Introducing Character Animation with Blender

perfect

PRO: This book really hits things on target and allows even a new and old user alike to understand alot about character development in the Blender enviromentCON: The only thing that i did NOT like was the fact that the book only covered TWO types of deforms, which are blender enviroment specific. Having to go elsewhere to learn mesh deformation is kind of a let down. Although i have enough material on this subject after having spent a few days gathering it, i feel as though this would empower this book further. Many of us will export the characters we make into other formats and many problems arise from there.If this subject was discussed then this book would be 100%. All in all, it's one of the best books out there for blender character development.

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!

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

I bought this instead of the Roland Hess Essential Blender Book based on the reviews here I thought it would be a better beginner book...I could have never been more wrong.This is now the second time I find a bunch of overly positive reviews for a product that is severly lacking. I am losing faith in Amazon's rating system as of recently, see my comment at the bottom on this. This book has been a very fustrating, huge dissappointment. I have spent 3 days on the first chapter and the first 4 pages of the second one trying to make heads or tails out of the instructions. I have experience with computer programs I'm not a noob to a computer in any means. However Blenders interface is from another planet and this book does not help at all in demystifying Blenders interface at all. If anything this will confuse you beyond belief.Here are some instructions from the book that are lacking or incompletepg. 20 it talks about mesh's and objects and how they are interjoined yet seperate. The problem here is it is not a clear explanation at all additionally you end up with 3 objects. One of these objects will have a 0 next to them which according to the book you have to assign a "fake user" or else lose it when you save blender.Pg. 23 "In the view meny in the drop-down header os the Outliner window, you can select the outliner view, which gives a different visualization of the data in your file, as can be seen in Figure 1.16. As in the OOPS schematic view, you can select the datablocks and you are put in the appropriate mode to edit the datablocks you selected"-I tried clicking several times in many different ways right and left and middle mouse button I tried them all and none of them changed the view. So something isn't right here.pg. 31 "You should end up with the peanut like shapoe you see in figure 2.4"-nope tried this several times and never got a peanut, got two seperate balls. Figure C and D also look different mine did not look different.pg. 33 It says "Your 3d cursor should still be in the center of both views; if it isn't left click the center of the view to put it there and then click Shift+S and select Snap Cursor to Grid to get it centered.-There is two problems with these instructions first off the screens were split per earlier instructions. When it says center view it is very assuming in the way it is written as it assumes that you will understand (in a completely new interface that is split) that he is talking about the center of each window view the left and the right not the actual center between the two windows. It also says both views.pg. 33 "select and delete the vertical edge furthest from the center" OK just how do you select and delete a vertical edge ? There is no instructions on how to do this.pg. 35 "Now you will use the Extrude tool to trace the outline of the profile" No mention where this tool is or how to access it not even in the back of the book it just points to this page and one other page which is the title of the chapter.I have completely given up with this book. It is written for someone already familiar with Blenders interface and all of its quirks. It also consitently has instructions where the actual action proceeds the actual explanation or tool to do the action. It is like telling someone to go drive the car around the block bring it home and remember to get the groceries (when you were never told to so in the first place or never intended to get them on your drive around the block). It is like everything was an after thought in the instructions. Almost like someone saying "here do this but by the way you must use this tool" (which is never mentioned where to find it). I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS BOOK AT ALL IF YOUR A BEGINNER.I am growing very suspicious of overly positive reviews with little sustenance to them (i.e. they lack pointing to specifics of why they liked it, what stood out, quanitifcation of the opinion) instead someone just says "it's a great book!"

