The Official Blender 2.3 Guide: Free 3D Creation Suite for Modeling, Animation, and Rendering

Rating:
Summary: Great guide for grasping powerful but unintuitive software
Review: Blender is the most powerful 3D modeling and design program I've had the fortune of using. NOt being able to afford to spend thousands, the price is fantastic. But it's really hard to get rolling on it without good documentation, since the interface is far from intuitive or easy to grasp--it's unlike anything you've ever seen. A manual is really a basic.

Fortunately, the 2.3 guide provides everything you need to not only get started, but learn how to understand the software and figure out how to do more advanced things on your own. Most astounding about this is that the book was written along the same lines as the software--through an open source, community effort.

Just about every instruction is illustrated and walks you through the maze of control panels, menus and tabs. Instructions are explicit and specific (for the most part), and explain just enough to let you know what you're doing (for the most part) without burying you in details. Yes, it has some weird grammar at points, weird typos in various places, and sentences that seem like they came out of babelfish in a few more. Yes, the tone shifts from basic "make a box. click on the little handle dohickey and drag (click and pull the mouse)" in some chapters to three pages of derivatives and formulas for calculating and understanding light falloff ratios that assume advanced expertise in understanding computer graphics programming. Overall, however, it's a very good read, a very good how-to guide.

Before I had it, it took me three weeks to model a stage and a set I've been designing. After reading it, i started from scratch and built the same scene in 1 hour, fixed all my lighting problems in just a few minutes, and got into applying textures and rendering in just an hour more. Great timesaver--now I don't feel like I should really be looking at Maya.

Rating:
Summary: Massive set of abilities
Review: For those of you who did not grow up with Open Source being a mainstream concept, and who first delved into graphics before 1995, this book describes an amazing thing. The latest version of Blender. Free source code that has this voluminous guide. The book offers a laundry list of major capabilities - modelling, animation, rendering, post production and even an interactive real time ability. The latter being best suited for game developers. And Blender runs on most Microsoft and unix/linux platforms.

Blender incorporates what were once cutting edge research ideas, like radiosity. I remember a Siggraph in the late 80s, where papers and images were first shown using it. Damn exciting then! Now, you get it trivially here. Right out of the box.

The book has chapters contributed from all over the world. Some sections were written with English that's a little clumsy. But allow for this. The authors' first languages were not English. The book does show how a Blender community has thrived, with a global scope. Not a trivial consideration, if you're considering adopting Blender. It means there is support for your questions, so your investment in time won't get stranded.

Take a look at the full colour glossies in the book. Lovely images from Blender experts. Something to inspire you. Realistically, if you are new, your efforts won't yield such beauties. But it is great motivation.

Rating:
Summary: From someone with no previous graphics experience
Review: I got started with Blender just a few months ago. Bought a DV camera, then got interested in editing my homemade movies, bought some software, later got interested in adding effects, bought some software again, to finally wanting to add CG animation. I didn't want to spend more money in software so I decided to give Blender a try. Now it has become a very steady hobby for me. The software is FREE and it's managed through a foundation. In Blender free by no means is equivalent to "basic", "unsuported" or "buggy". The community is incredible, updates are constant and you will get support very quickly. The book is based on version 2.3 and as we speak the version is about to be 2.36 but the material it's still very valid. Much of the material you would find in the internet, since the manual itself is a worlwide collaboration from different tutorial available. But You get a cd with all models used and its intermmediate steps which is extremely useful. The book is mainly a general reference guide and covers most if not all functions and buttons. Includes some tutorials but don't expect a tutorial driven training book. CG as I have found takes time and PATIENCE but the results are very rewarding. Blender's interface will drive you nuts at the beginning, but later you will see it as its greatest asset. So come on and join all the "blenderheads".


Rating:
Summary: This guide rocks
Review: I've been a blender user since 2001, i've got all kinds of tutorial books on blender, and this is the best one so far.
If you've been looking fo cool tutorials on character animation for blender 3d, this is the book you've been waiting for.
I recommend this book for all blender users. The book has the contents of the previous guide and fresh stuff too. The authors did a good job on it.