What do you think?
Rate this book
Blender For Dummies
The exciting new book on the exciting new Blender 2.5!If you want to design 3D animation, here's your chance to jump in with both feet, free software, and a friendly guide at your side! Blender For Dummies, 2nd Edition is the perfect introduction to the popular, open-source, Blender 3D animation software, specifically the revolutionary new Blender 2.5. Find out what all the buzz is about with this easy-access guide. Even if you?re just beginning, you'll learn all the Blender 2.5 ropes, get the latest tips, and soon start creating 3D animation that dazzles.Walks you through what you need to know to start creating eye-catching 3D animations with Blender 2.5, the latest update to the top open-source 3D animation programShows you how to get the very most out of Blender 2.5's new multi-window unblocking interface, new event system, and other exciting new featuresCovers how to create 3D objects with meshes, curves, surfaces, and 3D text; add color, texture, shades, reflections and transparency; set your objects in motion with animations and rigging; render your objects and animations; and create scenes with lighting and camerasIf you want to start creating your own 3D animations with Blender, Blender For Dummies, 2nd Edition is where you need to start!
424 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
63 people are currently reading
188 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
February 26, 2016
Mostly good book, but with terrible index and illustrations.
Let me get two things out of the way. First, I like this book; let me get that out front and center. This review will sound overly negative, because it doesn't take nearly as many words to explain what you like as what you don't like. And if a tech book is well-written, you don't notice why it's good; those parts just flow. As in so many other things it's the parts where you get snagged that you notice.
One other thing: I have no interest in the animation aspects of Blender, so I skipped all of Part III, chapters 10-13. They may be the greatest explanation of Blender animation ever written, or they may be the worst thing since that Battlefield Earth movie.
So here's the good. The book has lots of good information, well presented. Somehow, van Gumster has managed to evade the usual Dummies editors who try to make the text "cute," in a misguided attempt to make it engaging, which actually makes most Dummies books grating and annoying. This book has some of that, but it's not nearly as bad as usual.
The first several chapters are very good indeed, and there were a few places I used stickie-notes to find to refer to as I started using the software; the hot-key explanations in chapter 3 is one example. The lighting chapter, chapter 9, is great. I got a real clue about lighting after reading this.
Okay, now the bad. I have three problems with this book: the index, the illustrations, and how it seems to forget that it's an introductory book in the middle of Part II and tries to be a reference instead, failing in the attempt.
The index. It's terrible. Over and over, I looked things up in the index and they weren't there. I wanted to find out how to do an extrusion. You'd look under "ex," right? Nope. Nothing there. I finally found it by flipping through the book; later I realized I should have used the table of contents, where one of the headings included extrusion. I did find it later, as a subheading under "Edit mode". So yeah, if you already know Blender, and say to yourself, "okay, I want to go into edit mode and do some extrusion," then you have a chance in hell of finding which of the 479 pages of text deal with extrusion. But if you are a beginner, which is the target audience for Dummies books like this, it's hopeless.
“Extrude” is just an example; I ran into this over and over.
The illustrations. Many of the illustrations are illegible. Kudos to van Gumster for using a custom theme to try to make things easier to see, but that’s just not going to work when the illustrations are grayscale and tiny. On pages 214-215 there is a sequence of literally postage-stamp sized comparisons of 10 different shaders. And we’re talking small postage stamps; about one-half square inch each (I measured so I wouldn’t exaggerate here). It’s laughable, they’re completely worthless for the comparison purpose for which they’re included. Many of the illustrations show important text as tiny and black text on gray background; or in some cases, dark-grey on medium-grey. The illustrations need to be 1) larger and 2) preferably in color. I realize color would drive up the price of the book, but I think that’s important. I didn’t laugh at any of the attempted jokes in the book, but I did literally laugh out loud at the illustrations on page 193. The color picker, rendered in grayscale. Great.
Now the reference-y bit. Somewhere around chapter 6 or so, with the worst in chapters 7 & 8, van Gumster starts taking a catalog approach. Instead of showing you how to do something, he starts just cataloging options of various operations. We get a paragraph on each of the dozen or so shaders available in Cycles; a list of all the panels in BI’s Material Properties; a list of shaders in BI (that’s the part with the postage stamps). What would have worked for these chapters is just to lay out how to do materials and textures, and then build from that.
