Blender Foundations

Book description

Blender Foundations is the definitive resource for getting started with 3D art in Blender, one of the most popular 3D/Animation tools on the market . With the expert insight and experience of Roland Hess, noted Blender expert and author, animators and artists will learn the basics starting with the revised 2.6 interface, modeling tools, sculpting, lighting and materials through rendering, compositing and video editing. Some of the new features covered include the completely re-thought interface, the character animation and keying system, and the smoke simulator.

More than just a tutorial guide, "Blender Foundations" covers the philosophy behind this ingenious software that so many 3D artists are turning to today. Start working today with Blender with the accompanying web site which includes all of the projects and support files alongside videos, step-by-step screenshots of the trickier tutorials, as well as a direct links to official resources like the Blender download site and artist forums.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Halftitle
  3. Title
  4. Copyright
  5. Contents
  6. Preface
  7. Chapter 1 An Introduction to 3D: Recreating the World Inside Your Computer, or Not
    1. Form
    2. Surfacing
    3. Light
    4. Motion
    5. Rendering
    6. Next Up …
  8. Chapter 2 Understanding Blender’s Interface
    1. A Little Bit of History
    2. Spend the Time
    3. Getting and Installing Blender
    4. The Parts of the Interface
      1. Changing Window Sizes
      2. Headers
      3. Merging and Splitting Windows
      4. Window Swap
      5. Creating a New Application Window
      6. Using Different Screens
      7. Maximizing a View
      8. A Tour of the Common Window Types
        1. 3D View
        2. Outliner
        3. Timeline
        4. Graph Editor
        5. Dope Sheet
        6. Properties
        7. File Browser
    5. How to Find the Tools You Need
    6. Next Up …
  9. Chapter 3 Object and Animation Basics
    1. Finding Your Way in 3D
    2. Perspective and Orthographic View
    3. Display Modes
    4. Working with Objects
    5. Transformation Basics
    6. Selection Basics
    7. Transformation Manipulator
    8. 3D Cursor
    9. Moving in Time
    10. Basic Keyframe Animation
    11. Object Relationships and Management
      1. Layers
      2. Parenting
      3. Empties
      4. Instancing and Duplicating
    12. Data Blocks
    13. Summary
    14. What We Missed
    15. Next Up …
  10. Chapter 4 Modeling: A Million to One
    1. The Building Blocks of Mesh Modeling
    2. Free Modeling: Polygon by Polygon
    3. Tools
    4. Box Modeling
    5. Modeling with Modifiers
    6. Putting the Table Together
    7. Assembling the Room
    8. What We Missed
    9. Next Up …
  11. Chapter 5 Lighting: The Easiest Thing That’s Tough
    1. The Tools: Directional Lighting
      1. Point Lamp
        1. Color
        2. Energy
        3. Distance
      2. Sun Lamp
      3. Hemi Lamp
      4. Area Lamp
      5. Spot Lamp
        1. Size
        2. Samples
        3. Soft
        4. Bias
        5. Clipping
        6. Filter Type
        7. Deep Shadow Maps
    2. Nondirectional Lighting
      1. Ray-Based Gathering
      2. Approximate Environment Lighting
      3. An Effective General Outdoor Lighting Setup
      4. An Effective General Indoor Lighting Setup
      5. Generalizing
      6. Next Up …
  12. Chapter 6 Character Creation
    1. An Overview of Character Creation
    2. Starting from a Base Head
    3. Refining Facial Features
      1. Cheeks
      2. Lips
      3. Eyes and Eyelids
    4. Asymmetry
    5. Modeling Joints
    6. Hands and Other Exposed Parts
    7. Techniques for Adding Clothes
      1. Shirt
      2. Pants
      3. Shoes and Feet
    8. Adding Hair
    9. Hair Styling and Digital Rogaine
    10. What We Missed
    11. Next Up …
  13. Chapter 7 Surfacing
    1. Targets for Building Believable Materials
    2. Basic Material and Texture Settings: Walls and Floor
      1. Varying Material Properties with Textures
      2. Adding a Second Material and Using Image Textures
      3. Adding an Image Texture
      4. Extremely Basic UV Mapping
    3. The Table: Cheap, Fast Unwrapping and Real Reflection
    4. The Vase: Transparency and the Faked Reflection
    5. The Character: High-Quality UV Unwrapping, Subsurface Scattering, and Projection Painting
      1. The Easy Way: Pinning and Live Unwrap
      2. Defining the Material
      3. Adding UV Channels
      4. Creating UV Unwraps for Different Views
      5. Projection Painting
      6. Completing the Head Texturing
      7. Hair Materials
      8. Materials for Clothes
    6. Painting Custom Textures
    7. Combining Painted Textures with Procedurals
    8. Live Mattes: Camera Projection
    9. Finishing Up
    10. What We Missed
    11. Next Up …
  14. Chapter 8 Sculpting
    1. An Alternative to Traditional Modeling
    2. Basic Sculpting Tools
    3. Shaping Existing Models
    4. Detailing and Normal Maps
      1. Using the Multiresolution Modifier
      2. Baking to a Normal Map
    5. Sculpting from Scratch
    6. Sculpting and Performance
    7. Next Up …
  15. Chapter 9 Rigging: Digital Orthopedia
    1. Preparing to Rig
    2. Creating the Initial Skeleton
    3. Rig Testing and Adjustment
    4. Adding Basic Controls with Parenting
    5. Rigging with Constraints
    6. The Reverse Foot
      1. Adding a Pole Target
    7. Finishing the Foot Rig
      1. More High-Level Control
    8. Hands
    9. Toggle IK and Other Constraints
    10. Drivers
    11. Skinning
    12. Too Much Influence
    13. Spikes, or No Influence
    14. A Hard Break
    15. Helping Deformation with Extra Bones
    16. Conclusion
    17. What We Missed
    18. Next Up …
  16. Chapter 10 Shapes and Morphing
    1. Creating a Shape Key
    2. Creating Effective Shape Keys
    3. Preparing Shapes for Animations
    4. Next Up …
  17. Chapter 11 Character Animation: The Fun Part
    1. What We Missed
    2. Pose Mode and the Dope Sheet
    3. Recording the Starting Pose
    4. Creating a New Pose, or Animation
    5. Walking
    6. Grabbing the Chair
    7. Throwing the Cube
    8. Checking Your Arcs
    9. Next Up …
  18. Chapter 12 Rendering: Faster, Processor!
    1. Rendering Basics
    2. Render Options
    3. Speeding Up Test Renders
    4. Finding the Sweet Spot for Final Renders
    5. The Compositor
      1. Getting Familiar with the Compositor
    6. Overall Effects
      1. Depth of Field
      2. Motion Blur
      3. Glow and Glare
      4. Color Changes
      5. Color Grading
      6. Render Layers and the Compositor
    7. Conclusion
    8. What We Missed
    9. Next Up …
  19. Chapter 13 Environmental Animation
    1. This Is Not a Physics Class
    2. Cloth and Force Fields
    3. Soft Bodies, or Bouncy, Squishy Things
    4. Particles
    5. The Halo Material
    6. Smoking Is Good for You
    7. Smoke Materials
    8. What We Missed
    9. Next Up …
  20. Chapter 14 Video Compilation and Final Output
    1. Creating Animation Files
    2. Rendering to Still Frames
    3. Creating an Animation from Stills
    4. What We Missed
    5. Next Up …
  21. Index

Product information

  • Title: Blender Foundations
  • Author(s): Roland Hess
  • Release date: May 2013
  • Publisher(s): Routledge
  • ISBN: 9781136130373