Foundation Blender Compositing
Roger Wickes aka PapaSmurf is about to release his book “Foundation Blender Compositing” later this month.  He stated to me that its “at the printer’s”.
Roland Hess aka Harkyman, author of “The Essential Blender” book and “Animating with Blender” is the technical reviewer. Roland also programed the colored shadows in Blender.
Learn how to create masks and layer image elements
Animate locations and shapes to match-move live-action footage
Add special effects to stills and video
Sequence and transition between shots
Publish your audio/video for TV broadcast, digital cinema, fill mastering, and webcast.
Chapters:
Chapter 1 BLENDER OVERVIEW
Chapter 2 BLENDER IN THE PIPELINE
Chapter 3 WELCOME TO BLENDER!
Chapter 4 FORMATS
Chapter 5 3D ELEMENTS
Chapter 6 CAMERA AND WORLD
Chapter 7 SHADING
Chapter 8 ANIMATED EFFECTS
Chapter 9 RENDERING
Chapter 10 NODE-BASED COMPOSITING
Chapter 11 MANIPULATING IMAGES
Chapter 12 ADVANCED NODES
Chapter 13 NONLINEAR VIDEO EDITOR
Chapter 14 SEQUENCER EFFECTS
You can order the book here:
Looks great! Definitely plan to buy it!
How many pages are there going to be?
Cool!!!
Please, put a full link to amazon, as the amazon banner is blocked by adblock
Fantastic , i really need a book like this , tnx…
but we don’t have any credit card in Iran :D i only can see the Cover…
Congratulation. This book is filling a breach in the blender-book-cosmos by dealing with nodes an VSE.
@ FabrixXm
You really should turn adblock off when your on Blendernation. Its only polite.
Excellent! Congratulations, Roger!
nice, will the book address if there are any changes in 2.5?
This is great news, Roger! I always like your tutorials and know the book will be great.
I also see that you will soon be on lynda.com. (Finally!) I look forward to that as well.
I think it’s great that we have resources like these targeted directly to Blender’s user base. I’ve decided that I’m going to buy all of these learning manuals within the next year, and really beef up my knowledge the proper way.
That looks really great!!
slightly OT: Our pipeline is based on 16bit .sgi atm. Unfortunately Blender is only able to read 8bit .sgi.
I looked into implementing it myself and the irc-channel pointed me to the right location in the source-code, but with my coding skills it would take ages to accomplish that :(
Is there a place where i can post that feature request? I found the bug-tracker, but since it isn’t a bug…. or maybe it is a bug, because sgi-import isn’t fully working :)
thx
Hey everybody! I’ll start a BA thread as well. Thanks for the writeup BlenderNation!. The link is http://www.amazon.com/Foundation-Blender-Compositing-Roger-Wickes/dp/1430219769/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246069880&sr=8-5 but I would prefer you use the adsense link since a few pennies goes to BN when you do.
The book was budgeted to be 500 pages total, (whew!~) and has about 450 written/illustrated pages and then the index, table of contents, etc.
I wrote the book to fill the gap in the Blender “library” of books; mine addresses all the special effects processing, masking, and practical uses for every node, and in-depth on the latest sequencer, to use Blender in a video production pipeline/environment. Tony’s book fully explore character animation and fluids and cloth, so I do not spend one page on those. Instead, I focus on film and video production and post-production, and what Blender supports and how-to do all those neat effects, including camera matching, lip-sync, match-moving, etc. to get your Blender models “integrated” over a live action plate.
Thank you everyone for your support. It was more work than I dreamed, all nights/weekends/days etc, both by myelf, Roland, and my editorial team (I had like two editors review everything) so hopefully the global community will buy it and we can all be compensated for our efforts. If you see a rip-off site with any of the Blender books, please alert me or the appropriate author so we can all fight piracy, and allow money to flow toward future editions (like to match up to 2.5 when it is released).
knekke: you would need to submit a feature request via BlenderStorm, or contact the import author and see if they would spend some time on it for you.
Great!
But, what’s the catch with the title?
Blender Foundation – Compositing?
?? i dont get it
yeah, i hear ya. Apress is publishing this book under their Friends of Ed template, and every book in that series “has”? to begin with “Foundation”. I wanted Blender Compositing Foundation, or Foundations in Compositing with Blender, etc., but I’m not the publisher.
This sound really interesting. I will buy this book someday…
Perhaps when it is released (if not earlier) there should be at least a link to it (or better yet, selling it) in the blender store. Good work!
There is a direct link in the article located at the bottom. It says “Direct Link to Amazon”
great book, although i find compositing boring work it can make or break a movie.
Nice work, support!
Looking forward to it!
It’s going to be available in amazon.co.uk, right?
