Let this in?depth professional book be your guide to Blender, the powerful open?source 3D modeling and animation software that will bring your ideas to life. Using clear step?by?step instruction and pages of real?world examples, expert animator Tony Mullen walks you through the complexities of modeling and animating, with a special focus on characters. From Blender basics to creating facial expressions and emotion to rendering, you?ll jump right into the process and learn valuable techniques that will transform your movies.

Note: CD?ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Let this in-depth professional book be your guide to Blender, the powerful open source 3D modeling and animation software that will bring your ideas to life. Using clear step by step instruction and pages of real world examples, expert animator Tony Mullen walks you through the complexities of modeling and animating, with a special focus on characters. From Blender basics to creating facial expressions and emotion to rendering, you’ll jump right into the process and learn valuable techniques that will transform your movies. Note: CD ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Open your mind to the possibilities

Let this in?depth professional book be your guide to Blender, the powerful open?source 3D modeling and animation software that will bring your ideas to life. Using clear step?by?step instruction and pages of real?world examples from talented Blender users, expert animator Tony Mullen walks you through the complexities of modeling and animating, with a special focus on characters. From Blender basics to creating facial expressions and emotion to rendering, you?ll jump right into the process and learn valuable techniques that will transform your movies.

• Walk through the complete process of building a character
• Master mesh modeling tools and organic modeling
• Fashion skin, hair, and clothing with material shaders, textures, and other tools
• Learn to sync lip movements with a sound file
• Understand interpolation curves, keyframes, and the basics of animating

Model your characters using a variety of mesh editing techniques

See how armatures, lattices, and IK interact

Light and render your work for exactly the effect you want

Valuable DVD with complete Blender installation

The companion DVD provides the Blender installer for Windows®, Macintosh®, and Linux®. You?ll also find:

• All the source files you need to produce the examples and tutorials in the book
• The short film Elephants Dream and all the files used to create it
• An impressive gallery of short animations created by Blender artists around the world
• Plenty of useful links to related Blender resources
• A large collection of third?party software and plug?ins, including Audacity, Python, and the popular BlenderPeople

www.sybex.com

Tony Mullen, Ph.D., teaches at Tsuda College, Tokyo, where his courses include modeling and animation with Blender as well as the Python programming language. Mullen has been a cartoonist and an illustrator. His screen credits include writer, co?director, or lead animator on several short films, including the award?winning Gustav Braüstache shorts.

Let this in-depth professional book be your guide to Blender, the powerful open-source 3D modeling and animation software that will bring your ideas to life. Using clear step-by-step instruction and pages of real-world examples, expert animator Tony Mullen walks you through the complexities of modeling and animating, with a special focus on characters. From Blender basics to creating facial expressions and emotion to rendering, you’ll jump right into the process and learn valuable techniques that will transform your movies.

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Open your mind to the possibilities

Let this in-depth professional book be your guide to Blender, the powerful open-source 3D modeling and animation software that will bring your ideas to life. Using clear step-by-step instruction and pages of real-world examples from talented Blender users, expert animator Tony Mullen walks you through the complexities of modeling and animating, with a special focus on characters. From Blender basics to creating facial expressions and emotion to rendering, you’ll jump right into the process and learn valuable techniques that will transform your movies.

• Walk through the complete process of building a character
• Master mesh modeling tools and organic modeling
• Fashion skin, hair, and clothing with material shaders, textures, and other tools
• Learn to sync lip movements with a sound file
• Understand interpolation curves, keyframes, and the basics of animating

Model your characters using a variety of mesh editing techniques

See how armatures, lattices, and IK interact

Light and render your work for exactly the effect you want

Valuable DVD with complete Blender installation

The companion DVD provides the Blender installer for Windows(r), Macintosh, and Linux. You’ll also find:

