We received word from Ton that Essential Blender is as good as ready to be shipped. Ton writes:
[insert obligatory remark to support the Blender Foundation by ordering this book ;-)]Right now the CD's are being inserted, and books get packed. Next week people can expect the books getting in the mailbox!
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.
55 Comments
Great news. I have already long dialogue yesterday with my postman that every day there should be a book pack for me that have to be treated a precious :-)
I, on the other hand, double checked that my address is right (with [email protected]) after elephants dream's DVD got sent to the wrong place (or something).
Now I get to wait and see how much time it will take to arrive to Israel, the previous manual took forever
Aw man, looks like it would be so awesome, but 40$ is a little far for a book, hopefully I can snag a copy on Ebay in a few months. Let me know how it is ;)
Lucky us who got it at preorder price!
how much time will it take to arrive in Italy according to you?
@Renato: do I look like the mailman? :) No idea!
come on postman come on
It took also quite a while last time to be sent to Iceland. At least two weeks.
You send it from the Netherlands, right?
I look so much forward to the book!
@bart: Ok ;-) But I suspect 8/10 days will be the norm for all euro-countries ;-)
@bart: Ok ;-) But I suspect 8/10 days will be the norm for all euro-countries ;-)
Woaw, I think that i'm gonna pick it up as i live close to the E-shop's home! Lucky me! :-)
John:
40$ is less than regular books in that section. My last book about assembler took me 60$, the last one about C++ also 50$, my last math (differential calculus) also 40$.
What do you expect? This is not a 3-pages-comic-book ;)
True! 40$ is an absolute steal!
In our country a "insert-commercial-3d-package-here"
book cost the very MINIMUM of 80 Dollars, and the really thick ones (similar Essential Blender) costs above that.
I think that the cost is quite normal cause many books of that style in my country cost so and I'll buy it when I'll have cash for it after summer jobs:)... And can somebody say how much dollars the shipping can cost to Lithuania?
Great News! John, they wont be on ebay! far to precious! Placed in the Blender alcove above my desk, with the eternal candles each side and quiet contemplative reverent music. :)
Sigh... They give us Blender for FREE, and you moan about the price of the book?
I wonder if anyone else in Toronto, Canada ordered this?
Ordered. can't wait. Postman alarm system is primed!! (aka our dog!)
The book is well worth the money btw. :p
I've pre-ordered it, so It should be coming.
I'm expecting this book to be about the same size as "Introducing Character Animation" only smaller, but hey I'll take all the instructions that I can get.
Woohoo! I'll be buying this in a few months, hopefully.
Yeah, i live in Canada, Quebec and ive ordered the kook :) Look good! Ive looked a bit on how blender work and i can say that an overall great job! that going to be my alternative 3D modelling/animating program until i began my course with 3ds max the next semester!
John, I guess others have already pointed this out, but do consider the fact that buying the book from the Blender Foundation directly supports the development of Blender, which is free software and mainly supported by purchases made through the Blender Foundation. Of course, if you're really strapped for cash, you should do what you have to do, but bear in mind that the slightly extra money you would spend buying from the BF does go to a very good cause.
Cover looks gorgeous... A nice newcomer for my already crowded CG bookshelf !!!
Hurry up postman !
I pre-ordered the book but US$53 kinda hurt. My email receipt is dated Jun 4, 2007 4:54 PM but the bill was €39.50 after shipping... Did I miss the pre-order sale which supposedly ended June 5? Was it the timezone difference or did I make the pre-order sale and the extra $$$ was just the shipping cost? Oh well, if I missed the sale at least the extra moola can go towards the Blender Fund.
I ordered this book the day before yesterday and then ordered the character animation book yesterday. Am looking forward to honing my blender skills and overall modeling/animation skills.
@ John: $53 with shipping, but it goes to FUND BLENDER. A steal at twice the price.
@ The Blender Community: Thank you all for everything Blender.
Not to mention that Blender is FREE.... $40 is well worth it in my opinion too... :)
I'll be getting this in the near future. Hehee, can't wait till I've saved enough.
Any chance we could get some more visuals on the e-shop? The more eye candy we can see...the better.
I've even ordered a T-shirt as well!!
Well I pay a lot already for most my books for college, I try to get all I can used.
To me this seems like paying 40$ up front to go to a restaurant I have only seen the front of, it looks good but who knows about the food. I could spend 40$ to figure out that I knew all this stuff before hand. Now supporting the project would still be an honorable thing, but not on my budget ;)
Yay! I can't wait! I hope that it goes to my work address instead of my home address, because I'm moving and won't be living there.
Woo-Hoo!
