New book: Blender 2.5 Lighting and Rendering
Packt Publishing have just released their latest book, ‘Blender 2.5 Lighting and Rendering’ by Aaron W. Powell.
- Render spectacular scenes with realistic lighting in any 3D application using interior and exterior lighting techniques
- Give an amazing look to 3D scenes by applying light rigs and shadow effects
- Apply color effects to your scene by changing the World and Lamp color values
- A step-by-step guide with practical examples that help add dimensionality to your scene
Expect a review soon!
Links
Seems like a good read :) will get one.
MMm! Hopefully this will be better than the ‘Incredible machines’ book by the same publisher.
In my view, PACKT Publishing produced, in the last instance, a particularly poor product, overly expensive, without colour, source files, or indeed any form of relevant, files and support, even on the web. (I could go on)
Bearing in mind that Blender 2.5-2.6 is not even officially released as a complete and stable version, and a book has to go to press months prior to release, one could be forgiven for suspecting that PACKT might have, yet again, shown themselves to be a less than trustworthy publisher.
I must make it clear that in no way do I cast doubt on the author, or content. Only the likely quality of the publishers (PACKT), product.
Should a representative of PACKT wish to respond, I would be more than happy to discuss these issues.
Of course it may be that they have got it right it this time. I just advise that this may be a book to peruse on the bookshelf before buying, rather than risk buying blind on line.
Please post reviews, I love to see good Blender works, so hopefully I will swallow have to my words. ;)
I was excited looking at the cover of the book, but if you look at the sample chapter on rendering the tricycle, the render result is so elementary. It doesn’t look good. I just hope the rest of the book is not like the sample chapter.
One more absolutely useless book from the this publisher. For high price you will learn how to set up 3-point lightning…
I got the ebook yesterday and expecting the actual book next week.
As someone who’s been using learning blender for about six months i’m finding it very useful. I’m not in the 3D industry and have no wish to be. I’m a lecturer teaching electrical theory to aspiring electricians. I’m using blender for simple models to explain electrical theory. I have gigabytes of vids from all over the net bought the cookie 2.5 series etc but sometimes you can’t beat a cup of coffee and a book for learning.
I’ve skimmed through the book and I can see a huge amount of stuff that I want to learn. I like the way its laid out and written.
Big thumbs up from me, they have a materials book coming out in January as well.
A book about lighting without color images?…
I own some books from Packt, but always found the quality of them quite poor.
I would recommend “Lighting & Rendering” by Jeremy Birn.
It is not especially made for Blender, but I would say, this is
even an advantage, because the principles of lighting are explained
in a more general way. The book is an amazing source of inspiration and
explains all important aspects of lighting and rendering in 3d programms.
It refers also quite often to other arts like painting, photography
and film.
@carlinhos
I totally agree! That is a superb book and great reference, I also have that one and wholeheartedly recommend it.
+1 to Philippe
How can you demonstrate sunlight and moonlight and any other light without colour images?
Oh man, the quality of this just makes me sad. How on earth can you talk about color theory and setting up the mood of the scene etc. with black and white imagery? Aghh.. I’m quite sure there will be publications of better quality in the future. As for now, there are videotutorials all over the place about this subject, be it Blender or not, that have valuable stuff. On video and IN COLOR.
Simply, If this book was colored I would buy it. Since it is not …
Am I the only one who will not buy because of this reason?
I really think not.
I agree it should be color, but let’s stay positive and say great job, obviously Aaron worked hard to produce this. After all, how many other lighting books for Blender are there? This is a win for our beloved software, why is our community so negative these days?
Nice looking book, sure it can help some people out there, thanks Packt, thanks Aaron.
The Ebook i have IS colour. all the screenshots and pictures are colour.
Its only the sample chapter pdf that greyscale.
Thanks lynchy67…LOL
The sample chapter is somewhat misleading, I’ve picked the ebook up here for a tenner, and so far this book doesn’t go far wrong in my eyes, and it is indeed in full colour! :D
You can usually buy packt books either in pdf or in printed form (or both :/ ). Indeed their print quality is pretty low (Aaron got pretty mad when he discovered they would print in BW, let me assure you). I made the tech review of this book and I found it very seriously written, in simple language and covers well the whole subject of lighting in Blender. And even if the book was made with an early-2.5 version, the lights controls and UI almost didn’t change until now so I think it is totally up-to-date.
So I think it’s a good book for who is new to blender and wants to attack illumination. I just recommend you indeed to buy the pdf version, which has color screenshots…
+1 to “Lighting & Rendering” by Jeremy Birn.
More Blender book is always a good thing.
Some share of the benefit will be given to the Blender Foundation, great! and that in itself is a good contribution to the community by such a mainstream publisher.
