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Learning Blender (Book) and Introduction to Blender LiveLessons (Video Training) Bundle
- By Oliver Villar
- Published Jun 23, 2015 by Addison-Wesley Professional. Part of the Game Design series.
Book
- Sorry, this book is no longer in print.
Description
- Copyright 2015
- Edition: 1st
- Book
- ISBN-10: 0-13-419325-3
- ISBN-13: 978-0-13-419325-0
Create Amazing 3D Characters with Blender: From Design and Modeling to Video Compositing
Learning Blender walks you through every step of creating an outstanding animated character with the free, open source, 3D software Blender, and then compositing it in a real video using a professional workflow. This is the only Blender tutorial to take you from preproduction to final result, and it’s perfect for both 3D novices and those who’ve used other 3D Software.
Focusing on Blender 2.71 and above, 3D-professional Oliver Villar explains all the basics, including Blender’s interface, controls, and how to manipulate objects. Once you’ve mastered the fundamentals, you’ll follow a realistic 3D workflow through a complete project.
You’ll find chapters on every aspect of the character creation: design, modeling, unwrapping, texturing, shading, rigging, and animation. Once your character is ready and animated, you’ll learn how to integrate it into a real video using camera tracking techniques, lighting, and compositing. Each skillset is taught hands on, and available online video tutorials (more than 5 hours) will guide you through Blender’s trickier tasks.
By the time you’re done, you’ll understand how the whole process fits together, and how to use Blender to create outstanding characters for all media. You’ll also build strong Blender skills you can apply in any 3D project, whether it involves characters or not.
Learn How To
- Master Blender’s innovative user interface, navigation, and selection techniques
- Create your first scene with Blender and get comfortable with its core tools
- Prepare for projects so they’ll go as smoothly as possible
- Use modeling tools to create a 3D character
- Bring your character to life with color, textures, and materials
- Create your character’s skeleton and make it walk
- Make the most of Blender’s Camera Tracking tools
- Add lights to your 3D scene
- Render with Blender Internal or the powerful new Cycles render engine
- Composite your 3D character into a real video
- Switch to Blender from 3ds Max, Maya, or XSI
11+ Hours of Video Instruction
Introduction to Blender LiveLessons provides a comprehensive overview of Blender, the professional, free, open source software used to make 3D graphics and animation for animated films, visual effects, art interactive applications, and video games.
Description
Blender Foundation Certified Trainer Oliver Villar starts from scratch, downloading and installing Blender. Then he jumps into the interface and basic controls. Learning how to create and manipulate objects is the next step before creating a simple scene to understand the workflow. After that, he goes a little deeper, explaining how to model your own creations and unwrapping and shading in both Blender Render and Cycles. An introduction to rigging and animation gives designers the ability to deform and animate their models. Finally, the rendering and compositing process is explained to show how to achieve the resulting image or video. The course aims to take beginners in a journey through the main basic Blender features to help them understand how 3D works.
Skill Level
- Beginner
What You Will Learn
- How to install and run Blender
- How to use the interface and navigate in the 3D scene
- How to create your first 3D scene
- How to use Blender’s modeling tools
- How to unwrap, add materials, and apply textures with Blender Render and Cycles
- How to use rigging and basic animation tools
- How to light and render
- How to use the node editor for compositing and taking your render to the next level
Who Should Take This Course
- Designers and artists interested in creating 3D still images or animations for marketing, design, or visual effects
Course Requirements
- Understanding of using an OS, navigating through folders, and basic usage of a computer.
- Having a keyboard and a mouse (preferably a keyboard with a numeric pad and a mouse with a middle mouse button).
- Design and previous 3D knowledge helps, but the course starts from the beginning, so this is not mandatory.
Table of Contents
Lesson 1: Blender Basics
This lesson covers how to download and install Blender, use the main interface elements such as areas and editors, and configure Blender with your custom settings.
Lesson 2: 3D Navigation and Selections
Lesson 2 shows you how to navigate in your 3D scene, use navigation keyboard shortcuts, and configure the 3D View and object selections.
Lesson 3: Creating Your First Scene with Blender
In this lesson you learn the basic workflow to create your first 3D scene with Blender: creating and transforming objects; adding modifiers, materials, and lights; and rendering the final result.
Lesson 4: Advanced Object Manipulation
This lesson explains how to transform (move, rotate, and scale) objects using snapping options. It gives you an understanding of datablocks, duplicating and instancing objects, and using pivot points.
Lesson 5: Using Modifiers
Lesson 5 covers the process of adding modifiers to your objects, and you learn about the most-used modifiers and in which cases you can apply them.
Lesson 6: Modeling in Edit Mode
In this lesson, you see how to access the different interaction modes, and then you dive into the main modeling tools to create your own 3D meshes and adjust their shapes. Finally, there is a practical exercise to put those modeling tools to good use.
Lesson 7: Unwrapping and UVs
Before you can apply textures to a surface, you need to unwrap it and create its UV coordinates. In this lesson, you learn how to use the tools available to do this. You also see how to test those UVs and make sure they work right.
