Blender Foundation Announces ‘Essential Blender’

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essential.jpgComing in May of this year! From the Blender e-shop:

‘Essential Blender’, the next book from the Blender Foundation, is your official guide to learning the fundamentals of this open and free 3D software suite. The book can be used as a step-by-step guide for people new to Blender or new to the latest changes in Blender. This book is the ideal companion for the previous 2.3 Blender guide.

‘Essential Blender’ will get you working with modeling, materials and texturing, lighting, particle systems, several kinds of animation, and rendering. In addition, there are chapters on the new mesh sculpting tools and the brilliant compositor. For users familiar with other 3D packages, there are separate indices that reference topics using your application’s terminology.

And the e-shop is running a pre-order discount where the book is only € 29.00. I’m excited! Are you?

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    • http://www.1door2.eu patdog

      Excellent! Personally wouldn’t mind paying more if colour pics were included. Looking forward all the same :)

    • http://www.nathan.nl.tt JD-Multi

      Nice, and not that expensive at all. The pictures in color or gray doesn’t really matter for me as long the contrast is good enough to see the details I’m happy.

    • hayfever

      Will it be sold as a pdf download at any time ?

    • Timothy

      Hayfever,.. it’s probably much to early to talk about that. The chances are that it will eventually be available as pdf download.

      But all the other books that have been available as a pdf download have only been so because the actual book had sold out.

    • http://blender.blog.siol.net/ PiPi

      Great news, just done with the order … sure, I want to support Blender in the future, keep up the good work!

      .::PiPi::.

    • http://dailyrj.blogspot.com Eckie

      How does the content of this book compare to the documentation that can be found online?
      And who wrote it?

    • http://www.letwory.net Nathan Letwory

      @Eckie, there is a short list on the e-shop page…

    • http://www.marketiers.org/ shul

      knowing the level of the blender books, I ordered one. Hopefully there will be a signing for the first couple of hundred copies ;-)

      Oh, and this time, remember to check the final version before mass printing

    • http://dailyrj.blogspot.com Eckie

      @Nathan: Great, didn’t see that yet.

      But it doesn’t really give me the information I was looking for. I’m interested in the quality, thoroughness etc. of the material. F.e. I’m very much willing to pay if it covers most to all tools/options on animation, rigging, materials, hair/fur…

      From the list I can’t really get if this book goes into all the new options, and whether it covers what all parameters REALLY do. Like shul said, it’s about the level of the book.

    • Jos

      Great news! Just ordered my copy! Can’t wait to have it! It’s great that there is development in the documentation/books side of Blender because the information that can be found online can sometimes be very intimidating to the new users (like moi :) )

    • Jos

      By the way, does anybody know what exactly is on the DVD?

    • Toni Grappa

      I have looked at the two preview pages at blendershop and I´m “not amused” concerning the layout. The size of the pictures changes without any system and the text was placed in an maner, that ignores all the basic rules of booklayout. Sorry to be rough, but this is not Elefant Dream quality standart…
      Allthough I will buy one, because I want to support the foundation.

    • r3615

      great news!

    • http://iluvblender.googlepages.com Satish “ILuvBlender” Goda

      Awesome. I am pre-ordering my copy now.

    • http://www.vernkassenaar.nl Joeri

      I hope the real cover design will be on par.

    • http://www.sympodius.com Sympodius

      So who’s the author?

    • http://www.harkyman.com harkyman

      I’m the editor and lead writer. There are contributions from, IIRC, seven other authors.

    • http://www.marketiers.org/ shul

      harkyman: will there be an appendix with all of the developer names in it ??

    • http://www.cginsomniac.com Brian

      Looking forward to it. Will add it to my collection. A good way to support the foundation and future book development. Also, seems like a good way to take a look at the various new features in detail.

    • http://www.harkyman.com harkyman

      Not only are sculpting and node compositing featured in their own chapters, but there’s a lot of stuff in there for intermediate and even advanced users. I consider myself pretty versed in the ways of Blender, and I picked up a great number of tweaks and modifications to my own work flow through the process of working with the other authors of the book and researching the sections I did myself. In fact, every single technical editor told me that they too learned a neat trick or method of working from editing their chapters!

      shul: An index of devs had not been discussed, but we’ve focused on the manuscript of the book itself up until this point. I’ll ask Ton about it — if he wants one, he gets one.

