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Weekend Hangout: Which books do you recommend?

26
By on Books, Community

bookend01

I'd like to compile a list of recommended reading material for Blenderheads. There are of course many Blender specific books, but I'm also curious about anything more general: which books really helped you become a better designer, photographer, film maker, coder, game designer etc?

Please share titles below, and use the voting mechanism to add your support to the ones already on the list. Thanks!

About the Author

Avatar image for Bart Veldhuizen
Bart Veldhuizen

I have a LONG history with Blender - I wrote some of the earliest Blender tutorials, worked for Not a Number and helped run the crowdfunding campaign that open sourced Blender (the first one on the internet!). I founded BlenderNation in 2006 and have been editing it every single day since then ;-) I also run the Blender Artists forum and I'm Head of Community at Sketchfab.

26 Comments

  1. Lawrence D’Oliveiro on

    How long does it take to write and publish a paper book? Can it be done in 6 months? In that time, Blender can go through 2 or 3 major revisions.

    Reply
    • chromemonkey on

      +1 for the Ebert/Musgrave/Perlin et. al. book on procedural approaches.

      I noticed there was one customer review of this book left by some yahoo who gave it only one star. He referred to Perlin and company as "so-called gurus", apparently not making the connection that someone named Ken Perlin *might* know a little something about Perlin Noise. Priceless stuff. Could someone go there and give the guy a clue-by-four reply? :)

      Reply
  4. S J Bennett on

    Mainly focussed on film and animation books here since that's my interest, no point trying to use any 3D software if you don't know what you're going to use it _for_:

    - "The Animator's Survival Kit", Richard Williams -- a book any aspiring animator should get hold of
    - "The Illusion of Life" by Frank and Ollie -- very Disney-centric look at their developing approach to animation but also very juicy, your mileage may vary
    - "Cartoon Animation", Preston Blair -- a time capsule of MGM's classic 1940s-era box of tricks, great for fans of Tex Avery and pre-1950s Hanna Barbera (Tom & Jerry)
    - "Character Animation Crash Course", Eric Goldberg -- what it says, includes a great CDROM section with "flippable" examples
    - "Acting For Animators", Ed Hooks -- what to think about when you're animating
    - "Creating Characters with Personality", Tom Bancroft -- again, what it says :) combine this with some topo knowledge and it's
    - "The FIlmmaker's Eye", Gustavo Mercado -- how and why to point a camera at someone or something, including examples AND useful counterexamples
    - "Composing Pictures", Donald W Graham -- like before, what it says :)
    - "Animation Unleashed", Ellen Besen -- what makes animation _different_...

    Probably the best book I ever bought to do with Blender though was one of those small ones with blank pages you can carry around wherever you go - and a pen, of course. :)

    Reply
  7. Arctos on

    If interested in spirituality, non-duality and such, start with Eckhart Tolle. His books are great to start you on a path to discovering what's this thing called "me" is all about. Great for you artists most definitely! :)

    Reply
  9. James Rosin on

    I'd say anything by Andrew Loomis-"Figure Drawing For All Its Worth" and "Digital Character Animation 2" by George Maestri-This book is great because it explains general ideas and how to get a pipeline going.

    Reply
  11. Lawrence D’Oliveiro on

    OK, here’s a non-book suggestion: learn something about photography. Take lots of pictures, to learn about real-world lighting and and shadows, exposure, focus, depth-of-field, composition etc. 3D modelling borrows a lot from photographic concepts.

    Having got a grasp of that, you can then understand where 3D software breaks the rules, either because real-world physics is too hard to emulate accurately, or because you get more fun effects that way. :)

    Reply
  12. Brian Lockett on

    Some books I'd recommend are already listed, so I'll list just a few more that aren't:

    • The Skillful Huntsman (http://goo.gl/3F8T0o)

    • Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter (http://goo.gl/Y7qsoU)

    • Dynamic Wrinkles and Drapery: Solutions for Drawing the Clothed Figure (http://goo.gl/V5FxgT)

    • The Artist's Complete Guide to Facial Expression (http://goo.gl/fFnnxK)

    • A Painter's Guide to Design and Composition (http://goo.gl/f0iiKQ)

    And here's one that should be in everyone's collection, since it's perhaps the most relevant and it's free:

    • VERTEX Vol. 1 (http://www.artbypapercut.com)

    Reply
  16. Jimmy Gunawan on

    Some books on Processing programming language is good for beginner coders. It will help you to start thinking about programming and maybe you can also translate the knowledge to OSL.

    Reply
  19. Ann Rodela on

    Gimp Bible by Jason van Gumster and the book I am currently reading Game Design with Html5 & Javascript by Rex van der Spuy.

    Reply

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