The Official Blender Gamekit: Interactive 3D for Artists [Paperback]

Ton Roosendaal (Author), Carsten Wartmann (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2003 | ISBN-10: 1593270046 | ISBN-13: 978-1593270049 | Edition: Pap/Cdr

Begins with an extensive introduction to 3D graphics, explaining basic concepts and the Blender interface. Step-by-step tutorials teach the art of creating and animating models, then show how to turn them into simple games. Experienced 3D artists will appreciate the more complex game demos, the character animation tutorials, the introduction to Python and the advanced reference section. The CD-ROM contains 10 playable and editable Blender game demos, all created by the renowned art department of Not a Number-Blender's original developers. The CD-ROM includes all files needed for the tutorials as well as copies of Blender for all platforms.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Anyone interested in 3D graphics needs to closely examine this book, the 3D tutorials alone are well worth the cost." -- Robert Richmond, TechIMO.com, 6/28/03

About the Author

Ton Roosendaal is Blender's creator and the chairman and founder of the Blender Foundation, the non-profit organization that maintains Blender under the GNU/GPL license. He co-authored The Official Blender 2.3 Guide, The Official Blender GameKit (both No Starch Press), and The Official Blender 2.0 Guide (Premier Press).

Carsten Wartmann is a 3D designer living in Berlin, Germany, and the author of The Official Blender GameKit, The Blender Book (both No Starch Press), and co-author of The Official Blender 2.0 Guide (Premier Press).

Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: No Starch Press; Pap/Cdr edition (May 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593270046
• ISBN-13: 978-1593270049
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #909,148 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars good and bad, October 27, 2003

By 

"mortlocl" (new zealand) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Official Blender Gamekit: Interactive 3D for Artists (Paperback)

Whats good about this book is it gives you a range of blender game creation learning from beginner level to advanced. There are heaps of screen shots showing various steps in a lesson. Whats bad are some of the screen shots.

In the 3D modelling section on making a car there are several screen shots. Looking at them it's near on impossible to spot a difference between them. They properly looked fine in colour but in black and white it's hard to see the vectors mentioned.
It's a shame someone didn't see this before printing as the content of the book is good but beginners do need clear illustrations.

As a beginner to blender and 3d game making I'm still glad I bought the book. There's a heap of good stuff.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You don't need much maths or physics, October 7, 2004

By 

W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Official Blender Gamekit: Interactive 3D for Artists (Paperback)

The book is a gentle introduction to Blender programming. It intends to lure in game programmers who want to build up their own games, and not just rack high scores in a game written by others. The authors cleverly start with an example of personalisation that can immediately grip you. They show how to easily wrap a facial image of someone onto a character's face. Just the sort of piquant appeal to some people.

Various chapters describe the features of Blender that you can quickly use. Some of you well versed in computer graphics will notice that the book goes lightly over the maths. Or the game physics, for that matter. The complexity of the rendering algorithms is not shown here. So you need only a minimal background in maths and physics, since tools have been developed within Blender that apply these and hide the details from you. The discussion in this book is at the level of using those tools, not developing them.

Still tempted? There is a lot more behind Blender. And if you find this book appealing, there are other more advanced texts behind this. Plus an entire online community of developers and gamers. The book only hints at the extent of the community.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars OK, June 15, 2005

By 

CGlover (CDN, newfoundland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Official Blender Gamekit: Interactive 3D for Artists (Paperback)

blender gamekit
blender 2.3 guide

If you want to know how to use blender, these are the books. They might not be up to date on the latest version, (especially the gamekit) but I managed to use both and found blender3d much easier to use. The online tutorials helped too, however there's so much missing that you need this book (both if you want to use blender for games). Maybe someday there'll be a pdf or something.. I find the books themselves a bit awkward if I am reading and following along.

All in all, if you're serious about 3d/blender/games here are your manuals.