Blender 2.5 Hotshot is written in a practical hands-on manner. The tools and functions of  Blender 3D are introduced through actual creation of the various projects that are included in the book. The projects do not demand a high level of artistic attribute from the Reader. However, the reading can still be quite intensive at times.

Through these projects, the Reader gets to learn a comprehensive set of tools and techniques found within Blender 3D. The kind of stuffs that one will learn along the way include:

• 3D Modelling
• Node compositing
• Rigging
• Animation
• Video editing and compositing
• Game engine function and interactivity.

Of course, there are lots of other techniques being presented as well. For instance, the book also cover the usage of certain interesting scripts and add-ons that will help in accelerating certain tasks.

The advantage of such a tutorial-based delivery is that the Reader gets to appreciate and understand how certain things can be achieved instead of merely knowing how the tools work. For instance, instead of merely explaining what subsurface scattering is, the book’s presentation allows the Reader to understand this parameter through the application of material for certain 3D objects.

An interesting and nice aspect of the book is that the numerical settings for various tool options and parameters are systemically defined and laid out. This mode of presentation provides the Reader with insights into what are good value ranges to use for certain tool options in order to achieve intended results. In my opinion, this area is underestimated in many books but nevertheless have tangible benefits to a learner. The author puts nice attention into explaining sub options and parameters of tools.

Who will benefit from the Book? In my opinion, this book is for persons who will like to put the tool available in Blender into practice. Through the tutorials in the book, one will better appreciate how the various tools come together for the creation of certain results.

Although Blender is a professional-level 3D tool, it is also open sourced and thus free. What this implies is that anyone can download and use it freely either for fun or for commercial purposes. Personally, I think this book  will appeal more to persons who will like to learn Blender and 3D for fun and as a hobby.

Blender 2.5 Hot Shot provides a general all-round understanding of how 3D tasks and projects can be executed using Blender. It is not specializing in any particular area of 3D, but provides good practical tutorials on fundamental principles pertaining to 3D creation.

Click the link below to find out more about it.

http://www.packtpub.com/blender-2-5-project-development-hotshot/book

Now, it should be noted that although I use Blender quite a bit, the work we do here in Studiorola are mainly in the areas of 3D modelling, rendering and visualisation. If a project involves animation, our nature of work will be mainly in the area of product or mechanical based  animation. As such, character animation was never my specialty. So the review will be based on and filtered through my own understanding (or lack) of the subject matter.

This book offers close explorations with regards to the practical application and methods for Character Animation. At times, it covers the finer details of how certain more unusual movement can be done. For example, how does one rig an object that can curl (such as a tail)? Since, there are entire books dedicated to character animation using Blender, how does this one fit into the big picture? Most  (if not all) of the other ones out there covers a broad range of principles leading up to the final output of an animated movie. For this book, the approach is different. This one breaks down different techniques (related to character animation) into smaller ‘bite size’ sections. In all 50 pieces of ‘recipes’ are included in the book.

The information in the cook book are presented in ‘digestible’ portions. There are very few lengthy passages…rarely will the Reader see an entire page fully filled with words. This is a good thing. The information are always presented in a concise yet clear manner. This greatly reduces the ‘heaviness’ found in some other related books.  The result of such a style of delivery is increased ease in understanding the subjects at hand. Additionally, the tutorials/recipes are accompanied by supporting Blend files.

Character Animation is a tough subject to cover and getting good results can be tricky. The author really explains things very well. For many instances, he will explain why certain things should not be done in a particular way although that particular way may seems more logical. The ‘why’s are supported by ‘how’ certain things should be done instead. That way, potential pitfalls and their corresponding solutions are explained.

Based on my somewhat  limited knowledge of character animation, the book is very up-to-date. For instance, topics on ‘Rigify’ which is a very recent ‘add on’ development for Blender (that will promise to make life easier for rigger) are included in this book.

Blender 2.5 Character Animation Cook Book contains many valuable tips and techniques. To have the book with you is like having an experienced animator sitting beside you pointing out the finer points pertaining to ways of achieving certain results and effects.

The book is very systemically structured. The topics and purpose of each section are clearly defined. This clarity in the presentation makes it easy for the reader to find information fast. As such it will serve as an excellent reference book.  In all there are 10 chapters, each one covering a specific area pertaining to Character Animation.

Who will find this book useful? To be able to benefit well from the book, the Reader should have a basic working knowledge of Blender. Blender 2.5 Character Animation Cook Book is not meant for beginners to 3D or Blender in general. This book is for someone who want to learn the finer points of  character animation. Since this book is written for Blender 2.5, I will expect this book to remain very relevant for a long time.

To find out more about Blender 2.5 Character Animation Cook Book, click the link below:

http://www.packtpub.com/blender-2-5-character-animation-cookbook/book

The thing I like about buying books in China is that the books there are very affordable. Often they will only cost a fraction of what you get for a similar book in English. And just in case, you think that the content are second-rated, you will be sorely surprised. Some of the best 3D related books that I have bought are in Chinese, from China.

Now, not too far from the hotel that I was staying, there was a bookstore. I was pleasantly surprised that they carry a lot of 3D and Design related books. Of the 3D computer books, most of which are related to 3DS MAX (as expected). There are also a significant number of books related to Vray. Of course, all the books are in Chinese. Below is a photo of the bookshop 新华书店.

