Learning Blender: A Hands-On Guide to Creating 3D Animated Characters (2e)

Learning Blender 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-colour, 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.

• 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

There has been exciting news in Blender since the 1st edition in 2014. There are new selection and modeling tools, better and more efficient options for texture painting, shading/rendering, and generally a lot of improvements both in the user interface, performance, toolset, options and possibilities. New projects and developments have happened in the Blender world, like a new Open Movie: Cosmos Laundromat.

The 2nd edition incorporates all of these new tools and enhancements. It also includes more in depth and extensive explanations to make technically challenging parts of the process easier (i.e. Rigging and Compositing made easier).

• Learn Blender’s updated user interface, navigation, and selection techniques
• Create your first scene with Blender and the Blender Render and Cycles render engines
• Organise 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

Oliver Villar, born in Galicia (Spain) in 1987, has been drawing since he was a kid. His interest in art brought him into 3D, which he’s been studying since 2004. He used different commercial 3D software before stumbling onto Blender in 2008. Since then, he uses Blender professionally as a freelance 3D designer and tutor. In 2010 he funded blendtuts.com, a website in which he’s devoted to offer quality Blender training videos to the community. Currently, he’s working as the co-director of Luke’s Escape, a 3D animated short film made with Blender.