Ok, so I finally worked my way through this book. I knew that I wanted to check this
book out the second I heard about it, because Blender specific books are still very
rare and books which cover architectural modelling are even rarer still.
In some areas this book is good, and covers certain topics in enough details to make it
very useful. Unfortunately this does not work its way through to all areas of the
book.
If your completely new to Blender than I would suggest that there are better books to
buy than this one. Although if you into Architecture you are stuck between this book
and "The Precision Modelling Guide" by Robert Andrew Burke. And to be honest in my
opinion the Robert Andrew Burke book still does a better job on the precision side of
modelling.
Don't get me wrong this is not an awful book, I feel it just misses opportunities to
really excel in any particular area.
Some of the bright points for me in this book are its coverage of the Game Engine and
the Radiosity and the Global Illumination descriptions and the Video Sequence
Editor.
There are unfortunately many down sides, but the main one that continually got me was
when the book started to describe something, but then not going into enough details on
particular areas. Also the total lack of Building a complete set of models and
buildings for an architectural book is almost unforgivable. On top of these points are
the appalling layout and grammar problems within the book and the strange issue of
entire sections being wrongly repeated in 2 different chapters, as well as the
recurring issue with incorrectly displayed pictures; these issues really don't help
it's case.
All this taken into account its merely an average book.
Review Score 60%
Showing posts with label Chapter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chapter. Show all posts
03 June 2012
Blender 3D Architecture, Buildings and Scenery - Chapter 14 Review
This is the last chapter of the book and covers the Post Production tasks which could
maybe, be done in Blender, but which is much easier in other external
applications.
In the case of this chapter Gimp is used as the external application for carrying out various tasks on Blender Rendered graphics output.
A brief explanation of what GIMP is, and what it can be used for, is run through. Followed on by an explanation of the interface that GIMP uses. After having described the interface, the difference types of selection methods are described. These descriptions are relatively clear. Though obviously the amount of detail that can go into describing features is limited because GIMP in it self could warrant a book 3 times the size of this book.
When the simpler selection tools are gotten out of the way the discussion moves onto paths and their uses. The uses of colour tools and described, such as Selecting by Colour and the fuzzy select/lasso tool are covered.
The various technical colour manipulation techniques such as colour balancing and hue and saturation are covered. There are examples of the effect of these tools shown on the resultant renders.
Using the GIMP layer tools are described and an example is shown, using these layer tools to add a different background to a rendered scene. And finally a section covering how to correct errors in a rendered scene and doing touch ups are explained.
It would have been nice to have a section on using the Blender Node Editor, as this could of kept us within the Blender application, as the Node Editor is very, very powerful system. That said GIMP is a very useful application and this section is well worth a read.
In the case of this chapter Gimp is used as the external application for carrying out various tasks on Blender Rendered graphics output.
A brief explanation of what GIMP is, and what it can be used for, is run through. Followed on by an explanation of the interface that GIMP uses. After having described the interface, the difference types of selection methods are described. These descriptions are relatively clear. Though obviously the amount of detail that can go into describing features is limited because GIMP in it self could warrant a book 3 times the size of this book.
When the simpler selection tools are gotten out of the way the discussion moves onto paths and their uses. The uses of colour tools and described, such as Selecting by Colour and the fuzzy select/lasso tool are covered.
The various technical colour manipulation techniques such as colour balancing and hue and saturation are covered. There are examples of the effect of these tools shown on the resultant renders.
Using the GIMP layer tools are described and an example is shown, using these layer tools to add a different background to a rendered scene. And finally a section covering how to correct errors in a rendered scene and doing touch ups are explained.
It would have been nice to have a section on using the Blender Node Editor, as this could of kept us within the Blender application, as the Node Editor is very, very powerful system. That said GIMP is a very useful application and this section is well worth a read.
Blender 3D Architecture, Buildings and Scenery - Chapter 13 Review
This chapter "Animation for Architectural Visualisation" covers how to do basic
animation with visualisation in mind.
First it covers some of the uses of animation within Blender and more specifically in regards to Architecture. Also covered is the Video Sequence Editor, a feature that makes Blender very powerful in the Architecture realm. Then in the final section of this chapter Interactive Animation is covered.
Planning animations and the various types of story board and Animatic techniques are covered. Animation using Animatics and Rendering with CTRL-Render this scene feature button are described.
After this the basics of Blender Animation Keyframes and their usages are covered. This enables us to go on to make a camera animation which moves the camera though a building. The Timeline, NLA, and IPO windows are described and shown briefly how they are used. Also covered are the techniques and keyboard shortcuts that can be used to altering their parameters.
As well as animating a cameras moves, object/target tracking is also introduced so as to enable a camera to always point towards a specific location.