I reviewed this book when it was first released, and gave it a 5-star review. I've come back to edit that review because, in retrospect, I realise that I was so delighted to find ANY book on Blender character animation that I overlooked some definite flaws. I now rate it as 4-star (but while Amazon allows me to revise my wording, it won't let me change the number of stars.)I've recently been working through the book again, and have come back to give the following revised review.==========================For several years, I downloaded Blender on a regular basis, tried to learn how to use it, and gave up because I found it far too difficult.The appearance of this book changed that. Now for the first time, I 'get' Blender, and see that its quirky and apparently non-intuitive interface really makes a lot of sense.I'm also even more awestruck at how jaw-droppingly good Blender actually is. Yes, this FREE downloadable program is shockingly *better* than 3D software packages I've purchased at several hundred pounds/dollars a shot.This book takes you all the way on your journey, from the interface basics, to modeling your figure, to full-fledged animation. I highly recommend it, and would go so far as to say that it *is* an essential purchase for a Blender user.There are a few minor annoyances - not everything that's supposed to be on the accompanying disk is actually there, and there are a few minor typos scattered through out the text and places where the instructions could have been a little clearer.Sadly there are some that are not quite so minor. For example in setting up the rig to animate my model, I followed the instructions exactly, yet always ended up with a rig that just didn't work. After many, many frustrating attempts, I loaded up the author's figure from the accompanying disk, and checked through it bone by bone...And found that an important set of bones in the author's rig were set up differently from the instructions in the book. I guess the sentence about re-parenting the hand IK bones must have dropped out somewhere.Thereafter, having wasted days trying to figure out what was going wrong, I kept two instances of Blender open. In one, I had my own work-in-progress, in the other I had the author's model, and I kept comparing them every step of the way.I would go so far as to say that if you don't have the accompanying disk, this book will be... well, not *useless*, but you'll never succeed in following the projects it outlines.In spite of the above, I still think it's currently the best (uh... the only?) book available on Blender Character animation. I still think it's a must-buy for someone trying to learn Blender. But I would add this caution: Make sure you get a version that includes the disk of examples (ie, don't get a second-hand book where the disk has gone astray, and don't get an electronic download (which doesn't include the material on the disk.)Because of the errata, I now rate this book at 4 stars, but so long as you heed the caution about needing (and using) the disk, I would still recommend it highly.

I found Blender 3D baffling at the start. And despite perseverance 'found the first book I got just added to the problem. But thankfully not this one. Tony Mullen has a no nonsense, blissfully straightforward style. His exercises and guides are easy to follow (no peering at the screen and wondering where he'd found such-and-such a button) and learning is near-effortless. And "near-effortless" is as good as its going to get with as powerful a program as Blender! I see he's already produced an edition for the latest version of Blender, but using this 2007 book with my recently update (Blender 2.56) isn't proving a problem.So if you're keen to learn Blender animation, this book can take you from newbie to modelling, texturing, lighting and animating in a well paced way.

Was hoping to get into Blender but haven't managed it

This book was like a treasure uncovered in the as yet mostly uncharted water of Blender character modelling and animation. I was delighted to buy it and work my way though almost 95% of the book. However, this was not a painless task!!! Many of the tasks and instructions are either based on a previous, now defunct version of Blender, if you install the latest one available on the website. Part of it just seemed to be carelessly written. After much struggling, as a newbie in this area, I realised that the book's basic flaw is that is it written by an obvious expert for experts. By this I mean that the content might not always be de facto incorrect... just not explained in a way that would make sense to someone who has no Blender knowledge or experience as context to make sense of it.It is a shame that specimens like this achieve acclaim purely because there is not much else available on this subject.

Ehrlich gesagt mag ich Bücher nicht in denen über mehrere Kapitel ein ganzes, fertiges Beispiel erstellt wird, lieber ist mir wenn es sich um kleine geschlossene Beispiele handeln die jeweils ein Thema behandeln. Das hat Tony Mullen im Buch "Bounce, Tumble, and Splash!" besser gelöst. Trotzdem ist das Buch gut geschrieben und die nötigen Informationen lassen sich problemlos rauslesen. Das Ziel Charakter Animation zu erlernen wird erreicht, wenn vielleicht auch nicht so wie es der Autor vorsieht. Nämlich durch nacharbeiten des Beispiels.Trotz vieler, mir zum Teil zu langer, Erklärungen ist das Buch mit sinnvollen Informationen gefüllt. Tony Mullen ist dafür bekannt Profiwissen verständlich, anhand von Beispielen, zu vermitteln. Und da ist auch dieses Buch keine Ausnahme! Vergleichbar gute und tiefgreifende Tutorials sucht man im Internet oft vergebens.Einige wird es freuen das hier auch relativ ausführlich auf das organische Modellieren eingegagen wird. Mich hat es leider eher gestört hat, weil es nicht der Grund war warum ich das Buch lesen wollte.Nach "Bounce, Tumble, and Splash!" - das wirklich mal ein interessantes Spezialgebiet gekonnt abdeckt, ist es definitiv eines der besten Bücher für Blender.ACHTUNG: Dieses Buch bezieht sich auf die Blender Version 2.4.x. Eine Neuauflage für Blender 2.5 (oder 2.6) des Buches ist bereits in Arbeit. Die Techniken die man in dieser Version des Buches lernt lassen sich zwar auch in 2.5 anwenden, allerdings sollte man dann schon bereit sein auszuprobieren, inwiefern sich das Benutzerinterface sich geändert hat. Generell ist aber der Umstieg von 2.4 zu 2.5 reine Umgewöhnungssache. Wenn man aber bisher ausschließlich mit 2.5 gearbeitet hat, ist es evtl. besser die Neuauflage (vor-) zu bestellen.