Lesson 8: Materials and Textures
This lesson covers the process of adding materials and textures to 3D objects in both Blender Render and Cycles.
Lesson 9: Introduction to Rigging
In this lesson, you learn about armatures and bones, parenting, and constraints. An armature made of bones is what allows you to create a rig that moves your complex objects in an efficient and comfortable way. Also, you see how to deform a mesh based on the bones’ movement, useful for posing organic models or characters.
Lesson 10: Introduction to Animation
After seeing what the different animation editors do, you learn how to set keyframes, add timing to an animation, use animation curves and interpolation, and mix or manage different animations using the NLA Editor.
Lesson 11: Rendering in Blender Render
This lesson shows you how to reach the final resulting image from your 3D scene through the rendering process in Blender Render. For that, you learn how to add lights and configure the render settings.
Lesson 12: Rendering in Cycles
Rendering in Cycles is similar to Blender Render, but there are some substantial changes, and that’s why in this lesson you learn about the rendering process and settings for Cycles.
Lesson 13: Introduction to Compositing
In this lesson, you learn how to use the Node Editor for compositing. Using nodes, you add the final touches to your render. Things such as color correction, mixing different render layers, and adding effects like a vignette are all possible during nodes compositing, before exporting the final output.
About LiveLessons Video Training
The LiveLessons Video Training series publishes hundreds of hands-on, expert-led video tutorials covering a wide selection of technology topics designed to teach you the skills you need to succeed. This professional and personal technology video series features world-leading author instructors published by your trusted technology brands: Addison-Wesley, Cisco Press, IBM Press, Pearson IT Certification, Prentice Hall, Sams, and Que. Topics include: IT Certification, Programming, Web Development, Mobile Development, Home and Office Technologies, Business and Management, and more. View all LiveLessons on InformIT at: http://www.informit.com/livelessons
Sample Content
Table of Contents
Learning Blender TOC
Introduction
Part 1. Getting Used to Blender
1. The UI
2. Exploring the Basics
Part 2. Creating a Character
3. Full Project Overview
4. Character Design
5. Modeling
6. Unwrapping
7. Texturing
8. Shading
9. Rigging
10. Animating
11. Lighting
12. Rendering
Part 3. Finishing the Project
13. Camera Tracking
14. Lighting Adjustment
15. Render Layers and Scene Setup
16. Compositing
17. Other Features
Introduction to Blender LiveLessons TOC
Lesson 1: Blender Basics
This lesson covers how to download and install Blender, use the main interface elements such as areas and editors, and configure Blender with your custom settings.
Lesson 2: 3D Navigation and Selections
Lesson 2 shows you how to navigate in your 3D scene, use navigation keyboard shortcuts, and configure the 3D View and object selections.
Lesson 3: Creating Your First Scene with Blender
In this lesson you learn the basic workflow to create your first 3D scene with Blender: creating and transforming objects; adding modifiers, materials, and lights; and rendering the final result.
Lesson 4: Advanced Object Manipulation
This lesson explains how to transform (move, rotate, and scale) objects using snapping options. It gives you an understanding of datablocks, duplicating and instancing objects, and using pivot points.
Lesson 5: Using Modifiers
Lesson 5 covers the process of adding modifiers to your objects, and you learn about the most-used modifiers and in which cases you can apply them.
Lesson 6: Modeling in Edit Mode
In this lesson, you see how to access the different interaction modes, and then you dive into the main modeling tools to create your own 3D meshes and adjust their shapes. Finally, there is a practical exercise to put those modeling tools to good use.
Lesson 7: Unwrapping and UVs
Before you can apply textures to a surface, you need to unwrap it and create its UV coordinates. In this lesson, you learn how to use the tools available to do this. You also see how to test those UVs and make sure they work right.
Lesson 8: Materials and Textures
This lesson covers the process of adding materials and textures to 3D objects in both Blender Render and Cycles.
Lesson 9: Introduction to Rigging
In this lesson, you learn about armatures and bones, parenting, and constraints. An armature made of bones is what allows you to create a rig that moves your complex objects in an efficient and comfortable way. Also, you see how to deform a mesh based on the bones’ movement, useful for posing organic models or characters.
Lesson 10: Introduction to Animation
After seeing what the different animation editors do, you learn how to set keyframes, add timing to an animation, use animation curves and interpolation, and mix or manage different animations using the NLA Editor.
Lesson 11: Rendering in Blender Render
This lesson shows you how to reach the final resulting image from your 3D scene through the rendering process in Blender Render. For that, you learn how to add lights and configure the render settings.
Lesson 12: Rendering in Cycles
Rendering in Cycles is similar to Blender Render, but there are some substantial changes, and that’s why in this lesson you learn about the rendering process and settings for Cycles.
Lesson 13: Introduction to Compositing
In this lesson, you learn how to use the Node Editor for compositing. Using nodes, you add the final touches to your render. Things such as color correction, mixing different render layers, and adding effects like a vignette are all possible during nodes compositing, before exporting the final output.
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