Blender Book Review – The Complete Guide to Blender Graphics
The Complete Guide to Blender Graphics: Computer Modeling and Animation by John M. Blain
Hey everyone! I was recently sent a copy of a new Blender book and asked to share my thoughts on it. Rather than blab on like I tend to do in many of my tutorials I’ll just get right to it! I’ve broken my review up into several sections: Content, Printing Quality and Final Thoughts.
Book description from the Amazon page:
While Blender is a wonderful free and open source program for computer modeling and animation, there has been a lack of unified, up-to-date documentation for beginners. Removing the frustration from the learning process, The Complete Guide to Blender Graphics: Computer Modeling and Animation helps beginners understand the basics of computer animation using Blender.
The author begins with a detailed explanation of the Blender graphical user interface (GUI) and its method of navigation. He covers basic mesh modeling on both the object and sub-object levels. At this point, the beginner 3D modeler can create a wide variety of models. The author moves on to materials, camera, lighting, and rendering, allowing the creation of more complete models and rendered images. He also includes a section on animation. This sequence provides a solid foundation for the more advanced topics discussed in later chapters.
Alleviating the difficulties in learning Blender, this book provides thorough instruction on the basics of this 3D modeling and animation program.
View the table of contents and sample chapters HERE
Content
As with any software book, the most important aspect is the value of the content, followed closely by the quality of the presentation of said content. The first thing to note is this book is intended for beginning users. Intermediate and advanced users will not find much to ingage them here. However, assuming the reader is a beginner then this book provides quite a wealth of information.
As can be seen from the Table of Contents the book covers nearly every aspect of Blender 2.60, which was the newest version at the time of writing. It does not cover Cycles, BMesh or any of the other newer additions, but all of the information is still relevant. All of the content is presented in a reference-like manner, with short tutorials interspersed to help the reader directly. The book reads quite a lot like a textbook, which I find to be refreshing but could also be off putting to those people wanting a step-by-step production guide.
Let’s be clear, this book is much more a reference rather than a tutorial book. You won’t find any example projects and final results in the book. Instead you’ll find a large collection of quick guides on how to use each of the tools and aspects of Blender covered. If you’re looking for a production guidebook then this is not the one for you.
Printing Quality
In short, the print quality of this book is quite good! Every page is printed in full-color on high quality stock. Next to the numerous Blender books with poor print quality, sadly including my own, it’s great to see high quality printing for this title.
The only problems I found with the printing were a few screenshots that had to be scaled up dramatically for printing that saw some pretty severe artifacts.
All things considered, the print quality is not a concern with this book; I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
Final Thoughts
All in all I was pleased. I think John has done a great job at simplifying the first learning steps for Blender. As many of you are surely familiar with, this can be a very intimidating and frustrating process. A reference book like this can really help ease the transition into Blender, even for those people that don’t have the first clue about where to start. If you’re a brand new Blender user or someone that is interested in learning Blender then you’ll likely find this Blender book a valuable resource.
However, what you won’t find in this book is any info covering workflow, the production pipeline, specific techniques, theory, or any of the other key items that factor into being a successful artist and Blender user. Granted, I don’t believe it was ever the author’s intention to cover any of these items and so I was not disappointed.
This book would make an ideal reference companion for a Blender classroom environment if presented by the right instructor.
Book Details:
- Paperback: 390 pages
- Publisher: A K Peters/CRC Press; 1 edition (April 16, 2012)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1466517034
- ISBN-13: 978-1466517035
- Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
$36.83 on amazon.com
£30.39 on amazon.co.uk ( so $47.37 )
€40,55 on amazon.fr ( so 50,80 US$ )
You have a problem with europeans or something ?
You can buy in amazon.com and they will sent it to you by post. It takes two to three weeks (to Spain at least) but if you buy more than one book at a time, you save around €50 for every parcel. If you are not in a hurry it’s worth the wait.
Apart from the shipping as mentioned by Andres, there’s also the tax Amazon has to pay (VAT). In Europe it’s quite high, 19% right now but there are plans to raise it to 21%. Because Amazon is an international company, they have to pay this tax for every copy sold here in Europe and it’s not a charity, so it comes on top of the price of a book. Also, they need to make lots of money and Europe is an easy target ….
Amazon is a bad deal for us Europeans, that’s for sure.
However, not all is lost. Here comes a hot tip: Most book stores can order a copy for you at a straight currency-to-currency price (all you need is an ISBN number), which means that you are actually better off when your national currency is the Euro and you want to buy a US published book. I order books from the US all the time from my local book store (I live in a tiny little village in the Netherlands which has one tiny little book store
) and the books take about 5-7 working days to arrive (no shipping costs either and an email or phone call when the book is ready for collection). As the manager of my local book store explained to me, this is because they have order-on-demand contracts with most publishing houses. Just ask your local book store and you’ll (hopefully) get!
That is a great tip.
Also works in a big city in The Netherlands : Amsterdam. Bookshop : Selexyz (in 15 cities across The Netherlands).
Who needs a book when there is a lot of great tutorials on cgcookie
Simply everyone who loves reading books!
The BlenderCookie is very nice site, the tutorials are the best on the web. Heving books is very important, you can read them anywhere; in my case I can scratch or write to them because all that I have animated books are in English. The audio of the videos do not understand much but add to what I have read.
Is very important study other important aspects such as color, lighting, animation, composition, etc. to create better products with blender. There are many very interesting books that are not necessarily about Blender but are essential for a 3D artist
Yes, books are great, but they suck when they’re outdated by the time the book comes out. Blender evolves so quickly that it makes almost no sense to write a book about it.
Like Jonathan said already, the book relates to Blender 2.60… it doesn’t even cover Blender as what it is today, no Cycles and no Bmesh. Might as well buy a Blender 2.49 book.
