Introducing Character Animation with Blender

by Tony Mullen

Introducing Character Animation with Blender, 2 nd Edition is written in a friendly but professional tone, with clear descriptions and numerous illustrative screenshots. Throughout the book, tutorials focus on how to accomplish actual animation goals, while illustrating the necessary technical methods along the way. These are reinforced by clear descriptions of how each specific aspect of Blender works and fits together with the rest of the package. By following all the tutorials, the reader will gain all the skills necessary to build and animate a well-modeled, fully-rigged character of their own. The character built over the course of the tutorials is included as a .blend file on the companion website, for the reader to experiment with and learn from. Introducing Character Animation with Blender, 2 nd Edition is inspiring as well as educational. A color insert includes sample characters and frames from animations by many of the Blender community's most talented artists, which help to illustrate the impressive potential of the software.

Genres: Reference, Nonfiction, Art

451 pages, Paperback

First published February 16, 2007

Reviews

[Todd Mitchell · Rating 2 out of 5]

In this one case, you'd be better off with a highly rated 3D Studio Max book, or one about general 3D animation.

I won't win any popularity awards for this one but I didn't care for the idea behind this book since I heard it was being written.

I first heard about its creation when there was coverage on the author, who was active in this open source software title's community. Essentially he felt he had worked hard enough in this not-necessarily-for-profit arena and it was time to cash in, and he didn't mind saying so.

That's what he did, and a small number of months later here's the result. Now I was among the first to question the intentions here and after some bickering back and forth with the author directly, I felt significant guilt for kicking and screaming before I read it. To make quiet amends, I picked up a copy on Amazon.

Even for what it is, the tutorials are not fully fleshed out, and in some cases they're downright incomplete. Now I'm back to kicking and screaming. Blender is a package that can take years to gain proficiency in, and its users deserve only the best. I'm keeping the bar high for Blender books because we've gotten them in quality in the past. This one didn't make the cut.

[Reepacheep · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like other Blender books I've read, I find it helpful to flip through the book for an overview, then go back and read through as I'm learning and applying what I learn to projects I'm working on. I've had this from the library once and only read it through partially. Now that I've begun several projects involving animated characters, I'm ready to jump back in and study this some more to make sure I've got the right approach.

I could see adding this to my personal library at some point.

[Kamal]

Things in Blender that I couldn't learn by just fiddling or was too lazy to figure out the docs and tuts online :D