Thumbs up!
looks pretty good, but is it just me who thinks the cover image is nothing *so* spectacular? a little lackluster…
@3dementia
I was not being negative in my comments, and have good reason to say what I did.
I, nor I think others here, in no way suggested that the author or content was in doubt.
Let me explain. I have the ‘Incredible Machines’ book by PACKT, which had extremely poor quality mono images. This made it extremely difficult to follow and I believe did the author an injustice. I understand how the addition of printed colour can add to the cost (though this book was not exactly a budget price), but even the addition of material on a support site, colour images, files etc. for reference would have added considerable value and usefulness to the book.
If we don’t give heartfelt feedback and critique in these cases, how on earth can publishers improve, and deliver what we want. This is actually positive action, not negative, as you suggest.
Gary, I agree with your comments. I was rather disappointed when I was told the book was to be printed in black and white. To compensate, we’re uploading a PDF (I believe) of the images in full color for download to go along with the physical copy, which will be available within the next couple days.
I see this book benefiting beginners and intermediate users the most – it will do a good job introducing them to an effective lighting workflow and how to think in terms of bringing an atmosphere to a scene. Being a first publication for me it was a great experience and I learned a lot that I will apply to future ones, be it with Packt or another publisher. If I can help just one person learn a little more about lighting and rendering then I’ll have done my job. :)
Nice job Aaron. It’s great to see books coming out specifically for Blender. Good luck and wish you success.
Thank you, Gary. I owe Yorik and my other editors a huge thank you as well – it may sound cliche but they did a tremendous job and really helped me get the book to where it is now. If anyone has any questions about the book or the writing process I’d be more than happy to answer them (my email is aaron[at]cgshark[dot]com).
Hopefully I can develop some tutorials for CGShark that compliment or expand on concepts covered in the book – I can’t really give a definite date as to when that sort of thing would be release because of my schedule, but it should be within the next couple months.
I’ve purchased the PDF and can confirm it’s in colour – will be looking forward to reading it!
Hi,
great book, I read it yesterday, and learned a lot.
The only thing that lacks (maybe is it an add of recent blender builds) are explanations about the sky and atmosphere in the sun settings.
Beautiful work anyway, (really worth the price), and greetings to Yorik!
—
tmaes
Okay the sample Chapter was in B&W, what i find not helpfull.
About the chapter it self. It is not the “wow” effekt, but if you start in blender it shows you the base elements of lightning. Simply and well explained – not overloaded.
…and since we have not a complete and up to date Handbook on blenderdotorg, books are mostly a good resource.
Chapter 2, beginner should already be lost here.
If you read the sample chapter and use the provided file, you will be in trouble with the Backlight !
What’s missing : You have to move the ground plane on layer 2 and be sure layers 1 and 2 are activated. Otherwise the “This layer only” trick won’t work.
Don’t know anything about the rest of the book. Maybe Ch 2 is the wrong sample.
My thoughts :
For realism sake : Outdoor and sunny day, why use a backlight ? Sun – Sky – Atmosphere haze – Heat distortion but no backlight please. Try it, take an outdoor photo with a bright sun in your back.
I’m 46 and love books but when it comes to show someone how to do a practical thing I prefer by far to see it rather than read it. I think video lessons are more suitable for such a subject.
Are there any other books or dvds for blender on the lighting-topic that you recommend?
A good start
Knowing more about light in general : http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/tutorials/light01.htm
General techniques and more : http://www.3drender.com/light/index.html
The very beginning :
https://www.packtpub.com/article/creating-convincing-images-blender-internal-renderer-1
http://www.packtpub.com/article/creating-convincing-images-blender-internal-renderer-2
What are the tools : http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1393798/tutorials/lighting/general/general.html
Watch : http://www.blendercookie.com/2009/07/07/learning-3pt-lighting/
More advanced exercice : http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1393798/tutorials/lighting/interior/interior.html
Read : http://www.blendercookie.com/2009/03/12/enhanced-rendering-with-textured-lighting/
How to deal with an architectural project : http://blender-house.spaces.live.com
Learn about real studio setup : http://www.bacht.net/english/refer.html
Know how to speed the process and improve the quality with compositing : http://www.cmivfx.com/productpages/product.aspx?name=Blender_3D_Compositing
Hope this helps. After that you should be able to solo fly.
Nice collection of links Pascal. Should be quite helpful to all.
@Pascal: what 3dementia said. Thanks for all the links.
@Aaron, I purchased the pdf earlier this weekend and I like what you’ve done. I’m especially happy with the color images and methodical progression in the chapters.
@Pascal, Thanks for the links.
@Aaron Kudos!
From a marketing perspective it doesn’t make sense why they would name the book with 2.5 in it instead of 2.6 as it will seem almost immediately obsolete once we’re out of beta. On the other hand, maybe this book will be discounted heavily once that happens. ;-)