Full Description
Master the Newest Blender Techniques for Creating Amazing 3D Characters: From Design and Modeling to Video Compositing
Now fully updated for Blender 2.78b and beyond, Learning Blender, Second Edition, walks you through every step of creating an outstanding 3D animated character with Blender, and then compositing it in a real video using a professional workflow. This edition covers the powerful new selection and modeling tools, as well as high-efficiency improvements related to other parts of the project such as texture painting, shading, rigging, rendering, and compositing.
Still the only Blender tutorial to take you from preproduction to final result, this guide is perfect for both novices and those moving from other software to Blender (open source and free software). Author Oliver Villar provides full-color, hands-on chapters that cover every aspect of character creation: design, modeling, unwrapping, texturing, shading, rigging, animation, and rendering. He also walks you through integrating your animated character into a real-world video, using professional camera tracking, lighting, and compositing techniques.
The rich companion website (blendtuts.com/learning-blender-files) will help you quickly master even the most complex techniques with bonus contents like video tutorials. By the time you're done, you'll be ready to create outstanding characters for all media—and you'll have up-to-date skills for any 3D project, whether it involves characters or not.
Learn Blender's updated user interface, navigation, and selection techniques
Create your first scene with Blender and the Blender Render and Cycles render engines
Organize an efficient, step-by-step pipeline to streamline workflow in any project
Master modeling, unwrapping, and texturing
Bring your character to life with materials and shading
Create your character's skeleton and make it walk
Use Camera Tracking to mix 3D objects into a real-world video
Transform a raw rendered scene into the final result using Blender's compositing nodes
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Part I: The Basics of Blender
Chapter 1: What You Need to Know about Blender
Chapter 2: Blender Basics: The User Interface
Chapter 3: Your First Scene in Blender
Part II: Beginning a Project
Chapter 4: Project Overview
Chapter 4: Character Design
Part III: Modeling in Blender
Chapter 6: Blender Modeling Tools
Part IV: Unwrapping, Painting, and Shading
Chapter 7: Character Modeling
Chapter 8: Unwrapping and UVs in Blender
Chapter 9: Painting Textures
Part V: Bringing Your Character to Life
Chapter 10: Materials and Shaders
Chapter 11: Character Rigging
Part VI: Getting the Final Result
Chapter 12: Animating Your Character
Chapter 13: Camera Tracking in Blender
Chapter 14: Lighting, Compositing, and Rendering
Part VII: Keep Learning
Chapter 15: Other Blender Features
Index