Could you post the Adsense link to amazon.co.uk, since I dont want to order
from amazon.com, because of costums clearance to Europe / Portugal.
Thanks! =)
UK Link added
Thanks ;D
I will be buying that, thanks.
Does blender have a window where I can batch import the assets I will use for my compositing/ sequence project, like Video programs have usually?
thank you everyone!
Marcus, the answer is in my book, Chapter 13. Just as a teaser, try shift-right clicking on a files when you Add->Movie. Enjoy! I think you will find that Blender is quite capable.
For other questions, please join BlenderArtists for forum and near-real time support questions.
I’ll be buying this one. I’m really interested in video effects and already learned a bunch from your vimeo tuts.
Looking forward to it. Thanks for the effort. I’ve heard that before that writing a book is a ton more work than one imagines.
This book having the first chapters, being overview, 3d scene, etc. Isnt that kind like towards beginners?
How far does it go, on composition nodes ? Does Advanced nodes give us enough know-how to set scenes like Big Buck Bunny trough node composition ?
Ha, went to Amazon and the sales blurb made me buy it right now. I got Tony Mullen’s Mastering Blender as well.
Thought I might need to Master Blender before doing the video stuff :)
Jahmaica, great question. For the book, I couldn’t really assume the reader knew how to model in Blender, and you need to make masks for later compositing, so I do have one chapter on how to make a mask, rotate it in 3D space, and then composite that over a highway sign. This is very common work in film and such to remove logos and ads that do not have approval (or to swap in logos of the film’s sponsors).
With regard to BBB, as you can probably tell from the cover, I make heavy use of the BBB assets and give examples and explanations of what they did and why are sprinkled throughout the book. When I talk about setting up a backdrop world, for example, I go through the world used in BBB and the three textures they use. One aspect of BBB is the model and how they set up the mattes, so I talk about that (and is another reason I have to talk about 3D space).
Regarding nodes, I actually have about 3 chapters, 10-12, pp 273-388, over 100 pages just on compositing nodes. I go through each node in detail, and have tried to give practical examples of each, and as we learn more nodes, I build up to more complex noodles. I also try to show exactly what it does – the effect it will have on an image, and all the settings/controls. I finish up with a brilliant example from RobertT, and go through his noodle and explain it.
Thanks a lot for taking your time to answer those questions, I mean, all those we left here. I’ll be happy and glad to learn all that from your writtings on the book, as soon as I get my own copy ;D Keep doing it!
Got mine today, it’s pretty think. Can’t wait to wade into it.
My only concern is when 2.5 comes, how will the transition be for this knowledge?
I meant thick. Big book.
Hey NeptuneKid, I hope it’s both a thinking and a thick book! Regarding 2.5, I think people are going to be largely disappointed if they are expecting some sort of major functionality change. It’s kinda like we are taking a house and rewiring it and re-plumbing and adding fibre, oh and painting the walls a cheery color. Most of the work is behind the walls. The UI change will be most welcome, but with regard to compositing and sequencing, it’s all gonna be the same. It will look different when modeling a mask, and hopefully be more friendly, but the principles and techniques and nodes and VSE in my book will be essentially the same for a very long time.
Also, log any feedback/suggestions at BA thread http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=161330
Enjoy!
I just got my copy yesterday and enjoying it very much. I am glad to see that you and others are writting books with a special emphasis for those who have conquered the basics. This will be a big help. Thanks for your great work Roger.
I just got my copy and am about halfway through. Great book so far and it really targets what I want to do with Blender since I’m a commercial director. Was wondering though, I have stumbled upon typos here and there, and have been able to figure them out so far. Will there be an errata page online somewhere? I checked you’re publisher’s website, but I guess the book is still pretty fresh. Anyway as an intermediate Blender user, I look forward to working through your book!
Thanks for writing it!
Fantastic news, brokenjack! You can email [email protected] or post at BA http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=161330 (I’d prefer a post at BA, so everyone can immediately see the typos). And of course, any suggestions for the next edition (sometime 2010) regarding new/different techniques would be appreciated. thanks again for supporting the Blender community.
I’ve uploaded the full table of contents to my ftp server, so if you want to see exactly what is in the book, please use my compositor ftp account. Using your ftp manager, the host is http://ftp.rogerwickes.com, and the login is [email protected] with a password of “password”. The pdf is in the home directory and the details start on page 7. Thanks again, and if you have any issues, post at BA or email [email protected]
A reader asked that I provide a desktop like the one shown in Figure 1-1, and so I have at my ftp site. It is an all-in-one screen layout. The filename is 1-desktop.blend, and you can download it using the [email protected] password login. Enjoy! All of the blends on the DVD have a separate compositing desktop and a sequencing desktop, but this mashes it all into one. The screen name is 0-AllinOne