Architectural Visualization Book
Just a quick note on the release of a new Blender book about architectural visualization from one of our editor’s, Allan Brito. The book is called “Blender 3D Architecture, Buildings, and Scenery”.
I’ve not seen the book yet so I can’t say much about it, but knowing of Allan’s past work and books, I’m confident it’s of high quality. Allan will send us a copy to review. Meanwhile, you can find more info about the book in these two links:
Nice. I could definitely use a book on this subject!
I have the book and it is a solid text that can be used as a stepping stone for more.
Jean
I know the book too, and it’s a very good material for who is interested in learning how to do architecture visualization. It is not really a book for advanced blender users, rather a very complete introduction, explaining all the tricks and techniques commonly used when doing that kind of work.
Doing architecture rendering is a good way to earn money doing 3D, probably much easier than being hired in an animation studio, so I think that book can be interesting for many people.
Although it is not the focus of the book, it can also be a very good way for architects to learn blender.
Can u send to my mail pls
[email protected]
Congratulations, Allan! This is an area I’m really ignorant about, so I’m looking forward to getting my copy and learning about architectural viz and rendering! I’ll definitely plan to post a review on my Amazon blog.
will it come to my local bookstore?
If this book is not for the more advanced blender user, will it be for me? I’m not saying I’m an advanced user or that I know blender in and out, but I do know my way quite well around blender’s modeling, a fair bit of rigging, some basic lighting and material stuff, a little bit of animation, a little bit of etc etc.
What I don’t know much about is more advanced texturing/lighting/materials/compositing/rendering.
And I would probably get this book if it could fill that gap. I don’t blindly get it because I was rather disappointed by another book I bought a while ago. I can do the modeling sure enough, but I’m looking for books that can teach me make the models look that good, either with blender’s internal renderer or an external one, with or without post processing.
Would this book be for me?
I have the book now (if you buy it through Packt, there’s an excellent price for the regular book, plus the e-book; so while I’m waiting for the regular book to ship, I’m reading the e-book).
I would agree that the book is for beginners. However, if you’re interested in a book that focuses on all that’s necessary to create good interiors, it has thorough and methodical explanations for all of the most necessary settings of both Blender and Yafray. I also see that the book was not written for Blender 2.46, because there’s still mention of the old UV/Face Select mode.
Overall, more advanced users might be disappointed in this book, because it is geared towards the beginner and it shows (i.e., no nodes in the Materials chapter). Still, for me, although I consider myself neither a newbie, nor an advanced user at this point (I do have three things I’ve made in Blender broadcasting currently, however), having so many settings explained in detail with examples shown is a very helpful reference for me.
I am going to buy the e-book. But I am wondering if it will come to the U.S. to buy at Barnes@Noble/Borders? This book is a great idea even if it was just an ebook because there are videos for architecture but no books for it on Blender.
@Þiðrekr: thanx for the heads-up on the uv-edit mention. Allen probably wrote it with 2.44/2.45 but it got published before 2.46.
@Everyone: UV/Face Select mode is done now in EditMode with the U key.
If you want the book and the e-book, the packtpub.com link in the article is where you’d want to go. You basically buy the e-book for $5 on top of the cost of the book with free shipping to many locations around the world (except, notably, Canada). It really isn’t that far off of the Amazon.com price.
Yay! Mine will be here tomorrow!
As far as finding it in bookstores, not sure, it’s a “print-to-order” book, so it may only be available to order, not a book they keep in stock at bookstores.
wtf… the price said $5 for the ebook and I was like sweet!! Clicked buy, then it showed up as $30 went back to the original page and the price had gone up there too!
Looks like I missed out on a $25 saving by minutes :(
I’ve been reading the book, and wanted to try out the examples. My main focus right now is lighting. Are the example meshes (e.g. the solarium) available for download?
Thanks.
I need this book
Just ordered both the e-book and the hardcopy! Can’t wait for tonite to delve into the book.
@Andrew: When you select the e-book and hardcopy bundle it says total $45.89 that 10% off book and 85% off e-book which I find is a great deal for something like this!
Sorry to disagree with you folks. Compared with a other Blender books in this price range it is not up to par: it has NO CODE associated with it (though the announcement on Amazon says so) neither .blend nor .py files and the book’s download page offers only a .zip files with a color version of the images (which in the book are in BW only) for which you have to hand out your E-mail address ….
I agree about the level of expertise offered by my fellow-reviewers but have to remark that I would consider buying the book again only at less than HALF the price considering the quality of print and the missing code mentioned already.
I started the book last night and only have a few pages left in the read. I have to say, the book may have been slightly mis-marketed.
This is not to say that the book is bad. On the contrary, it is quite well-written (aside from a few grammatical blunders), and presents its concepts quite well.
In regards to who this book may be for, well…
I would have to say it’s plainly for people that wanted to get into Architectural Visualization with Blender, but lack the basics AND the workflow. It really tackles workflow VERY well!
For the rest of us, it exposes us to a side of 3D we may have ignored. I recommend it for beginners interested in Architecture outside of CAD and intermediates looking for insight on library creation and workflow.
Hope this helps the undecided decide.
I’m a book- and Blender-aholic, my copy is on the way (finally!). =D
@Wolfram: The reason there are no blend files is because this book is teaching you how to model from scratch. There are links in the book to some sites and there are many links on other sites for free blend models.
@MTBlender: for downloads of the solarium ask Allen Brito through his site.
@HumbleSage: I agree with your recommendation of what it’s for.
happy blending :)
mh not very happy with the book.
also black and white prints are pretty useless when it comes to rendering.