background.

Intermediate Blender users will explore specific workflow topics that will help boost productivity and enhance the quality of their work. Advanced users will find tips and techniques not covered elsewhere that will help them optimize Blender's functionality for professional projects. Learn how to create assets for use in a game engine, how to use Python in the game engine environment, and much more.

If you want professional tips to reach new heights and create visually stunning 3D animations in Blender, this is the book for you.

The CD includes Blender 2.48 installers for Windows and Macintosh, a source tarball for users of Linux and other flavors of Unix, and a variety of .blend files.

Learn video editing and compositing with the Blender Video Sequence Editor and node-based compositor

Learn advanced texturing tricks, such as how to use Blender's own 2D texture painting functionality to create game assets

About the Author

Tony Mullen, PhD, has a broad background in CG-related work. He teaches at Tsuda College, where his courses include modeling and animation with Blender as well as the Python programming language (used for scripting in Blender). Mullen has been a cartoonist and an illustrator; his screen credits include writer, codirector, or lead animator on several short films, including the award-winning short The Devices of Gustav Braüstache, Bachelor of Science, and the recent live-action/stop-motion film Gustav Braüstache and the Auto Debilitator, appearing at several international film festivals. He is the author of Introducing Character Animation with Blender and Bounce, Tumble, and Splash!: Simulating the Physical World with Blender 3D, both from Sybex.

Product Details

• Paperback: 472 pages
• Publisher: Sybex; 1 edition (April 6, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470407417
• ISBN-13: 978-0470407417
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #191,796 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #73 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

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly a guide to mastering Blender - and definitely not for beginners., July 9, 2009

By 

Jerry Saperstein (Evanston, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Mastering Blender (Paperback)

I am a Blender wannabe. I know I'll never be anything more than a tinkerer with it and I certainly don't have the artistic ability to do anything serious with it. Blender is an open source, free 3D program with an impressive list of capabilities. In fact, Blender rivals commercial programs costing thousands of dollars.

"Mastering Blender" is the third Tony Mullen book I've read and it is as impressive as the first two. But Mullen's books are aimed at people who are actually quite proficient with Blender. As Mullen puts it, he is writing for "intermediate and advanced" Blender users. If you've attempted to use Blender, you'll immediately recognize that even achieving the intermediate stage of proficiency requires many hours of learning and doing.

That said, there is nothing that prevents the patient novice Blender user from reading, looking at the pictures and, in my case, gasping both at what Blender can do and at the people like Mullen who can do it.

The first chapter is actually helpful to inexperienced users, as it describes how you can gain control of the Blender interface.

After that, it is strictly for the more advanced and capable user. Sculpting and Retopo Workflow explores sculpting; Creating Realistic Images with UV Textures and Node-Based Materials covers texturing snd then Mullen moves into Video Compositing, which is a Blender feature I didn't know existed.

The next six chapters cover scripting Blender with Python, another revelation, and mastering the Blender Game Engine.

Mullen appears to be one of the most knowledgeable Blender users on the planet. His writing style tends to be matter of fact and very straight-forward. His coverage of each of his subject areas is very thorough. There are many large and clear illustrations.

Overall, though it is highly doubtful that I will personally ever be able to use these Blender capabilities, I really enjoyed learning about them through Mullen's ably crafted book.

Jerry

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars covers all the *other* features in Blender, November 23, 2009

By 

Brad - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mastering Blender (Paperback)

I just want to let people know that this book is not a follow-on to Tony Mullen's earlier book on modeling and animation in Blender in that you are not going to learn advanced modeling and animation. This book simply covers all the other features in Blender such as sculpting, texturing (with gimp), video editing, compositing, python scripting and the Blender Game Engine. So if thats what youre interested in, this is the book. I think the Blender community is very lucky to have an author such as Tony Mullen considering that the vast majority of Blender users are hobbiests. If Mullen were to write book on commercial 3D apps, he would quickly make a name for himself as the best 3D graphics author around.

It should be mentioned that this book is printed in B&W and that you have to look at the book's pics on the CD to see them in color. Why oh why cant publishers mangage to print graphics books in color?

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Getting there is half the fun, July 19, 2009

By 

swmagicien (San Bruno, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mastering Blender (Paperback)

I mainly bought this book for the chapters on programming blender with Python and though brief, they went beyond my expectations. The three chapters on the Blender Game Engine (including one on Python Power in the BGE) also exceeded my expectations and fill in some of the areas that are neglected in The Blender Game Kit. Incidentally, the definitive volumes on the subjects of Python for blender and the blender game engine have yet to be written.

The rest of the material here is on other subjects that I didn't find as interesting but the presentation is generally thorough and systematic and will pay off for anyone who has the time and patience to work through it.

Much of the material is introduced through exercises presented in detail, with step-by-step instructions generously illustrated with screen captures. My impression and biggest criticism of the book was that most of the exercises seemed too detailed and too time-consuming but if you don't do them you won't feel you have really learned the material and all you will have gained is a general idea of the power of the features under discussion. I am referring specifically to the exercises on compositing, sculpting, and texturing.

With many of the hard to follow, long and sometimes unexciting exercises, it surely would have been useful had the author provided narrated videos lessons in addition to the detailed written instructions. And while blend files of the completed exercises are provided on the book's CD, it would have also more useful had the author provided blend files at intermediate stages for comparison, to get back on track where we might have had some trouble, or so that we can skip a few of the more repetitive steps.

One unexpectedly nice feature about this book is that each chapter thoughtfully ends with a section labeled The Bottom Line that provides suggestions for further practice of the chapter material. Outstanding!

I've tried to write a couple of tutorials on blender topics for my own use to get a handle on difficult subjects - it's tough. The author earns my admiration for having the smarts and perseverence to craft difficult subjects into interesting, informative, and entertaining written lessons.