Hey bart, can we expect a full review of this book here when it has finally shipped? Thanks.
Dose any one know if its coming to stores in Canada because i would really love to have this book
@Render Boy:
Not yet. The book is still in the phase of getting an ISBN. Until then, it will not be commercialized in stores different by the Blender e-shop. That's the reason why pre-ordered books are so precious: we get a book without an ISBN and, as Tony Mullen has pointed out, it can be a "collector edition". ;-)
I will sell mine on ebay for 500$ :P
Woohoo! I am very much looking forward
to my copy. Learning Blender over the summer
is going to be so much fun!! xD ^_^
I got the previous blender guide, which was good, but much as I hate to admit it "introducing character animation in blender" really wasn't.
It needed heaps of editing. The prose was long winded and convoluted, making it very difficult to extract info when in a hurry. It should've been written like a reference, with a useful index and bullet points, but instead was written more like a novel. Most disappointing.
I know this book is from a different team, so I REALLY hope it's better.
I'll buy it anyway to support the foundation.
I don't mean to hijack the thread here, but I wanted to respond to freen's comment about ICAWB. I do appreciate the honest comments, and I'd be interested in knowing more about how the index could have been impoved, specifically. If there were things missing, this may be something that can be addressed in future printings. Feel free to PM me in BlenderArtists (bugman_2000) if you want to follow this discussion up.
Generally, though, it's true I wasn't really aiming for a quick reference style book, but rather a book with more in-depth explanations of how and why things are the way they are and how best to approach character animation in Blender. I don't know if I succeeded, but that's what I was shooting for.
I think both approaches have their place. A nice, pocket-sized "Blender in A Nutshell"-style reference book with all the hotkeys, menus and tricks laid out in a no-nonsense way would indeed be cool to have, come to think of it.
In any case, I'm eager to see how Essential Blender tackles the subject!
On my history page in the Blender e-shop website, the status of my order is shiped since many weeks. I hope that this is a bug and they won't think that my book is already shiped ! Is someone here have the same problem ?
I am from Québec, Canada and I hope it won't be too long to arrive !
@EricB: from what I remember when I used to run the e-shop, it will flag your order as 'shipped' as soon as the packing list has been printed. I can imagine that Anja already printed out a bunch to prepare the shipments, even though the books weren't there yet. But: if you're in doubt, why not just ask her? The email address should be in the confirmation email that you received form the shop when you ordered.
Nice that its ready, Are they shipped from amsterdam? and are they sold in a localshop too? I hate waiting for the post.
It's great to see this new book; I'm going to order one right now.
BUT: is this downloadable, at the same time? For all the poor people (and kids, and students) who can't afford their own individual hardcopies? There's no good reason that such people should be treated as second-class citizens in the digital age, when part of the benefit of blender is to give everyone with computer access the opportunity to do 3D.
@Lee: I think you should reconsider your wording here. The BF give away Blender and all documentation is freely available online. In order to support their work, they sell a book and you call that treating people as second-class citizens?
@Renato: of course! We'll post a review once we get our hands on the book.
I've ordered the book and I can't wait to get my hands on it..
and I also ordered a T-shirt, some stickers, and the old Blender Guide as a PDF..
does anyone here realize how hard it is to write a book.
40$ is a great price considering this isn't being mass printed and not done by people doing this full time...
it only gets cheap per book when you can print 25,000 copies, then it's a 20$ book. not at these amounts.
I might buy it one of these days, I could use a good reference and text. just gotta buy 300$ of textbooks for college first :(
Bart I see you skipped my question, Is this book being sold in a bookshop in amsterdam or can I get it directly from the blender institute ?
@ysvry: hmm, I'm not sure.. Why not contact Ton and ask him?
Assuming the worst case that the first ordered become first delivered rule comes to action but the longest distance located ones where the quickest on ordering will be a long time. Being myself just 243 km's and 2 a half hour from Amsterdam according to google maps but in germany hoping for monday cause i could catch it personaly whilst holiday on that day.
Do'h No Blender book to entertain me on the 2 weeks long Iceland trip,
I guess there is lots of nice landscapes to photograph that can keep me occupied :-)
But, I am still hoping that the book will arrive before 19th June in my Norwegian mailbox ;-)
Learn about Blender! And support the Blender foundation! Get the Essential Blender!
*edited for content*
thx, ill search his email adress and do that.
Hi Tony,
I didn't mean to be rude and will follow this up on blenderartists.
Hopefully I can make my criticism constructive.
Got it!
Let's get blending!
Hi!
The book is arrived today here in France! Thanks !
Hello!
Anyone from Slovenia got it already?
.::PiPi::.