    • http://www.marketiers.org/ shul

      harkyman: sounds promising :) good thing I already ordered.

      And I want it signed.

    • http://gmail.com MOXAB

      Now this is what I’ve been waiting for! A sequel to the 2.3 giude is what this is. Even though
      i’m too lazy to take a look at all the tutorials around here, This book might encourage me to learn all of Blenders new stuff. I assume there’s a whole chapter in this book about the compositor Blender has. I want to learn about it.

    • http://www.harkyman.com harkyman

      Signed by me or by Ton? I’d say you can pick one or the other, but not both. :)

      I’m in the U.S., and to have Ton sign, then ship to U.S. to have me sign then out to you would be very expensive.

      If people really want, I know that some author’s do a thing where you send them a self-addressed stamped envelope, and they inscribe a nice “title plate” sticky label which is sent back to you and applied to the inside leaf of your book.

    • Sergeant Oreo

      I REALLY want to get this book! Looks great.

    • Anis

      it is all very vice and so exciting… blender rools, but there is still one problem, what shall do people like me who has Ati radeon new grapghic cards with whoom blender doesn’t go well? I would like to enjoy this software but I cant due to the oh so slow reactions and such, why this prob isn’t fixed yet, and yeah I tried the little trick with those dll files I found in other forms but it didn’t helped… Anyway, I want blender!!!!! …..

    • http://www.harkyman.com harkyman

      MOXAB: The compositing chapter is excellent. You won’t be disappointed.

    • waystar

      Any idea if this will be available through a merchant that *doesn’t* use paypal? I haven’t been able to use paypal in months (from home or work).

    • sndr

      Just ordered a copy.
      Will leave it at the office, as ppl are getting more&more interested in my work with blender.
      Esp non-photorealistic animations combined with indigo renders go down well, so having a book would save me a lot of time explaining stuff like the GUI….

    • http://hobbes.xlphp.net Nicholas

      sweet, just in time for my birthday. =)
      Even though I have Character Animation With Blender by Tony Mullen, I think I’ll by this also. This seems to be a more comprehensive guide to the whole progam, a jack of all trades book. Once I’ve got a bit more than the basics under my belt from this, I’ll use Mullen’s book to focus on the character side of Blender.

      It’s exciting times in the Blender world.

    • tynach

      Anis: What ATI card are you using? Some are just old and slow, so its not that you can get any 3D app to work with them. Even DirectX apps.

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    • r3615

      Anis : you could try the “omega drivers” … it solved the same issue i had on a laptop with builtin ATI.

    • http://www.marketiers.org/ shul

      I’d have to say ton then, since I wanted his signature in the previous run of books :)

      But you can sign on the print, under writer credits :)

    • Þiðrekr

      Very cool. I just put in a pre-order myself, because of the discount (the shipping costs are, unsurprisingly, expensive shipping something from Europe to the U.S., so any discount helps!).

      By the way, can anyone explain (or direct me to a link) that explains this whole ATI issue with Blender? I’ve seen some scattered things about it, but some of this talk appears to be quite old and I don’t see any mention of it in the new-and-improved Blender.org.

      Also, if this is still an issue, does this only affect Windows, or does it also affect OS X and Linux installations? I say this, because I’m interested in “switching” to a Mac Pro in the coming months, and, if the current revision is any guide, the ATI card might be the right combination of price and performance (their regular Nvidia card sucked and I can’t afford a Quadro).

      Much thanks. I’m new to Blender after being a lapsed Maya user, and I’m quite pleased with what I’m seeing so far.

    • LetterRip

      Anis,

      turn down your graphics card hardware accelleration – fixes most ATI issues,

      bidrekr,

      it is ATI graphics cards with most issues being on windows. Turning down hardware acceleration usually fixes most issues. The quality of graphics card drivers tends to vary quite a bit and some functions have poor support or quirky behavior in some drivers.

      LetterRip

    • Greg

      I’m all for supporting Blender, but after being dissapointed by the 2.3 book, I’m gonna wait until I can check it out at my local bookstore.

      I read the sample pages in the eshop and while I like the layout, I’m glad these are just “preview” pages ‘cuz there’s definite problems with the body text.

    • Renato Perini

      Just preordered :-)
      Any chance to have it signed by Ton? ;-)

      In the past years you give a Ton’s sign on preordered books. Why not this time?

    • chris

      nice i pre ordered my copy cant wait gotta support blender best 3d softwae around