And one other thing. I get that van Gumster is very, very good with Blender and probably has a lot of cool Blender-fu, and wants to show that off. But for an introductory book, he would be better off doing more introduction. In the two chapters on rendering (7 on materials and 8 on textures), on the third page, barely into rendering, he diverts into how to use both rendering engines in one scene; something that’s unlikely to be a beginner’s requirement, and, if it needed to be dealt with at all, should have been relegated to the very end.
I say with sadness that I found chapters 7 and 8 to be pretty useless for me due to the catalog-everything approach and the explication of esoteric techniques before the basics.
(I’m starting to sound harsh here. Did I mention I really liked chapter 9, on lighting?)
It’s not going to give you everything you need to be good at Blender. You’re going to want to seek out online tutorials, especially videos on youtube or the like, to fill in gaps. But that’s not a flaw in the book; it’s kind of inherent in Blender. Due to its unfamiliar UI. And its complexity and power. Van Gumster anticipates this, and Chapter 18 has a pretty good list of such resources.
Okay, so in conclusion:
1. This is a good book, and I recommend it, subject to the limitations I mentioned above.
2. The index sucks, and in technical books, especially introductory ones, the index should not suck.
3. The illustrations suck, and in books explaining graphic software, the illustrations should not suck.
4. It’s not going to give you everything you need to be good at Blender, but will give you a pretty good start.
5. All in all, a pretty good book; with some specific things that should be fixed for the next edition.
Let me get two things out of the way. First, I like this book; let me get that out front and center. This review will sound overly negative, because it doesn't take nearly as many words to explain what you like as what you don't like. And if a tech book is well-written, you don't notice why it's good; those parts just flow. As in so many other things it's the parts where you get snagged that you notice.
One other thing: I have no interest in the animation aspects of Blender, so I skipped all of Part III, chapters 10-13. They may be the greatest explanation of Blender animation ever written, or they may be the worst thing since that Battlefield Earth movie.
So here's the good. The book has lots of good information, well presented. Somehow, van Gumster has managed to evade the usual Dummies editors who try to make the text "cute," in a misguided attempt to make it engaging, which actually makes most Dummies books grating and annoying. This book has some of that, but it's not nearly as bad as usual.
The first several chapters are very good indeed, and there were a few places I used stickie-notes to find to refer to as I started using the software; the hot-key explanations in chapter 3 is one example. The lighting chapter, chapter 9, is great. I got a real clue about lighting after reading this.
Okay, now the bad. I have three problems with this book: the index, the illustrations, and how it seems to forget that it's an introductory book in the middle of Part II and tries to be a reference instead, failing in the attempt.
The index. It's terrible. Over and over, I looked things up in the index and they weren't there. I wanted to find out how to do an extrusion. You'd look under "ex," right? Nope. Nothing there. I finally found it by flipping through the book; later I realized I should have used the table of contents, where one of the headings included extrusion. I did find it later, as a subheading under "Edit mode". So yeah, if you already know Blender, and say to yourself, "okay, I want to go into edit mode and do some extrusion," then you have a chance in hell of finding which of the 479 pages of text deal with extrusion. But if you are a beginner, which is the target audience for Dummies books like this, it's hopeless.
“Extrude” is just an example; I ran into this over and over.
The illustrations. Many of the illustrations are illegible. Kudos to van Gumster for using a custom theme to try to make things easier to see, but that’s just not going to work when the illustrations are grayscale and tiny. On pages 214-215 there is a sequence of literally postage-stamp sized comparisons of 10 different shaders. And we’re talking small postage stamps; about one-half square inch each (I measured so I wouldn’t exaggerate here). It’s laughable, they’re completely worthless for the comparison purpose for which they’re included. Many of the illustrations show important text as tiny and black text on gray background; or in some cases, dark-grey on medium-grey. The illustrations need to be 1) larger and 2) preferably in color. I realize color would drive up the price of the book, but I think that’s important. I didn’t laugh at any of the attempted jokes in the book, but I did literally laugh out loud at the illustrations on page 193. The color picker, rendered in grayscale. Great.
Now the reference-y bit. Somewhere around chapter 6 or so, with the worst in chapters 7 & 8, van Gumster starts taking a catalog approach. Instead of showing you how to do something, he starts just cataloging options of various operations. We get a paragraph on each of the dozen or so shaders available in Cycles; a list of all the panels in BI’s Material Properties; a list of shaders in BI (that’s the part with the postage stamps). What would have worked for these chapters is just to lay out how to do materials and textures, and then build from that.