Once the camera walk through animation have been completed the sections move onto generating an Animation, by describing the Animation panel and its various options.
After the animation has been created things move on to using the Video Sequence Editor to describe what the Video Sequence Editor does and then using it to combine various other components, to produce a Walk through and apply titling over the top of the animation using the features of the Video Sequence Editor. Also briefly covered is techniques for splitting one big animations into smaller parts, as well as the various special filter effects that can be applied.
A description of Meta Strips is given and this is very useful as often it is not described.
And finally in that last section of this chapter "Interactive Animation" is covered. Interactive animation basically means an animation/environment in which the display and control of the animation is controllable by the user. So for example in the example of a building visualisation walk through. Rather than have the walk through just follow a fixed walk through path, you can control where the walk through path will go at runtime by using either a mouse or keyboard or other controlling devices.
This as the chapter says is a very powerful feature and sets Blender apart from a lot of other modelling systems.
Now this subject is only covered very briefly and the Interactive Blender Game Engine is very powerful so obviously you aren't going to get an in-depth explanation of all the features of the Game Engine. But what this section does cover is enough for you to make a Camera which can move it's location by the use of cursor keys. This is amazingly useful for visualisations. I was really surprised how easy it was to do.
This section alone makes the entire chapter worth reading.
First it covers some of the uses of animation within Blender and more specifically in regards to Architecture. Also covered is the Video Sequence Editor, a feature that makes Blender very powerful in the Architecture realm. Then in the final section of this chapter Interactive Animation is covered.
Planning animations and the various types of story board and Animatic techniques are covered. Animation using Animatics and Rendering with CTRL-Render this scene feature button are described.
After this the basics of Blender Animation Keyframes and their usages are covered. This enables us to go on to make a camera animation which moves the camera though a building. The Timeline, NLA, and IPO windows are described and shown briefly how they are used. Also covered are the techniques and keyboard shortcuts that can be used to altering their parameters.
As well as animating a cameras moves, object/target tracking is also introduced so as to enable a camera to always point towards a specific location.
Once the camera walk through animation have been completed the sections move onto generating an Animation, by describing the Animation panel and its various options.
After the animation has been created things move on to using the Video Sequence Editor to describe what the Video Sequence Editor does and then using it to combine various other components, to produce a Walk through and apply titling over the top of the animation using the features of the Video Sequence Editor. Also briefly covered is techniques for splitting one big animations into smaller parts, as well as the various special filter effects that can be applied.
A description of Meta Strips is given and this is very useful as often it is not described.
And finally in that last section of this chapter "Interactive Animation" is covered. Interactive animation basically means an animation/environment in which the display and control of the animation is controllable by the user. So for example in the example of a building visualisation walk through. Rather than have the walk through just follow a fixed walk through path, you can control where the walk through path will go at runtime by using either a mouse or keyboard or other controlling devices.
This as the chapter says is a very powerful feature and sets Blender apart from a lot of other modelling systems.
Now this subject is only covered very briefly and the Interactive Blender Game Engine is very powerful so obviously you aren't going to get an in-depth explanation of all the features of the Game Engine. But what this section does cover is enough for you to make a Camera which can move it's location by the use of cursor keys. This is amazingly useful for visualisations. I was really surprised how easy it was to do.
This section alone makes the entire chapter worth reading.
Blender 3D Architecture, Buildings and Scenery - Chapter 12 Review
This chapter covers the topics of Global Illumination when used with YafRay an external
render which is used often with Blender as a different external render, because it has
some features and support for certain additional lighting effects.
The Blender Internal Render is getting better but still it is not able to do certain things, so while that is the case for certain effects used with Global Illumination, YafRay can be used.
At the start of the chapter some of the feature that YafRay has are described such a Photonic light and the ability of YafRay to support Caustics.
It then shows an example of a dinning room which was rendered using YafRay but unfortunately you never get to be shown how to build that model scene.
Instructions on where to get and how to install YafRay are mentioned as well as how to configure Blender to use YafRay as the external render are also explained.
Once everything is setup, the book goes through some of the Button and settings that yafRay has and what they do. Though again the layout and names of some of the interface items when using YafRay in Blender 2.46 has changed so they don't match up with the pictures shown.
After the basic options are described things move onto explaining how to setup YafRay with Global Illumination settings. Going through the different GI settings such as Full, SkyDome, None etc.
An example of a high rise building is show rendered with the different types of Global Illumination. Also some of the steps to do Internal Room, full render global illuminations are covered. It's such a shame that we don't get to Model the room.
The YafRay preset materials are covered along with the Lighting options that are specific to YafRay, specifically Photon lights and some of the extra settings that become visible when used with Blender lightings panel.
