Comments on: Animating with Blender – Book Review

By: Olaf

Olaf — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:14:11 +0000

I just received the book in the mail! Very nice. I don't even know how to render yet in Blender but it's a nice read anyway.

By: Icono

Icono — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:09:24 +0000

So, I bought the book and went to track it's status, on a 5 day shipment, from… 52 miles away. I could have drove there in an hour.

By: Roland

Roland — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 05:23:36 +0000

For the record, all of the production files — the entire final production tree — of the animation that accompanies the di is licensed CC, and is available for redistribution. Right now, I'm not personally redistributing, but anyone who has bought the book can do so.

By: Tony

Tony — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 04:08:52 +0000

cgat, there's no irony. Commercial publishers don't generally release books under CC licensing. This is true of commercial books about Linux or any other open source software. There are some exceptions, and some publishers go for a different business model that includes such licensing, but at present it's not widespread. And all publishers need to cover their costs. Unlike the Blender Foundation, most publishers do not receive grants and donations to help them operate.

If you want to get down to the nitty gritty on FOSS principles, please recall that it was St Richard Stallman himself who emphasized "free as in free speech, not as in free beer." The most fundamentalist free software idealists are concerned with availability of source code. Less idealistic people (the ones who use the term "open source") are even more eager to emphasize the importance of a healthy commercial training, support, and merchandising side arising open source projects.

The Wiki and the BF open content resources are excellent, community-powered resources. And as long as there is a community to support them, they will continue to be. Commercial resources serve a different purpose, and they are made possible by different means.

By: cgat

cgat — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 22:17:17 +0000

Doesn't anyone see the irony in not releasing this book in a free form too?

I mean, that's like a basic FOSS principle.
Both The Mancandy FAQ and Creature Factory were released under CC-BY.

Or at least I think you should release it later so that it can be incorporated with the rest of the documentation.

By: ccherrett

ccherrett — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 03:20:06 +0000

I have not wrote my review of the book for amazon yet but will very soon. For anyone who is interested in taking many many shortcuts to creating a 3D animated short in blender, this book is for you!

I will write the rest on amazon this week

By: MastaEgg

MastaEgg — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 17:26:52 +0000

This has been an excellent read so far. Blender's great tool with a not so obvious pipeline and this book makes up for it.

By: Olaf

Olaf — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:44:39 +0000

@Tony: I purchase a lot of stuff from the Blender eShop to fund Blender development, that should be enough.

I did donate 100 euro's to Wikipedia yesterday and I urge everyone to do the same!! Wikipedia is one of man's greatest and most important knowledge libraries.

By: Tony

Tony — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:15:27 +0000

Roland, congratulations! From the little I've had a chance to dig into AWB it looks like it will be a worth addition to the Blender canon!

Olaf, problem solved:
http://www.blender.org/blenderorg/blender-foundation/donation-payment/

By: harkyman

harkyman — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 02:08:44 +0000

SnoopBaron — if you're interested in an e-book version, email Focal Press's customer service department: usbkinfo@elsevier.com They are interested in exploring e-books, as I know they've been asking their authors about them. So, a nice email from a potential customer would probably be good information for them.

Icono — You have me wondering about the difference between "free" and "super free" now. Funky.