• All the source files you need to produce the examples and tutorials in the book
• The short film Elephants Dream and all the files used to create it
• An impressive gallery of short animations created by Blender artists around the world
• Plenty of useful links to related Blender resources
• A large collection of third-party software and plug-ins, including Audacity, Python, and the popular BlenderPeople

www.sybex.com

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Open your mind to the possibilities

Let this in-depth professional book be your guide to Blender, the powerful open-source 3D modeling and animation software that will bring your ideas to life. Using clear step-by-step instruction and pages of real-world examples from talented Blender users, expert animator Tony Mullen walks you through the complexities of modeling and animating, with a special focus on characters. From Blender basics to creating facial expressions and emotion to rendering, you’ll jump right into the process and learn valuable techniques that will transform your movies.

• Walk through the complete process of building a character
• Master mesh modeling tools and organic modeling
• Fashion skin, hair, and clothing with material shaders, textures, and other tools
• Learn to sync lip movements with a sound file
• Understand interpolation curves, keyframes, and the basics of animating

Model your characters using a variety of mesh editing techniques

See how armatures, lattices, and IK interact

Light and render your work for exactly the effect you want

Valuable DVD with complete Blender installation

The companion DVD provides the Blender installer for Windows(r), Macintosh, and Linux. You’ll also find:

• All the source files you need to produce the examples and tutorials in the book
• The short film Elephants Dream and all the files used to create it
• An impressive gallery of short animations created by Blender artists around the world
• Plenty of useful links to related Blender resources
• A large collection of third-party software and plug-ins, including Audacity, Python, and the popular BlenderPeople

www.sybex.com

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Open your mind to the possibilities

Let this in-depth professional book be your guide to Blender, the powerful open-source 3D modeling and animation software that will bring your ideas to life. Using clear step-by-step instruction and pages of real-world examples from talented Blender users, expert animator Tony Mullen walks you through the complexities of modeling and animating, with a special focus on characters. From Blender basics to creating facial expressions and emotion to rendering, you’ll jump right into the process and learn valuable techniques that will transform your movies.
* Walk through the complete process of building a character
* Master mesh modeling tools and organic modeling
* Fashion skin, hair, and clothing with material shaders, textures, and other tools
* Learn to sync lip movements with a sound file
* Understand interpolation curves, keyframes, and the basics of animating

Model your characters using a variety of mesh editing techniques

See how armatures, lattices, and IK interact

Light and render your work for exactly the effect you want

Valuable DVD with complete Blender installation

The companion DVD provides the Blender installer for Windows(r), Macintosh(r), and Linux(r). You’ll also find:
* All the source files you need to produce the examples and tutorials in the book
* The short film Elephants Dream and all the files used to create it
* An impressive gallery of short animations created by Blender artists around the world
* Plenty of useful links to related Blender resources
* A large collection of third-party software and plug-ins, including Audacity, Python, and the popular BlenderPeople

www.sybex.com

Open your mind to the possibilities

Let this in-depth professional book be your guide to Blender, the powerful open-source 3D modeling and animation software that will bring your ideas to life. Using clear step-by-step instruction and pages of real-world examples from talented Blender users, expert animator Tony Mullen walks you through the complexities of modeling and animating, with a special focus on characters. From Blender basics to creating facial expressions and emotion to rendering, you’ll jump right into the process and learn valuable techniques that will transform your movies.
* Walk through the complete process of building a character
* Master mesh modeling tools and organic modeling
* Fashion skin, hair, and clothing with material shaders, textures, and other tools
* Learn to sync lip movements with a sound file
* Understand interpolation curves, keyframes, and the basics of animating