And one other thing. I get that van Gumster is very, very good with Blender and probably has a lot of cool Blender-fu, and wants to show that off. But for an introductory book, he would be better off doing more introduction. In the two chapters on rendering (7 on materials and 8 on textures), on the third page, barely into rendering, he diverts into how to use both rendering engines in one scene; something that’s unlikely to be a beginner’s requirement, and, if it needed to be dealt with at all, should have been relegated to the very end.
I say with sadness that I found chapters 7 and 8 to be pretty useless for me due to the catalog-everything approach and the explication of esoteric techniques before the basics.
(I’m starting to sound harsh here. Did I mention I really liked chapter 9, on lighting?)
It’s not going to give you everything you need to be good at Blender. You’re going to want to seek out online tutorials, especially videos on youtube or the like, to fill in gaps. But that’s not a flaw in the book; it’s kind of inherent in Blender. Due to its unfamiliar UI. And its complexity and power. Van Gumster anticipates this, and Chapter 18 has a pretty good list of such resources.
Okay, so in conclusion:
1. This is a good book, and I recommend it, subject to the limitations I mentioned above.
2. The index sucks, and in technical books, especially introductory ones, the index should not suck.
3. The illustrations suck, and in books explaining graphic software, the illustrations should not suck.
4. It’s not going to give you everything you need to be good at Blender, but will give you a pretty good start.
5. All in all, a pretty good book; with some specific things that should be fixed for the next edition.
May 12, 2010
The best manual I've found for Blender. It was concise and to the point. The only improvement would be for it to have actual projects (at least a couple) to walk you through. Beyond that, it was excellent.
August 30, 2019
Decent introduction to Blender. With the release of 2.8 I wouldn't pick it up anymore. There have been so many changes to the default look and feel. Maybe it's time for a new edition!
January 8, 2014
Gambarnya sedikit jadi sulit mengerti -___-
December 26, 2022
This book is a good first step for a deep dive. I recommend supplementing it with other sources such as Udemy.
Read
April 20, 2020Like any computing tech hardcopy text, it's a little out-of-date with the software. But sometimes it's useful to have a hardcopy rather than using screen real estate for an e-book.
This book does look like an appropriate reference for new users if used in parallel with some of the online video tutorials. Some of video tutorials are presented so quickly it's next to impossible to determine what's going on but this book can help fill in some of those gaps.
I was bothered by some tutorial resources (such as the model for exploring rigging, pg 396), as of this writing, do not appear to be on the author's website.
This book does look like an appropriate reference for new users if used in parallel with some of the online video tutorials. Some of video tutorials are presented so quickly it's next to impossible to determine what's going on but this book can help fill in some of those gaps.
I was bothered by some tutorial resources (such as the model for exploring rigging, pg 396), as of this writing, do not appear to be on the author's website.
October 8, 2022
This book singlehandedly taught me almost everything I know in Blender. There's no way you'd not benefit from going through the full guide step-by-step. And the various topics are arranged by their complexity and condensed to digestible sizes.
Of course, there's a lot more to learn when it comes to the software, but Blender For Dummies makes certain you get a solid understanding of the basics and also feel accomplished by the time the guide ends. I highly recommend it to anyone who's opening Blender for the first time!
Of course, there's a lot more to learn when it comes to the software, but Blender For Dummies makes certain you get a solid understanding of the basics and also feel accomplished by the time the guide ends. I highly recommend it to anyone who's opening Blender for the first time!
June 21, 2022
Living the 4D Life
This was a great book on Blender.
I feel that I am now fully capable of doing 3D modeling in the real world using Blender.
Would recommend if you want to learn as well.
4.5/5
This was a great book on Blender.
I feel that I am now fully capable of doing 3D modeling in the real world using Blender.
Would recommend if you want to learn as well.
4.5/5
March 16, 2018
Great resource, a little dated now but still packed with loads of tutorials.
January 15, 2021
Contains a large section on rigging and animating in Blender.
April 4, 2017
To be honest...this is a good book...but only if you are a complete Blender newbie...in my case...I'm a semi-newbie...so I only learnt a couple of new things...
One drawback of the book is that it doesn't provide enough images for some procedures that could be better explained graphically...
So...if you don't have a clue on Blender...read this...otherwise, just gracefully skip it and pick something more advances...
One drawback of the book is that it doesn't provide enough images for some procedures that could be better explained graphically...
So...if you don't have a clue on Blender...read this...otherwise, just gracefully skip it and pick something more advances...
June 13, 2010
wonderful!
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews