Contents Foreword xvii Introduction xix PART I ■ CREATiNG A CHAR AcTER WiTH BLENDER 1 Chapter 1 ■ Blender Basics: Interface and Objects 3 Work Areas and Window Types 4 Navigating the 3D Space 9 Objects and Datablocks 18 User Preferences 23 Chapter 2 ■ Working with Meshes 27 Polygons and Subsurfacing 28 Poly-by-Poly Modeling and Box Modeling 33 Common Problems and Solutions in Mesh Modeling 81 Chapter 3 ■ Completing the Model with Materials, Textures, and Hair 87 Materials and Material Slots 88 Material Properties 91 Textures and UV Mapping 98 WorkingCOPYRIGHTED with Particle Hair MATERIAL115 Chapter 4 ■ Armatures and Rigging 121 Blender Armature System 122 Building a Simple Armature 123 Rigging Captain Blender with Rigify 135 427378ftoc.indd 13 3/14/11 12:01:01 PM Chapter 5 ■ Shape Keys and Facial Rigging 159 Shape Key Basics 160 Building a Shape Key Set for Captain Blender 172 Facial Bones and Controls 187 Improved Mesh Deformations Using Driven Shape Keys 200 P A R T I I ■ BRiNGiNG IT TO LiFE: ANiMATiON 205 Chapter 6 ■ Basics of Animation 207 Keyframes and Function Curves 208 Using the Graph Editor: Bouncing a Ball 210 Interpolation and Extrapolation 217 Chapter 7 ■ Armature Animation 223 Posing and Keyframing with the DopeSheet and Action Editor 224 Walk and Run Cycles 237 Pose-to-Pose Animation 250 Chapter 8 ■ Facial Animation and Lip Sync 261 Facial Posing 262 Lip Sync 267 Playback 273 Chapter 9 ■ Animation for Production 277 Working with Proxies 278 Using the NLA Editor 283 NLA in Action 289 Chapter 10 ■ Further Issues in Character Animation 299 Interacting with Props 300 Lattices and Mesh Deformers 306 Softbodies and Metaballs 314 427378ftoc.indd 14 3/14/11 12:01:01 PM Chapter 11 ■ Lighting, Rendering, and Editing Your Animation 321 Lighting Basics 322 Rendering Your Animation 334 Editing in the Sequence Editor 336 Chapter 12 ■ Python Scripts and Add-Ons 341 Using Add-Ons 342 The Blender Python API 345 Learning More about Blender Python Scripting 346 PART III ■ BLENDER iN PRODUcTiON 347 Chapter 13 ■ The Fruits of Freedom: Open Movies and Open Content 349 The Blender Institute 350 The Blender Open Movie Project 350 Free and Open Licenses for Software and Content 355 Chapter 14 ■ A Look Inside the Blender Open Movies 359 Learning from Elephants Dream 360 Nonhuman Rigs in Big Buck Bunny and Sintel 370 The Production Pipeline 375 Chapter 15 ■ Behind the Scenes with Sintel 381 From Durian to Sintel 382 The Sintel Open Content 383 Sintel Artists in Their Own Words 387 Chapter 16 ■ Feifi the Canary—Plumiferos Takes Wing 407 Introducing Feifi 408 Facial Deformations with Lattices 410 Rigging a Cartoon Bird 411 427378ftoc.indd 15 3/14/11 12:01:02 PM P A R T I V ■ BLENDER AND BEYOND 419 Chapter 17 ■ Other Software and Formats 421 Importing and Exporting Other File Formats 422 Useful Open Source Software for Blender Artists 422 Blending into the (Near) Future 425 Chapter 18 ■ Resources for Further Learning 427 Selected Blender Resources 428 Recommended Non-Blender-Specific Books 430 On Becoming a Blender Master 432 Index 433 427378ftoc.indd 16 3/14/11 12:01:03 PM.