Model your characters using a variety of mesh editing techniques

See how armatures, lattices, and IK interact

Light and render your work for exactly the effect you want

Valuable DVD with complete Blender installation

The companion DVD provides the Blender installer for Windows(r), Macintosh(r), and Linux(r). You’ll also find:
* All the source files you need to produce the examples and tutorials in the book
* The short film Elephants Dream and all the files used to create it
* An impressive gallery of short animations created by Blender artists around the world
* Plenty of useful links to related Blender resources
* A large collection of third-party software and plug-ins, including Audacity, Python, and the popular BlenderPeople

www.sybex.com

* Used for architectural modeling, product modeling, and illustration, Blender is the free, open source, powerful multipurpose 3D modeling and animation tool that is gaining a following among animators
* This book teaches readers the complete process of modeling and animating, including other functions related to character work such as softbodies and particle hair
* Written in a friendly but professional tone, with clear descriptions and a color insert that provides real-world examples from talented Blender users around the world
* Offers tutorials that focus on how to accomplish actual animation goals while illustrating the necessary technical methods along the way
* The companion DVD includes the complete Blender installation executable for Windows, Mac, and Linux; the world’s first open source movie, Elephants Dream; a great collection of utility software; and all the project files used to accompany the book’s tutorials

Use the DVD as your reference or this book will be painful

I have worked through this book. Since rigging was a new area for me, it was great to find a handy reference book. Really frustrating to go through the book using your own mesh and to rigged following the book, step by step and then for things not to work,because of course you think you have made the mistake as you are a Newbie at this. No, the Editor did not do their job. So if you plan to use this book make sure you cross reference to the examples on the accompanying DVD. Lets hope for everyone sanity for the next edition they actually check out what is written.
Looking forward to Mancandy DVD since this book did get me through the rigging basics.

Best Book Ever

So far out of the two blender books I have this is the best one.

Very Fast Response from Tony Mullen

I just received Introducing Character Animation with Blender. The book seems very well written and well illustrated. I have only made it through part of the first chapter, but if I don’t learn character animation, it will be my fault, not the book’s. Two amazing things: 1. The book had no CD. Nothing. 2. I fired off an email to Tony Mullen complaining about this fact. Within hours, I got a response, and an attachment containing the files I needed. You should definitely buy a book from an author who cares that much for his customers.

Waste

I bought this book because it has good reviews. I hope I can learn somethings from this book, but I had spend hours read this book until fall sleep and still don’t get it. This book has no step by step instruction. This is the worst book I ever bought.

FANCY FREE and did I mention FREE!!!!!!!

Tony Mullen takes the guess work out of long prosaic tutorials that sometimes can confuse a beginner. Anyone who has ever used other expensive animation programs will be amazed at the functional integration that Blender offers the beginner and more advanced user.

This book takes you from step by step toolbox explanations to jumpstarting a project - in an afternoon. All you need is a decent video card, enough hard drive space and this book!!!! For those advanced enough to go beyond the confines of this book, additional podcasts exist on iTunes and websites devoted to this niche.

Unleashing you imagination with Blender is an inexpensive way to explore the world of animation - This book is written for beginner and technical neophyte as long as you have some basic knowledge of Photoshop.

great book

This is an awsome book for the beginning or intermediate Blenderhead. It might even be useful for the advanced user. I think it is the best book for someone who has worked with blender, learned some of the tools but needs to tie the concepts together. Yes you can probably learn the same concepts from online tutorials and the wiki but those tend to be somewhat disjointed. The book is clearly written and easy to follow. How complete it is probably depends on how advanced you are and what you are trying to do. If you are new to modeling it will keep you busy for a while.
What’s wrong with this book? This book is defective. As stated by many others the included DVD is destroyed. The DVD has been incorporated into the binding of the book so not only is the DVD useless but removing the DVD may actually destroy the book binding. This book probably should be recalled by the publisher and rebound. The publisher is very good about sending a new DVD, a simple email and they send you a new one,free no questions. Is the DVD important? Maybe. The software is freely available on the net, however the files for the book are useful. Another problem with this book is the screen captures. Most blender books share this problem. The gray blender background does not reproduce well. There are times when the author indictates that vert placement is important but it is hard to tell from the picture where exactly the verts are. The DVD files may help with that.
So, this is a must have book for those trying to get their head around blender, one star off for poor production values.

