Introducing Character Animation with Blender

by Mullen, Tony; Roosendaal, Ton; Kurdali, Bassam

• ISBN13: 9780470102602
• ISBN10: 0470102608
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-02-27
• Publisher: Sybex

Summary

Open your mind to the possibilitiesLet 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 character Master mesh modeling tools and organic modeling Fashion skin, hair, and clothing with material shaders, textures, and other tools Learn to sync lip movements with a sound file Understand interpolation curves, keyframes, and the basics of animating Model your characters using a variety of mesh editing techniquesSee how armatures, lattices, and IK interactLight and render your work for exactly the effect you wantValuable DVD with complete Blender installationThe companion DVD provides the Blender installer for Windows(r), Macintosh, and Linux. You'll also find: All the source files you need to produce the examples and tutorials in the book The short film Elephants Dream and all the files used to create it An impressive gallery of short animations created by Blender artists around the world Plenty of useful links to related Blender resources A large collection of third-party software and plug-ins, including Audacity, Python, and the popular BlenderPeople www.sybex.comNote: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Author Biography

Tony Mullen, Ph.D., teaches at Tsuda College, Tokyo, where his courses include modeling and animation with Blender as well as the Python programming language. Mullen has been a cartoonist and an illustrator. His screen credits include writer, co-director, or lead animator on several short films, including the award-winning Gustav Braüstache shorts.

Table of Contents

Forewords	p. viii
Introduction	p. x
Creating a Character with Blender	p. 1
Blender Basics: Interface and Objects	p. 3
Work Areas and Window Types	p. 4
Navigating the 3D Space	p. 9
Objects and Datablocks	p. 18
User Preferences	p. 24
Working with Meshes	p. 27
Polygons and Subsurfacing	p. 28
Extrusion Modeling and Box Modeling	p. 32
Completing the Model with Materials, Textures, and Particles	p. 89
Material Datablock	p. 90
Material Properties	p. 92
Textures and UV Mapping	p. 99
Using Static Particles	p. 116
Armatures and Rigging	p. 129
Blender Armature System	p. 130
Building a Simple Armature	p. 131
Rigging Captain Blender	p. 141
Shape Keys and Facial Rigging	p. 187
Shape Key Basics	p. 188
Building a Shape Key Set for Captain Blender	p. 198
Facial Bones and Controls	p. 217
Improved Mesh Deformations Using Driven Shape Keys	p. 234
Bringing It to Life: Animation	p. 239
Basics of Animation	p. 241
Keyframes and Ipos	p. 242
Using the Ipo Editor: Bouncing a Ball	p. 244
Interpolation and Extend Types	p. 252
Armature Animation	p. 259
Posing and Keyframing with the Action Editor	p. 260
Walk and Run Cycles	p. 273
Pose-to-Pose Animation	p. 288
Facial Animation and Lip Sync	p. 299
Facial Posing	p. 300
Lip Sync	p. 306
Playback	p. 312
Nonlinear Animation	p. 315
Using the NLA Editor	p. 316
NLA in Action	p. 325
Mixing Actions: Walking and Talking	p. 337
Further Issues in Character Animation	p. 341
Interacting with Props	p. 342
Deformation with Lattices	p. 350
Softbodies and Metaballs	p. 356
Lighting, Rendering, and Editing Your Animation	p. 363
Lighting Basics	p. 364
Rendering Your Animation	p. 379
Editing in the Sequence Editor	p. 383
Using Python Scripts	p. 387
Installing and Executing Python Scripts	p. 388
Standard Scripts	p. 389
Extended Functionality with Scripts	p. 396
Blender in Production	p. 399
Full-Scale Productions: Elephants Dream and Plumiferos	p. 401
GPL, Creative Commons, and the Blender Artistic License	p. 402
Elephants Dream, the World's First "Open Movie"	p. 403
A Preview of Plumiferos	p. 405
A Look Into Elephants Dream	p. 407
Proog and Emo Rigs	p. 408
Texturing Proog	p. 421
Ways of Walking: Following a Path vs. a Manually Keyed Walk	p. 422
Tips on Studying the Elephants Dream Files	p. 424
Feifi the Canary: Plumiferos Takes Wing	p. 427
Introducing Feifi	p. 428
Rigging a Cartoon Bird	p. 432
Blender in the Pipeline	p. 441
Production Pipeline	p. 442
Using Libraries	p. 445
Collaboration with Subversion and Verse	p. 445
...and Back Into Blender	p. 446
Blender and Beyond	p. 449
Other Software and Formats	p. 451
Importing and Exporting Other File Formats	p. 452
Useful Open-Source Software for Blender Artists	p. 453
Blending into the (Near) Future	p. 457
Resources for Further Learning	p. 459
Selected Online Resources	p. 460
Recommended Books	p. 464
On Becoming a Blender Master	p. 466
Index	p. 467
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.