Blender For Dummies »

Jason van Gumster has produced a variety of animations and visualeffects for television and film as producer/animator for Hand TurkeyStudios. A Blender user since 1998, he's given numerous Blender workshops and blogs for Blender Nation, the primary news Web site for Blender users.

Create 3D models and realistic scenes, and get animated with Blender!

Blender can do all the cool 3D things, but trying to figure it out on your own can make you feel as if you're in a blender. Relax! This book takes Blender step by step. First, you learn to think the Blender way. Then you start modeling, adding materials, lighting, rigging, and animating. Soon you'll be sharing your creations with the world!

• Become a Blenderhead — find out how Blender "thinks" and learn your way around the program

• Develop detailed 3D scenes — create almost anything with meshes, save time with modifiers, and make the best use of Blender's other object types

• Lights and texture — understand texture mapping, use different lamp types, and take advantage of ambient occlusion

• Give it life — rig your characters for animation with shape keys, hooks, and armatures, and understand inverse kinematics

• Get it out there — understand exporting, rendering, compositing, and editing for output

Open the book and find:

• Why Blender is perfect for small shops and independent artists

• How to navigate in three dimensions

• Ways to make animations more believable

• How to color vertices and provide texture

• Tips on making Blender do the animating for you

• What particle systems do

• Ten common problems new users face

• How to work with the video sequence editor

Bonus CD Includes

Blender 2.48a complete version! Save download time and install the version you'll use for this book.

See the CD appendix for details and complete system requirements.

Introduction.

Part I: Wrapping Your Brain Around Blender.

Chapter 1: Discovering Blender.

Chapter 2: Understanding How Blender Thinks.

Chapter 3: Getting Your Hands Dirty Working in Blender.

Chapter 4: Working in Edit Mode and Object Mode.

Part II: Creating Detailed 3D Scenes.

Chapter 5: Creating Anything You Can Imagine with Meshes.

Chapter 6: Using Blender’s Non-Mesh Primitives.

Chapter 7: Changing that Boring Gray Default Material.

Chapter 8: Giving Models Texture.

Chapter 9: Lighting and Environment.

Part III: Get Animated!

Chapter 10: Animating Objects.

Chapter 11: Rigging: The Art of Building an Animatable Puppet.

Chapter 12: Animating Object Deformations.

Chapter 13: Letting Blender Do the Work for You.

Part IV: Sharing Your Work with the World.

Chapter 14: Exporting and Rendering Scenes.

Chapter 15: Compositing and Editing.

Part V: The Part of Tens.

Chapter 16: Ten Problems for New Users in Blender (and Ways around Them).

Chapter 17: Ten Tips for Working More Effectively in Blender.

Appendix: About the CD.

Bonus Chapter: Ten Excellent Community Resources.

Index.