The Blender Book

I never did any character modeling before reading this book,and it got me going on. It was a great introduction to the whole world of modeling and animation and to the world of Blender. The text is easy to follow and understand. It is heavily supported by step-by-step screen shots and very well guided through. At the end of the modeling part, the author gives tips and solutions to common modeling "mistakes", like faces facing in the wrong direction etc. That was great, as there was no need to use Google. So what I’m saying here is that the author was expecting a newbie like me to read the book :).

My only regret is that the author decided to model a cartoon character and not a real human; perhaps he could’ve got a little more realistic and put a bit more emphasis into human muscles and structure. On the other hand, as the title says, this is an "Introduction to character animation", so that’s the reason why he picked a cartoon character and focused more on the animation part.

Conclusion: great book !

good book to learn blender

I have only made it through the first two chapters (intro and modeling) and have found it to be thorough and informative. I purchased the book to get good at rigging and animating, and it looks like it does a good job of that too. High quality book, good references. good for beginners and intermediates.

simply awesome

Not just the writing is extremely clear. This book has the most awesome DVD I have ever gotten with a book. There is just an incredible amount of clearly-written, helpful information in the book. You will have no regrets whatsoever when you buy this book.
I am a professional freelance 3d artist, and I am switching from LightWave to blender, and have spent 2 months studying Blender. It is probably best if you have spent a similar amount of time before diving into this book, especially if you are new to 3d. Character animation is an advanced tool set and requires a thoroughly grounded understanding of basic 3d skills and concepts. That said, this is the best written tome on the subject I have ever owned.

Good book; Lousy packaging

Bought this for my teenage son who’s interested in animation. 1st copy arrived with no DVD. Returned it for a 2nd copy, which arrived with a DVD cracked & fused into the binding, as another reviewer experienced. The 3rd copy arrived defect-free, and has lived up to expectations, providing enough guidance to keep my son glued to the PC for hours on end.

blender is an amazing tool

This book is the sort of thing that takes time to get through and really gives you a sense of the skills you need to build. It is essentially for someone already intermediate in skill in Blender 3D and especially important for anyone who is particularly interested in animating 3D. The included files are helpful and the process of making Blenderman shows you how to do all the bits and parts to make a complex character with rigging and hair and clothes and all. Because it is open source the program comes on the disk with the book. In fact one of the best ways you can support blender.org is to buy this book.

Superb.. Fantastic.. Aweinspiring!

This book is simply the most fun I’ve had with a computer - after being a programmer for many years, that’s comparing it with a good many books on many different subjects.

The book is not only well written - it treats the reader with a level of respect. You cannot just parrot the content into Blender but have to remember process and key combinations to understand what is actually being done, no page is wasted - the content just keeps coming. Being a teacher now, I can appreciate the thought that has gone into the book and helping the reader conquer the difficult(albeit powerful) Blender interface.

The learning curve is steep but not insurmountable (every time you feel like giving up, one more try seems to get you over the hill) - even to a 3d newby like me! It must have been tempting to dumb down the material, but the book would have been much poorer for it.

If you need a hand with Blender - this is the place to start. Be careful though, I had to have a think about the time I’m spending on it as my wife now asks if I am going to do some more "blending".. If she’s making up new words it’s usually a bad sign.. Now if someone can write a good book on using Blender with Java3d...

Russ.

Great book, lousy publisher

I bought this book to learn how to create, rig, and animate a character from scratch. This is a huge task, but the book provides enough information for a motivated person to be able to take it on. Note that I say motivated, as there will most definitely be bumps along the way. But that’s all you can really ask for in a book like this, and it definitely delivers, with large, clear illustrations (and a nice set of color plates). I am still working my way through it, but I can see now that I’ve got enough in this book to get me over the threshold and into simple rigging and animation, and from that point of view, it was money well spent. A couple of other points:

I really appreciate it when authors just stick to the content, and don’t try to be overly funny, or inject too much of their own opinions into their work. That is definitely the case here, and the book feels more useful for it.

There is a lot of content here, so it will take a while to absorb, but I am so glad to have it all in one place. The tutorials on the net are great, but this is so much more efficient, and has a more polished feel to it.

I won’t dock stars from my rating for the shoddy work the publisher has done in putting the book together, because that has nothing to do with the content, but it’s still incredibly frustrating. One of the things I was really looking forward to was having the hi-res version of Elephant’s Dream, and all the files used in its creation. However, Sybex, in their incompetence, actually glued the CD to the book, and when I finally got it off, pieces of the CD were still stuck to the book. Needless to say, I was disappointed. Also, the binding is of particularly poor quality, and is already split in two places, even though I am very gentle with the book.

Introducing Charaacter Animation with Blender

I bought this book for my husband for Christmas. I had read some other reviews that said the book was good, but several said that when they received the book that the DVD that is included was glued into the binding of the book. And likewise, when I received the book I had the same problem. Amazon was very willing to let me return or exchange the book, but was unable to just ship me another DVD (they tried). Since I really wanted this gift for my hubby, I called Wiley Publishing and they sent me a copy of the DVD. I had to follow up on it twice, but eventually received it in good working order.

Damaged DVD

I received the book for Christmas, so I’ve not had time to really work through it yet. Just want to let everyone know, the DVD in my book was also destroyed by the binding process. It was glued into the binding - removing it from the book destroyed the DVD. I’ve not tried to get a replacement yet, I would like to have it so I can view the files on it.

Update: Just after I put this in, I went to Sybex web site and was able to do live chat with Customer Service person. They are sending me a new DVD. I mentioned that others had commented on Amazon’s web site about having the same issue. The response was "Unless they report it with the publishing company we are not aware of the issue. But I will send you a no charge replacement for the DVD." So, please make sure you let them know there’s an issue with the DVD.

Rare, but not the best quality.

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.

it’s okay but to be realistic.....

I did learn a few things from this book and the information on some of the blender projects was interesting but with that said, I have to add this book is not what it’s cracked up to be. While providing a lot of information on what folks do with blender it fails to provide a very complete set of insights into the process of using it. Some of the content is just unfinished or is concluded by telling the reader to simply look at the sample files, with no further explanation(I found this to be more confusing than helpful). These are files mostly available all over the net tutorials anyway so having them on a disk was more of a convenience than informative. The section on lighting and shading was almost non-existent. There are lots of pictures(with no explanations on how to achieve the effects, etc denoted). I’m sure folks can pick up a few tricks from the text. But if you are looking for a manual on how to make characters in blender you will be disapointed. Oh and BTW> The DVD I received in the book as so scratched that it wouldn’t even load up. I think this book is a decent start and is about as helpful as any of the good tut’s out there but it seemed unfinished in spots, and maybe needs a revision or two before it will measure up to how it is portrayed in its description.

best book for learning character sub-d modeling and animation

This is not just a good Blender book, this book is the best Ive seen for learning the whole process of modeling and animating a 3D character. If you are new to 3D, you should know that Blender has a very difficult interface in which to learn, although all the rabid Blender devotees will tell you once you learn it, its the best workflow (I still dont know Blender well enough to make a fair call). But not only does this book effortlessly explain how to use the interface, it teaches very good modeling practices by using a simple but good quality character in which is used for entire book (the body was very easy, the face sort of tricky). This is so much better than regular 3D books that jump around to a thousand different unrelated aspects to the interface. You also are given a brief but good coverage of materials and texturing. And then go on to make quite a complex rig as well as many other aspects of rigging and skinning such as action constraints and facial animation with lip syncing. The book also covers nonlinear animation, lattice deformation and metaballs as well as python scripting. And of course how to render the final animation. Ive found no other 3D modeling/animation book that covers all this so simply. And I was even able to send my .blend file to the email the author provided in the book when I got stuck on rigging and he gladly gave advice.

not bad at all

I pre-ordered this book the moment it appeared on Amazon...there are few resources which delve so in depth on this subject with blender all in one place, so if you’re a blender enthusiast, it is surely the way to go.

Tony Mullen’s writing style is superb for any newbie who wants to understand, a style which seems to be fairly prevalent in much of the resources that the blender community offers. They tend to write for those whom they know may or may not have extensive experience in CGI. If someone writes an introduction to the concepts of Blender, they write it accordingly. mind you this is an individual who holds a Ph.D. and yet his writing isn’t intimidating at all.

I also enjoyed the forwards by Bassam Kurdali and Ton Roosendaal
and as far as having a problem with the included dvd, it worked just fine! And I really enjoyed watching the surreal "Elephant Dream", who knew blender could accomplish so much? though I do suspect that some heavy programming was done to accomplish some of the effects, but at least you get an idea that Blender is a very, very serious program with some amazing abilities.

Excellent!

If you are new to Blender and 3d animation, this book will help you to "open your mind to the possibilities". You will learn to build and animate your own character step by step. Easy to follow and very well explained. The included DVD has a lot of animation samples and source files used in the book. Go for it!

Great Blender Intro and Character Design

Of all the books I’ve read on 3D, this is the first that actually has been useful and direct to me. I have been using Blender 3D for a year now, but I found that there was alot of cool features that I missed that I then learned from this book.

Besides a great introduction, this book flows smoothly with the creation of a face from only a reference photo (with all the intermediate steps to get there), and then the rest of the book is showing how to build a a fully rigged (ready for animation) character from scratch. I am so amazed with this book.

This is a definitely a worthwhile book. I teach Blender 3D for a organization at Texas A&M University, and I suggest this to them all.

Animation Motivated Novices

Great book for the Blender Project. The intro says it all, for Blender Pros and highly motivated novices. Great tutorial and all the pieces included on CD.

Essential purchase for the Blender user!

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 a few hundred pounds/dollars a shot.

This book takes you all the way on your journey, from the interface basics, to modelling 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. I have to admit that a few of these had me cursing the author under my breath, but in spite of this I was able to follow the project through to completion, and believe me, Gentle Reader, if *I* can do it, *anybody* can do it.

VERY highly recommended.

Flawed, but still an essential purchase for the Blender user!

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.

excellent deal

This product arrived around a month from the day the purchase was made. the product arrived in excellent conditions, And I also found it{s cheaper than in other websites.

Exactly what I needed.

I’ve been learning Blender for a while now, piecing it together from stray tutorials and such, but with this very affordable book, I’ve found exactly what I needed. I already knew a lot of what the book covers, but it helped fill in some gaps that most online tutorials take for granted, and gave me a whole, more complete view of how to go about my business with Blender. I would definately buy another book from this author.

Complete!!

That was the first word from me about this book after reading it... from the modelling of your character, troubleshooting, poly-by-poly, extruding box modelling, particles, curve edition, to rigging, animation, actions, IPO curves, lightning, textures... to hints about maximize workflow, using of datablocks, and many, many other things... and more! analises about the making of Elephants Dream, Plumiferos, and even tips for those trying to get into the world of animation.

This amazing book, approved by Blender Foundation president Ton Rosendall, cames with a DVD with all the files you will need to do you tutorials and exercises (or to start from a more advanced one, if you want), many animations, rigs ready to use, and many applications (Blender included) for Linux and Windows.

A must have for experient and novice people alike!

Helpfull, but occasionally confusing

I haven’t gotten near finishing this book, but so far it has been extremely helpful. I’ve learned a lot reading it, and that was what I hoped for. It’s definitely a good buy for blender users.