Now, my primary reason for being in a bookshop is to look for Blender3D related book. I was not disappointed. I was happy to find the Blender 权威指南 the Definitive Guide there.  This is a book by Ethan Luo who is an expert Blender user who did the award winning ‘Floating’ which won the Blender World Cup 2009. The book costs 89 RMB, which is approximately 14 USD. For a book of this caliber, it is a real bargain.

This book is written in simplified Chinese and it may seems awkward that this review of it is in English. Unfortunately, English (to me) is an easier-to-type language than Chinese.

Here is my take on this book:

This is a 600+ page book.

The first portion contains interviews and descriptions of notable personalities in the Blender community. It also contain interesting peeps into what certain established Mainland Chinese Blender users think about the software.

The Guide Book covers most of the features and tools of Blender 2.5 series and more. All tools are described in clarity and there are ample examples to illustrate the effects of some of them. When you read the book, you can feel that the author is doing his utmost to point out subtleties among the various options of the tools. At times, it feels like one is given free lessons on what goes on behind the inner workings of the options. Additionally, you will also be amazed at how much the author knows about Blender.

The book really is in several distinct parts. The front portion of the book is mainly is about how to operate Blender and its myriad  features and tools. The second part is tutorial-styled that shows how Blender can be used to create high quality work. I thought the selection of a hard-edge machine modeling and a organic-style human modelling shows a very wide and thus suitable scope of instruction that demonstrated not only Blender’s depth, but also the author’s mastery of the software and 3D-related techniques as well. I certainly learnt some cool stuffs from the materials in this book.

This book also covers the other  software programs that support Blender, notably the external renderers such as Yafaray and Luxrender. There is a tutorial-styled chapter that is devoted to the usage of Yafaray. In this case, it involves an interior design-styled modelling and rendering exercise.

Books about Blender written in the Chinese language are sparse. Luckily, there is a very good one to fill in the missing gap. This book is written by a great Blender user who have great mastery in terms of artistic expression as well as technical-know how of 3D.

For one who can read Chinese and is into Blender or 3D in general, I highly recommend this book.

Mr Ethan Luo (罗聪翼) , who is an expert Chinese Blender User, is in the process of writing the first Blender Guidebook in Chinese ! He is from Chengdu, China. He received a lot of support from the BlenderCN community as well as helpful feedbacks from many Blenderheads around the world. The book will be called Blender: The Definitive Guide/Blender 权威指南. This book will be a milestone and will be used in helping to introduce this great 3D suite to the people in the big country of China.

According to Mr Luo:

“No matter whether you are a new learner for Blender or have supported Blender for years, this book will serve to help in learning and upgrading one’s knowledge with regards to Blender. The book will be unique in the sense that apart from covering all the basic functionalities of Blender topic-wise, it also contain 4 large-scale project tutorials.

In the basic section, I will try to explain every features. It will be supported by coverage of background principle such as
arithmetic. This is because I believe one may need to understand the entire workflow. Modeling, texturing, lighting, shading and modifiers will be explained in this section.

The next section will cover advanced topics and areas, inclusive of rendering, node, compositing, simulation, animation, python basic and BGE function. This section also contains some small example projects after the initial detailed walkthrough.

In the final section of the book, I will cover projects involving car modelling, character, rig design and walking cycle animation workflow as well as interior with Yafaray for big projects. From what I have seen, a lot of Blender tutorial and documentation treat individual topics as separate entities, and never discuss the complete workflow of dealing with a large-scale project. So I would love to present everything from my experience in this section to help you complete your own project.”

Currently, the book is still under development. Mr Ethan plans to ship this book with version 2.6 of Blender. The book will have an estimate of more than 700 pages. The publisher is HZBook. The book is planned for both hard copy and soft copy (ebook) distribution. You could order it from the following websites or China mainland’s book store:

www.china-pub.com
www.amazon.cn
www.dangdang.com

As of this writing, the price has not been fixed yet. It will be online for pre-order soon.

Mr Ethan is extremely generous. He plans to donate all the royalty incomes from this book to the BlenderCN.org website to support its improvement and future plans. So this book will also be considered the first official production from BlenderCN.

Below are some project/renders from the Book.

As you can see for yourself, these stuffs are of very high quality. This book will certainly add to the overall quality of Blender 3D proficiency in China or places with Chinese language users.

The first portion of the book covers mainly a broad perspective of how Blender can be integrated into real world production pipelines and applications. As someone who is not natively-trained in the area of movie-making and animation, this book offers a fresh and informative perspective into that particular industry and field.

Nodes compositing and video editing come later in the second half of the book’s content.  The Nodes section provides  examples of Node compositions that are very useful. Much tips and techniques for creating special efforts are covered within the book.

Unlike many Blender Books, this one is fully in colour. However, the paper quality is not of high resolution gloss. I guess, this help in reducing the cost of production. I can certainly live with that. Notwithstanding the paper quality, the coloured screenshots are very helpful and indispensable for the delivery of information.

In all, I find Foundation Blender Compositing very useful. This 400+ page book is loaded with much information on the Compositing aspect of Blender. It fills an unique niche in the market with regards to Blender Books.