I’m afraid I have to agree with Filip. Why try to learn from words in pages in a book when a visual representation of what the writer is trying to convey is so much more intuitive. Just my take.
I also agree with Filip, i bought Blender for dummies by Jason van Gumster the next week i found CG Cookie and have NOT Loooked at the book since.
The book sets on the shelf as new never used.
If I run into a area or problem i look up my downloaded content most likely cg cookie have what I need.
Hmm… I’m not sure if I agree. There are so many tuts from many sources. It can take quite a while to remember which one you need, find it, and re-watch it if you have forgotten something. And as I mentioned the other day there are no tutorials at all for some topics. Even as a more experienced user I think it would be nice to have a complete reference handy to keep me from wasting 30 minutes whenever I’m stumped. Plus, I’m willing to bet you can read that book a lot faster than you can watch all the tutorials! Plus Plus, tutorials are a lot easier to follow when you have a good grip on what is going on in the first place… It can make your head swim when you don’t know anything. I stared at Blender off and on for a month before I figured out how to change the cube! Lol
Hi Jonathan,
Good review. The links were most helpful & a good idea. Got a better “feel” for the book’s contents & style. Thought your comments were “spot on”. Best used as a referrence. Though at the asking price, it would benefit from a supplement covering the features introduced in 2.61 thru 2.63.
Thank You,
-OldMan44
I used the “3ds Max 4 Bible” back when I was trying out 3ds Max. It was very useful. Of course, there was nothing like CG Cookie at the time. At least not at a price I could afford. But, there were a lot of detailed info, in the book, on what every variable’s function was.
Tutorials are great at teaching techniques, workflow and how to get a specific result but seldom get into what every little setting does within a panel. There’s just not enough time to delve into everything through tutorials. So, a book is great for this. Too, many times I’ve clicked on a control within a panel and not be certain what it does because I was only shown how to get a specific result and that setting was not covered in a tutorial. But, I think that’s where Blender Wiki comes into play.
Between the Blender Wiki, Video Tutorials and the book not offered in Kindle or digital format, I think a printed book of this nature is not very functional. Technical and reference books are the best candidates for digital format. Remember when encyclopedias were sold in large volumes that cost thousands of dollars, then they put them on a disc and now we just use then net.
I’m very new to Blender and 3D (6 weeks and counting) and, while I prefer video tutorials, I also find it useful to have a written reference handy as well. I’ve just bought the book and, to me, it is a useful reference tool for people like me who have no real clue about 3D modelling. It’s something I can pick up, skim through, then think ‘I’ll have a go at that’.
Just my take. I’m an engineering instructor so I know people learn in different ways so everyone is going to have their own opinion on topics like this.
I love videotutorials and I’ve learned a lot from them but I have to agree with those in favor of books for the same good points they made and call me a romantic but I like the weight, the smell, the flip of the pages…
We are lucky that we can have the best of both worlds, aren’t we?
hey, nice cover!
Good work on the cover
Jonathan,
I bought your book and have no problems with its print quality. For being printed in black & white the print quality is good. Though, I would have liked the screen shots to have been in color. But I suspect your publisher would have charged a premium for that.
I wish there was a Blender book geared to intermediate and advanced users of Blender.
If you do ever write another book, I definitely will consider buying it as I like your instruction style.
Hi Jordan,
I actually have some initial plans right now for another book that will be a reference and guide of sorts for intermediate and advanced modelers. Nothing is actually in motion yet but it’s looking pretty good. I’m glad you liked the first book!
-Jonathan
Will there be a PDF version available?
yes, downloadable version would be nice.
I agree that information on the latest Blender features is lacking but that is to be expected considering Blenders current rate of development. One key feature that I didn’t read in the above report ( I apologize if I missed it ) is that the book is linked to a series of video tutorials by Neal Hersig found here http://gryllus.net/Blender/3D.html
What I am referring too is the “Learning units” icon on some of the page margins. I am of the opinion that the combination of the book and the videos provides one of the better resources for new users of Blender.
One quick correction to my post above is that the “Learning units” are approximate references to the relevant chapters in the videos. See recommending Viewing in the front of the book for a clearer description…..sorry about that.
Below is my review at Amazon:
This is an excellent book for learning Blender A~Z, OR to use as a reference.
I’m learning things about Fluid Sims I’d never seen in any of the many free video tutorials.
Same for using Nodes…more in depth (though good to have videos in addition).
Initially I had some reservations about this book…e.g. “the font is too small, the index is
too thin”.
But after using it a few days I have to say it’s a great resource…very comprehensive
and detailed content. In addition, it’s very nicely bound & printed on very good stock with
helpful color screenshots on every page.
Any reservations I had seem inconsequential & trivial now…this book’s pro’s far out-weigh
any cons, and is still worth 5 stars.
And it’s not just for noobs…I highly recommend it to beginners AND intermediate users alike.
re: Books vs Videos….
both are necessary for me. Books are usually well organized and detailed, portable & handy….can read almost anywhere without electricity or a connection….in the loo or in the Q. =)
Videos are also an indespensible learning tool…books without videos is a drag. They compliment each other, and
I wouldn’t want one without the other.
Many thanks for all the excellent free videos here and throughout the Blender community. =)
Jonathan, regarding your comment “However, what you won’t find in this book is any info covering workflow, the production pipeline, specific techniques, theory, or any of the other key items that factor into being a successful artist and Blender user. Granted, I don’t believe it was ever the author’s intention to cover any of these items and so I was not disappointed.” I like that you reviewed the book in the context of the author’s intent. My review of the review is a “thumb’s up”
Thanks John! So often I see reviews that are misleading and so I wanted to be sure not to do that