Blender... Tony Mullen

This book is great! You’ll learn a lot about Blender in a few hours, following excercices. I bought this book, to get started in animation, actually, I had the official Blender guido to learn the basics, interface, etc - But, this book, does that all! You’ll open the first page and start following the recomended exercices and even without noticing you’re getting all the basics uppon your head! Honestly, I’m new in 3d, but theres been a few months and I’ve read a lot of stuff...done nothing out of this world...got kind a scared...you know?! and then...bought this up! I hope that mister Tony Mullen keeps up the good work! We need you man!

Since this was written, having in mind v2.3 (available in cd-rom), you’ll get confused in one or two diferent things (basic stuff, you’ll feel dumb when you figure out and see how easy it was ) - but this will help you think and improve your knowledge! I’m using 2.43a and having a really good time, heehehehe, i’m so happy that I’m writting this...duh! ;D

TONY, please! please! Start writting the vol2!! PLEASE!! hehehe

Thanks a lot man! I’m really happy about people like Tony Mullen, Ton Roosendall and all the Blender community and Foundation!

Comprehensive and genuinely helpful

I am very pleased with this long-overdue guide to character animation with my favourite tool, Blender. The trickiest technical aspects of animating with Blender have never been documented and illustrated as well as they are here. Covers all the most recent boosts to functionality including the Modifier system and Sculpting tool.

Blender Character Animation

This covers more than just character animation. It’s really an incredible book. The techniques taught make it the most valuable book in my 3D modeling & animation library. I was pleased.

DVD is nice, but not required

An earlier reviewer thinks the book is useless without the included DVD.

Not so.

While it’s very nice of Tony to include Blender, the Gimp, Audacity, VirtualDub, InkScape, Python, YafRay, BlenderPeople and VLC on the DVD, these are also freely downloadable from the web. [...]

Tony also provides animations and examples from the blender community, including the open source film Elephant’s Dream, which are wonderful and inspirational, but not really required to learn character animation by reading the book and doing the projects in the book.

Other files on the DVD are blend files for the projects in the book, projects that Tony walks you through. Projects that, if you really want to get the most out of the book, you’ll work through yourself, not simply read about them and then get the finished blend file off the DVD.

It is a great book, and not at all useless without the disk.

A must have for blender

I’m brand new to Blender so this is a noob review.If you are new to Blender get this book.If you are interested in in-organic modeling like buildings and such you won’t learn about it here but you will learn about the interface and tools.This book is very well written.Now, will somebody please write a short book on modeling buildings,basic architecture and the like? Trying to figure out how to do something simple like doors,windows,wall thickness is a real pain with Blender.
Anyway,this book is exactly what the title say’s so it’s a must have. So when is that book on architecture coming out?

Non Trivial, but a Very Good Start

For those considering a high end 3D modeling and animation software package Blender has to be considered a finalist among the candidates. First there are several technical aspects such as cross-platform portability, a good graphical user interface, is very fast, and more. Then the cost - FREE vs. hundreds to thousands of dollars. That’s because Blender is open source with the advantages that there is a huge community of developers and a vast support structure. Bugs are fixed and support is given fast.

This book concentrates on teaching Blender beginning with the basic interface and quickly getting into animation. As this is one of the few Blender books, you can start here, but it goes over the basics pretty quickly.

The CD that comes with the book includes Blender 2.42 (2.43 is current you can get it from blender(dot)org) and a bunch of other open source software that will help with your graphics programming. Finally there are a lot of online resourses that are recommended.

Animation is not easy, but here’s a good start.

Look before you buy!

I received this title from Amazon only to find that the included DVD which contains files manditory for working on the tutorials was melted by the publisher’s hot glue binding process. One side of the DVD literally melted. If you buy this volume or any other title from Sybex make sure the Dvd is intact (don’t buy it online). Their customer service is nill; I sent them an email from their site a week ago and have yet to get a response. It’s probably a great book, but rather useless without the disk. You might want to wait untill a non-vanity press publisher picks it up and it gets a decent treatment.

Just buy this and think about it later

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

More than an introduction--it’s an invitation to a whole new world!

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!