It's by Tony Mullen so I was eager to get this one and get it read:
- Product Specifications
- Price : 39.00 euros (on 2nd of May 2009)
- Page Count : 410 roughly useful pages
- CD Included : Yes
The book has 12 chapters and the book as a whole is divided into 3 parts.
Below is a list of Chapters:
- PART 1 - MASTERING BLENDER 3D
- CHAPTER 1 - CONTROLLING YOUR ENVIRONMENT
- CHAPTER 2 - SCULPTING AND RETOPO WORKFLOW
- CHAPTER 3 - CREATING REALISTIC IMAGES WITH UV TEXTURES
- CHAPTER 4 - VIDEO COMPOSITING WITH NODES
- CHAPTER 5 - WORKING WITH THE VIDEO SEQUENCE EDITOR
- PART 2 - MASTERING BLENDER PYTHON
- CHAPTER 6 - PYTHON FOR THE IMPATIENT
- CHAPTER 7 - PYTHON SCRIPTING FOR BLENDER
- CHAPTER 8 - THE MANY-HEADED SNAKE: USES OF PYTHON IN BLENDER
- PART 3 - MASTERING THE BLENDER GAME ENGINE
- CHAPTER 9 - CREATING ASSETS FOR THE BLENDER GAME ENGINE
- CHAPTER 10 - MAKING THINGS HAPPEN IN THE GAME ENGINE
- CHAPTER 11 - PYTHON POWER IN THE BLENDER GAME ENGINE
The book is aimed at intermediate and advanced Blender users.
This is the first problem that I see with it. In that a lot of the information covered in the first 5 chapters, it's arguable as to weather the information is described in enough depth, so as to allow a truly intermediate/advanced Blender user to gain any useful information. In my opinion only chapters 2 and 3 out of the first 5 go into enough depth for an intermediate/advanced user. Chapters 1,4,5 do indeed cover some of the less well know uses of Blender but don't go into enough depth. A lot of the finer points of why things were done a particular way were not covered. To be honest if you were an intermediate/advanced Blender user you would already (or should already) know the topics covered in Part 1 of this book.
So for Part 1 of the book, I would say the topics covered were limited. An example would be the information on the use of Nodes to make textures. The amount of coverage of something so advanced and as useful as texture nodes was laughable, a few screenshots and scant explanation of why they were used and the full potential of what can be done with them was never really gone into. It reminded me of reading an FAQ there was no depth and a lack of structure.
At this point I was not at all impressed with this book, it was a shock because normally everything Tony Mullen touches is pure gold when it comes to Blender. Yes I know that intermediate/advanced books generally skimp on some details, but a good intermediate/advanced book makes up for the stuff they skip with extra stuff that people don't generally know. This is not the case with chapters 1 to 5.
It may be that if you aren't an intermediate/advanced Blender user that you may get more out of Part 1, but even if this is so, you would be much better off getting Jason Van Gumsters book (Blender for Dummies), which does a much better job than this book in a lot of areas.
However....
If we ignore Part 1 of the book and move onto Parts 2 and 3, things take a rapid upturn. So much so that all I can assume is Mr Mullen must of had a few off days while writing part 1. To me parts 2 and 3 are like reading a completely different book.
These parts cover the use of the Python from within the Blender modelling environment and from the Blender Game Engine environment. In short these parts of the book are worth their weight in gold. They contain information that is often very hard to come by and is not very well documented.
If you are interested in using Python with Blender this is the book for you. It is a shame that you have to work your way through half the book before it starts to get to really useful information.
Another problem which counts against the book is that fact that it uses black and white pictures which unfortunately because of the quality of the printing were often not very clear and cloudy. This problem is partially eased because the book does have a colour supplement in the middle of he book. The problem is some of the unclear pictures did not have references within the colour supplement. Also reference was made so often to the supplement and there were so many pictures in the supplement that it would of been quicker to just make the book have all colour pictures to start with. I know this puts the price of the book up but it would really have benefited.
The review score below would be much higher if part 1 of the book had been to the same standard as parts 2 and 3.
This book is worth getting but only if you are interested in use of Python within Blender.
Review Score 70%
