Introducing Character Animation with Blender
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Open your mind to the possibilities Let this in-depth professional book be your guide to Blender, the powerful open-source 3D modeling and animation software that will bring your ideas to life. Using clear step-by-step instruction and pages of real-world examples from talented Blender users, expert animator Tony Mullen walks you through the complexities of modeling and animating, with a special focus on characters. From Blender basics to creating facial expressions and emotion to rendering, you'll jump right into the process and learn valuable techniques that will transform your movies.Walk through the complete process of building a characterMaster mesh modeling tools and organic modelingFashion skin, hair, and clothing with material shaders, textures, and other toolsLearn to sync lip movements with a sound fileUnderstand interpolation curves, keyframes, and the basics of animating Model your characters using a variety of mesh editing techniques See how armatures, lattices, and IK interact Light and render your work for exactly the effect you want Valuable DVD with complete Blender installation The companion DVD provides the Blender installer for Windows®, Macintosh®, and Linux®. You'll also find:All the source files you need to produce the examples and tutorials in the bookThe short film Elephants Dream and all the files used to create itAn impressive gallery of short animations created by Blender artists around the worldPlenty of useful links to related Blender resourcesA large collection of third-party software and plug-ins, including Audacity, Python, and the popular BlenderPeople www.sybex.com
Forewords viiiIntroduction xCreating a Character with Blender 1Blender Basics: Interface and Objects 3Work Areas and Window Types 4Navigating the 3D Space 9Objects and Datablocks 18User Preferences 24Working with Meshes 27Polygons and Subsurfacing 28Extrusion Modeling and Box Modeling 32Completing the Model with Materials, Textures, and Particles 89Material Datablock 90Material Properties 92Textures and UV Mapping 99Using Static Particles 116Armatures and Rigging 129Blender Armature System 130Building a Simple Armature 131Rigging Captain Blender 141Shape Keys and Facial Rigging 187Shape Key Basics 188Building a Shape Key Set for Captain Blender 198Facial Bones and Controls 217Improved Mesh Deformations Using Driven Shape Keys 234Bringing It to Life: Animation 239Basics of Animation 241Keyframes and Ipos 242Using the Ipo Editor: Bouncing a Ball 244Interpolation and Extend Types 252Armature Animation 259Posing and Keyframing with the Action Editor 260Walk and Run Cycles 273Pose-to-Pose Animation 288Facial Animation and Lip Sync 299Facial Posing 300Lip Sync 306Playback 312Nonlinear Animation 315Using the NLA Editor 316NLA in Action 325Mixing Actions: Walking and Talking 337Further Issues in Character Animation 341Interacting with Props 342Deformation with Lattices 350Softbodies and Metaballs 356Lighting, Rendering, and Editing Your Animation 363Lighting Basics 364Rendering Your Animation 379Editing in the Sequence Editor 383Using Python Scripts 387Installing and Executing Python Scripts 388Standard Scripts 389Extended Functionality with Scripts 396Blender in Production 399Full-Scale Productions: Elephants Dream and Plumiferos 401GPL, Creative Commons, and the Blender Artistic License 402Elephants Dream, the World's First "Open Movie" 403A Preview of Plumiferos 405A Look Into Elephants Dream 407Proog and Emo Rigs 408Texturing Proog 421Ways of Walking: Following a Path vs. a Manually Keyed Walk 422Tips on Studying the Elephants Dream Files 424Feifi the Canary: Plumiferos Takes Wing 427Introducing Feifi 428Rigging a Cartoon Bird 432Blender in the Pipeline 441Production Pipeline 442Using Libraries 445Collaboration with Subversion and Verse 445...and Back Into Blender 446Blender and Beyond 449Other Software and Formats 451Importing and Exporting Other File Formats 452Useful Open-Source Software for Blender Artists 453Blending into the (Near) Future 457Resources for Further Learning 459Selected Online Resources 460Recommended Books 464On Becoming a Blender Master 466Index 467
