Blender Cloud is a web based service developed by Blender Institute that allows people to access the training videos and all the data from the open projects. Master character modeler Angela Guenette teaches how to make a perfect character model for animation. “Villar has captured the excitement of Blender as a 3D modeling, animation, and motion graphics. PDF of a Blender keyboard shortcut reference. Video tutorials (Blender Video tutorials help you get started with Blender and cover.
The post is in three parts. Part 1 is above and Part 2 and 3 are below. It is with great pleasure that I present to you this special guest tutorial from Lee Salvemini!
If you're new to Blender, welcome! Lee Salvemini is kind of a big deal. He worked on Sintel, Elephants dream and spent two years on Star Wars post game titles for LucasArts. Today he has transcended his magical cloud of fame to present us with a complete introductory Blender rigging tutorial for free. This mammoth of a tutorial has been split up into three parts (because I know you guys don't like long posts).
Part 1 is at the top of the page, and you will find Part 2 and 3 below. Part 2 In Part 2 you will discover how to:. Make the head and neck animation ready.
Make the shoulders and arms animation ready. Create a hand and fingers rig.
Mirroring a rig from one side of the body to the other. 'Thank' Lee I very rarely promote stuff on this site (especially other people's stuff), so I'm hoping you won't reach for your pitchforks when I mention that Lee's actually selling some training DVDs. His training DVDs are appropriately titled 'Character Creation', and it teaches (you guessed it) how to make a character. A lot of people have been looking for tutorials on this stuff, and if you ask me there's no more of an experienced person than Lee when it comes characters. With experience on Sintel, Elephants Dream and Lucas Arts, he's certainly knows his stuff.
Walks you through the modelling process and shows you an in-depth rigging walkthrough. The usual price of Volume I & II is $120, but Lee has been nice enough to offer Blender Guru readers a 25% discount. Bringing the total price for both volumes down to $90.
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, 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.
Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file. PART I: CREATING A CHARACTER WITH BLENDER. Chapter 1: Blender Basics: Interface and Objects. Work Areas and Window Types. Navigating the 3D Space. Objects and Datablocks.
User Preferences. Chapter 2: Working with Meshes. Polygons and Subsurfacing. Extrusion Modeling and Box Modeling.
Chapter 3: Completing the Model with Materials, Textures, and Particles. Material Datablock. Material Properties. Textures and UV Mapping. Using Static Particles. Chapter 4: Armatures and Rigging. Blender Armature System.
Building a Simple Armature. Rigging Captain Blender. Chapter 5: Shape Keys and Facial Rigging. Shape Key Basics. Building a Shape Key Set for Captain Blender. Facial Bones and Controls. Improved Mesh Deformations Using Driven Shape Keys.
PART II: BRINGING IT TO LIFE: ANIMATION. Chapter 6: Basics of Animation. Keyframes and Ipos. Using the Ipo Editor: Bouncing a Ball. Interpolation and Extend Types.
Chapter 7: Armature Animation. Posing and Keyframing with the Action Editor. Walk and Run Cycles.
Pose-to-Pose Animation. Chapter 8: Facial Animation and Lip Sync. Facial Posing. Chapter 9: Nonlinear Animation. Using the NLA Editor.
NLA in Action. Mixing Actions: Walking and Talking. Chapter 10: Further Issues in Character Animation. Interacting with Props. Deformation with Lattices.
Softbodies and Metaballs. Chapter 11: Lighting, Rendering, and Editing Your Animation. Lighting Basics. Rendering Your Animation.
Editing in the Sequence Editor. Chapter 12: Using Python Scripts. Installing and Executing Python Scripts.
Standard Scripts. Extended Functionality with Scripts. PART III: BLENDER IN PRODUCTION. Chapter 13: Full-Scale Productions: Elephants Dream and Plumiferos. GPL, Creative Commons, and the Blender Artistic License. Elephants Dream, the World’s First 'Open Movie.' A Preview of Plumiferos.
Chapter 14: A Look Into Elephants Dream. Proog and Emo Rigs. Texturing Proog. Ways of Walking: Following a Path vs. A Manually Keyed Walk.
Tips on Studying the Elephants Dream Files. Chapter 15: Feifi the Canary: Plumiferos Takes Wing. Introducing Feifi. Rigging a Cartoon Bird. Chapter 16: Blender in the Pipeline. Production Pipeline. Using Libraries.
Collaboration with Subversion and Verse. And Back Into Blender. PART IV: BLENDER AND BEYOND. Chapter 17: Other Software and Formats. Importing and Exporting Other File Formats. Useful Open-Source Software for Blender Artists.
Blending into the (Near) Future. Chapter 18: Resources for Further Learning.
Selected Online Resources. Recommended Books. On Becoming a Blender Master.
Do you think you've discovered an error in this book? Please check the list of errata below to see if we've already addressed the error.
If not, please submit the error via our. We will attempt to verify your error; if you're right, we will post a correction below. Chapter Page Details Date Print Run figure.blend File Missing from DVD figure.blend file available in the Downloads section femalehead.blend file missing from the DVD Visit the section to download the missing file. 62 Text Corrections P.
62: 'In this example, you created the belt as a separate object, so you must now join the meshes by selecting both mesh objects in Object mode and pressing Ctrl+J.' Should be 'In this example, you created the belt as a separate object, so it will be necessary join the meshes by selecting both mesh objects in Object mode and pressing Ctrl+J. However, at the moment there is a mirror modifier on the body, but not on the belt, which will lead to doubled vertices on the belt if you join them now. It's best to wait until after you apply the modifier at the end of the modeling process and then join the two meshes together.'
158 Text Corrections Pg. 158: 'Create an IK constraint on the forearm bones targeted to these IK bones' should continue with ' and set the ChainLength to 2.' 159 Text Corrections Pg. 159: 'set up copy rotation constraints on IKHand.L and IKHand.R, respectively' should read 'IKArm.L and IKArm.R, respectively'. 178 Text Corrections Pg.178, Table 4.1, in the row 'Bicep.L', column 'Parent': 'UpperBody' should instead read 'Torso' 4 178-9 Table Corrections - Table 4.1 In the row 'BallHeelRotation.L', column 'Copy Loc' reads 'No'.
It should instead read 'Yes.' Line Ball.L has parent listed as FootRoot.L. It should be Heel.L. Two bones listed on the table, 'necknull' and 'spinestretchnull,' do not appear anywherre else in the text.
These bones were renamed and are mentioned in the text under different names. Remove the entries for these two bones in table 4.1. 375 Text Corrections Page 375: last paragraph, 'hit has become almost a cliche' should be 'it has become almost a cliche'. 3/21/07 463 Text Corrections Page 463: 'Colin Lister's' should be 'Colin Litster's' 3/21/07 14 407-425 Corrupted files on DVD: ORANGE1.rar and ORANGE2.rar To obtain the ORANGE1.rar and ORANGE2.rar files, as well as all the production files for Elephants Dream go to: This is a huge collection of files, and it's not compressed into a single file. In order to download it all with minimal hassle, you may try using the wget application, or in Windows, WinWget, which is available here: 5/28/08. To apply for permission please send your request to with specific details of your requirements. This should include, the Wiley title(s), and the specific portion of the content you wish to re-use (e.g figure, table, text extract, chapter, page numbers etc), the way in which you wish to re-use it, the circulation/print run/number of people who will have access to the content and whether this is for commercial or academic purposes.
If this is a republication request please include details of the new work in which the Wiley content will appear.