Blender: an awesome little 3D content creation suite that animates characters, surprises nay-sayers, simulates physics, and gives you foot massages if you've had a bad day! Okay, the last part is an exaggeration, but it's difficult to imagine a task in computer animation that Blender can't do. With it, you can create 3D models, animate those models, edit those animations into a movie, and even create video games with them. All this in a free program that's as small as a 9 MB download. Crazy!
Blender sits at a very unique position in the world of 3D computer graphics. It used to be that to get into 3D modeling and animation, you only had a few options and most of them were too expensive, too limiting, or – ahem – too illegal for people just trying to see what this whole 3D thing was all about. Blender circumvents all of that because it's free. And it's not just free as in, "This costs me zero dollars." It's truly free software that a world full of developers and users constantly contribute to, enhancing and improving it at a mind-boggling pace.
Of course, 3D computer graphics is a complex topic and all software of this type is dense with buttons, options, settings, and unique ways of working. Perhaps more than any other program like it, Blender carries a pretty heavy reputation for being difficult to understand. It's not typically viewed as software for beginners. But, if I've done my job right, this book will help simplify things. Blender For Dummies is not just a book on using Blender. Sure, I explain why things in Blender work in their peculiar Blenderish ways, but I also make it a point to explain core principles of 3D computer graphics as they are relevant. There's no use in being able to find a button if you're not really sure what it does or how it works. My hope is that with this combined knowledge, you can actually take advantage of Blender's unique traits to create your own high-quality 3D art as quickly and efficiently as possible. Perhaps you can even become as addicted to it as I am!
Blender is an extremely complex program used for the even more complex task of producing high quality 3D models and animations. As such, there's no way I could cover every single feature and button in Blender within a mere 400 pages. For that, I recommend you refer to the very excellent online documentation available through Blender's Web site at wiki.blender.org. The purpose of this book is to bring you up to speed on working in 3D space with Blender so you can start bringing your ideas to life as soon as possible. To that end, I focus on introducing you to the fundamental "Blender way" of working. Not only do I show you how something is done in Blender, but I often take the time to explain why things are done a certain way. This approach should hopefully put you on the fast track to making awesome work and also allow you to figure out new parts of Blender on your own when you come across them.
You'll notice throughout the book that I frequently make reference to the Blender community. Blender's user community is probably one if its most valuable assets, and I would be remiss to neglect bringing it up. Not only do many members of the community create great work, but they also write new code for Blender, write and edit documentation, and help each other improve. And understand that when I use the word "we" in reference to the community, I include you in that as well. As of right now, you are a Blenderhead: a fellow Blender user and therefore a member of our community.
It's worth mentioning here that Blender is a truly cross-platform program, running on Linux, Windows, Macintosh, and even variants of the Unix operating system. Fortunately, not much in Blender differs from one platform to another. However, for the few things that are different, I'll be sure to point them out for you.
This book is written for two sorts of beginners: people who are completely new to the world of 3D, and people who know a thing or two about 3D, but are completely new to Blender. That being the case, I tend to err on the side of explaining too much rather than too little. If you're someone who is already familiar with another program like 3DS Max, Maya, or Softimage, you can probably skip a number of these explanations. Likewise, if you're a complete newbie, you might notice that I occasionally compare a feature in Blender to one in another package. However, that is mostly for the benefit of these other users. I write so you can understand a concept without having to know any of these other programs.
I do, however, make the assumption that you have at least a basic understanding of your computer. You should know how to start programs, find files, and have a basic idea of the difference between a computer's processor and its hard drive. I assume you know how to use a mouse, and I highly recommend that you use a mouse with at least two buttons and a scroll wheel. You can use Blender with a one or two-button mouse, and I provide workarounds for the unfortunate souls in that grim state (*cough*Mac users*cough*), but it's certainly not ideal. Because Blender makes use of all your mouse buttons, I make it a point to stipulate whether you need to left-click, right-click, or middle-click. And in case you didn't already know, the middle mouse button is accessed by pressing down on your mouse's scroll wheel.
Another assumption of sorts that I make is that you're working with Blender's default settings and theme. You are more than welcome to customize the settings for yourself, but if you do that, Blender might not behave exactly like I describe. In most instances, I do make it a point to mention what Blender's default behavior is, so you know what to expect, but I can't account for every different configuration that Blender allows you to have.
