The Essential Blender: Guide to 3D Creation with the Open Source Suite Blender

The Essential Blender: Guide to 3D Creation with the Open Source Suite Blender
by Roland Hess

The Essential Blender: Guide to 3D Creation with the Open Source Suite Blender
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Book Summary Information

Author: Roland Hess
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); English (Published)
Format: Illustrated
Published: 2007-09-27
Platform: Windows Vista, Windows XP
ISBN: 1593271662
Number of pages: 376
Publisher: No Starch Press

Book Reviews of The Essential Blender: Guide to 3D Creation with the Open Source Suite Blender

Book Review: Very, Very Difficult To Follow
Summary: 1 Stars

I found this book extremely difficult to follow.

Blender is non-user friendly and unintuitive as is (3DS and Maya are entire orders of magnitude easier to use). The book was somewhat helpful, but...

The tutorials in the book are too ambitious and throw too much at you at once. The mesh editing should not have started you out with that bridge building tutorial (Chapter 4).

As an example, there are two sections in chapter 4, Mesh Modeling Hands On (1st section) and Modeling Tools (2nd section). They should never have been put in this order. The Modeling Tools section should have come first. If you attempt to follow the "tutorial" in the 1st section you will be thoroughly confused. The 2nd section, Modeling Tools starts you off step by step on the tools and techniques you would have needed to follow the 1st section.

Also, in the "tutorial" there are a lot of intermediate steps without figures to show you what something should look like. It's very easy to end up with something that is very different down the line (after a number of steps have been completed) but could have been fixed if you had been shown the results during each step. They should have taken it in smaller steps (broken up into a few mini tutorials).

Additionally, what was in this book as a few pages would normally have been an entire chapter (maybe a section) in other books. They try to compress too much information into too small a space.

Finally, the figures that are referenced are not in colour and are somewhat small. I could barely tell what lines or vertices they wanted me to select, etc... It was a nightmare. I had to use a magnifiying glass to look at the figures in order to figure out what was being referred to.
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Summary of The Essential Blender: Guide to 3D Creation with the Open Source Suite Blender

Blender is a free and open source 3D creation suite that is a real alternative to commercially available 3D design software. A cross-platform software package with millions of downloads annually, Blender is now one of the world's most popular 3D design tools.

Although Blender is free, it's intended for design professionals and others motivated to become 3D artists. The Essential Blender will provide you with the knowledge you need to help integrate Blender into your work and begin to master its powerful creation tools.

If you've never tried 3D design before, an introductory chapter will familiarize you with relevant terminology and concepts. If you're already experienced with commercial 3D software, The Essential Blender will get you up to speed with Blender quickly. After a tour of Blender's 3D modeling, animation, and rendering capabilities, you'll learn how best to use Blender for these tasks:

  • Object manipulation and animation
  • Mesh and sculpt modeling and shape animation
  • Materials and texturing (including UV unwrapping)
  • Lighting and rendering
  • Particle animation
  • Character rigging and animation
  • Node-based composition

    The book is modular in its approach, with each topic addressed independently and accompanied by hands-on tutorial sections.

    The combined expertise of key members of the Blender community, coupled with the experience of editor Roland Hess, bring you The Essential Blender-the definitive guide to Blender. You'll find a wealth of 3D design information inside that will help you to unlock your artistic potential and get the most out of Blender.

    Includes a Complete Version of Blender 2.44 on the CD-ROM. Covers Windows, Mac OS X, Linux (x86 and PowerPC), Solaris, FreeBSD, and IRIX.

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