Creating fire in Blender was a chore. We were forced to use the outdated particle system combined with the clumsy halo renderer. We cringed as we hit F12 and watched the equivalent of a mustard stain materialize on screen. Those days are over.

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Blender, the free alternative for professional-quality 3D animation is a complex program to learn, but once users become familiar with its power, they begin to seek more from it.  This book is the first of its kind to explore the more advanced features of Blender so that you can get the most out of the software. You’ll take your Blender skills to a whole new level with the featured in-depth coverage of intricate uses for Blender’s modeling, texturing, animation, and visual effects tools in a professional environment.

This book will show you how to create realistic architectural models in Blender. Blender is an open-source 3D animation program released as free software. It can be used for modeling, texturing, skinning, animating, and so on. It runs on all the important operating systems (including Windows, Mac, and Linux).

You can create natural scenery, landscapes, plants, various weather conditions, environmental factors, building materials such as wood, metal, brick, and more. You will also learn how to add people to different scenes as well as other objects to an already existing photograph or a video making it easier to increase its realism.

You will see how to use the final models to create simpler scenes for use in 3D games, where real-time rendering is necessary. You will also see how to use them to create the sets for animated movies.

A beginner book that covers the basics of Blender in a classroom format. 22 chapters with exercises designed to be completed in 1-2 one-hour class periods. Chapters are kept short (1-4 pages for most) and designed to only cover more commonly used features to get you “up-and-running” and comfortable with Blender. 146 pages. Free for use. The book can be downloaded as a complete pdf file or downloaded as individual chapters from the Central Dauphin High School Website.