One last assumption that I make is that you can access the Internet from time to time. You don't need an Internet connection to use Blender, but there are a lot of resources online that definitely come in handy.
As with most books in the For Dummies series, Blender For Dummies is structured as a reference that you can refer back to over and over again. You should be able to go to the Table of Contents or the Index and jump straight to the topic you're interested in. Of course, if you're completely new to Blender and 3D, the chapters build upon one another so you can read from cover to cover.
Also, rather than give you tutorials that are only useful for creating one specific thing ("this is how you model a teacup" or "making the perfect tooth material"), I tend to lean towards more broad explanations of a tool's use and purpose. That said, I use certain specific examples because they tend to be fairly common tasks.
The book's chapters are grouped into relatively cohesive sections called Parts. Like the chapters, each part is meant to be modular and stand on its own, but is also structured in such a way that each one adds to the next. The following section describes the content of each part.
Part I: Wrapping Your Brain around Blender
Not only is Blender complex, but it also has some pretty unique ways of approaching the problem of creating in three dimensions. This part is dedicated to melding your mind with the Blender way of thinking. If you've ever started up Blender and wondered, "Why in the world is it doing things this way?!" this part is well worth the read.
Part II: Creating Detailed 3D Scenes
Each chapter in this Part is dedicated to getting your work to look good, focusing on the skills of modeling, adding materials, and lighting your scenes. The techniques here are geared primarily toward creating static images, but nearly all of it is also relevant to getting animations to communicate clearly and be believable (not to mention, totally sweet to look at).
Part III: Get Animated!
Motion! Motion! Motion! Very few things in the world compare to the excellent feeling of bringing an inanimate object to life. It's hard work and can be very time-consuming, but the payoff of seeing a character move and watching people react to it is worth every little bit of toil you put into it. This Part shows you the basics of rigging and animating, as well as touching on getting Blender to do a little animating for you with simulated physics.
Part IV: Sharing Your Work with the World
You could sit in a room and create a mountain of awesome work just for yourself, but there's certainly something rewarding about putting your work out for the world to see. That's what this Part is all about. I walk you through the adventures of rendering out still images and animations so you ultimately have something worth sharing. This part also introduces the beautiful cheating that you can do with post production and video sequencing.
Part V: The Part of Tens
In a way, I really kind of wanted to write this entire book as a series of helpful lists that would help get you started in Blender, but that's not really the best structure for the entire thing. That said, I had a lot of fun writing this part. These chapters are geared to making sure your time with Blender is well-spent, so I cover troubleshooting and tips on improving your experience.
Tip
This icon calls out suggestions that help you work more effectively and save time.
Note
These are things that I think you should try to keep in mind while working in Blender. Sometimes it's a random tidbit of information, but more often than not, it's something that you'll run into repeatedly and is therefore worth remembering.
Note
Working in 3D can involve some pretty heavy technical information. You can usually work just fine without ever having to know these things, but if you do take the time to understand it, I bet you dollars to donuts that you'll be able to use Blender more effectively.
Warning
This icon doesn't show up often, but when it does, I definitely recommend that you pay attention. You won't blow up your computer if you overlook it, but you could lose work.
As a Blender user, I absolutely love hotkeys, and I use them generously in examples throughout the book. Blender makes use of nearly every key on your keyboard, so some keys are a bit difficult to put in writing, particularly punctuation keys like the period (.) or tilde (~). When I suggest you press these keys, I do just as did in the last sentence: I spell the symbol and then put the actual symbol in parentheses.
I also make use of this cool little arrow (
The easy answer here would be to say "Just dive on in!" but that's probably a bit too vague. As I mentioned before, this book is primarily intended as a reference. If you already know what you're looking for, flip over to the Table of Contents or Index and start soaking in the Blender goodness. For those of you who are just starting out, I suggest you merely turn a couple of pages, start at Chapter 1, and enjoy the ride. And even if you are the sort of person who knows exactly what you're looking for, take the time to read through other sections of the book. There are a bunch of valuable little bits of information that may help you work more effectively.
Regardless of how you read this book, though, my one hope is that you find it to be a valuable resource that makes you as addicted to Blender as I am.