An example render is shown, demonstrating a glass of water with caustics being used and the various glow affects that can be applied to lights are also briefly described.
The Blender Internal Render is getting better but still it is not able to do certain things, so while that is the case for certain effects used with Global Illumination, YafRay can be used.
At the start of the chapter some of the feature that YafRay has are described such a Photonic light and the ability of YafRay to support Caustics.
It then shows an example of a dinning room which was rendered using YafRay but unfortunately you never get to be shown how to build that model scene.
Instructions on where to get and how to install YafRay are mentioned as well as how to configure Blender to use YafRay as the external render are also explained.
Once everything is setup, the book goes through some of the Button and settings that yafRay has and what they do. Though again the layout and names of some of the interface items when using YafRay in Blender 2.46 has changed so they don't match up with the pictures shown.
After the basic options are described things move onto explaining how to setup YafRay with Global Illumination settings. Going through the different GI settings such as Full, SkyDome, None etc.
An example of a high rise building is show rendered with the different types of Global Illumination. Also some of the steps to do Internal Room, full render global illuminations are covered. It's such a shame that we don't get to Model the room.
The YafRay preset materials are covered along with the Lighting options that are specific to YafRay, specifically Photon lights and some of the extra settings that become visible when used with Blender lightings panel.
An example render is shown, demonstrating a glass of water with caustics being used and the various glow affects that can be applied to lights are also briefly described.
Blender 3D Architecture, Buildings and Scenery - Chapter 11 of 14 Review
This chapter covers the topics of Radiosity and Ambient Occlusion.
First item to be described is the general topic of what Global Illumination is and why you would use it.
How to use and setup radiosity is covered and emitters and the mesh collection process are covered for Radiosity use. The criticism I have here is that a lot of the settings of how to use Radiosity are described, but not very well and things such as what patches are and how their settings affect the overall Rodiosity of a scene aren't really explained. Another problem with the Radiosity example is there just aren't enough of them and topics such as how to cover things like tweeking scenes that have bad Radiosity results (such as light leaking behind other planes) just are not covered. Thankfully though some important options such as the direction of normals are covered so that is at least one potential pitfall that is described and avoided.
Another mistake I found was that it is said that when running the Radiosity calculations that it will continue forever until you tell it to stop. However with Blender 2.46 this is no longer the case. Also It says that Max Iterations being set to 0, are what cause this behaviour, however it appears to be the Convergence setting that does this when it is set to 0. One last final snafu is that when rendering radiosity results, it is not mentioned that the Add New Meshes/Replace Meshs buttons need to be pressed for a new mesh to be created with the Radiosity result embedded in them for it to be visible in a render.
Vertex painting is covered as a method to correct the results of Radiosity calculation.
Next Ambient Occlusion is covered as the other method of Global Illumination, giving a brief explanation of how it works. The options on the AO panel are explained but no examples of effects on each from changing the settings aren't demonstrated which is a shame. Though an outdoor example is given. The other problems is that Ambient Occlusion panel layout and some of the options have changed in Blender 2.46.
This was an ok chapter, but it was shame that a more detailed example of Ambient Occlusion and Radiosity settings was not given to cover the correction of bad light leaks.
First item to be described is the general topic of what Global Illumination is and why you would use it.
How to use and setup radiosity is covered and emitters and the mesh collection process are covered for Radiosity use. The criticism I have here is that a lot of the settings of how to use Radiosity are described, but not very well and things such as what patches are and how their settings affect the overall Rodiosity of a scene aren't really explained. Another problem with the Radiosity example is there just aren't enough of them and topics such as how to cover things like tweeking scenes that have bad Radiosity results (such as light leaking behind other planes) just are not covered. Thankfully though some important options such as the direction of normals are covered so that is at least one potential pitfall that is described and avoided.
Another mistake I found was that it is said that when running the Radiosity calculations that it will continue forever until you tell it to stop. However with Blender 2.46 this is no longer the case. Also It says that Max Iterations being set to 0, are what cause this behaviour, however it appears to be the Convergence setting that does this when it is set to 0. One last final snafu is that when rendering radiosity results, it is not mentioned that the Add New Meshes/Replace Meshs buttons need to be pressed for a new mesh to be created with the Radiosity result embedded in them for it to be visible in a render.
Vertex painting is covered as a method to correct the results of Radiosity calculation.
Next Ambient Occlusion is covered as the other method of Global Illumination, giving a brief explanation of how it works. The options on the AO panel are explained but no examples of effects on each from changing the settings aren't demonstrated which is a shame. Though an outdoor example is given. The other problems is that Ambient Occlusion panel layout and some of the options have changed in Blender 2.46.
This was an ok chapter, but it was shame that a more detailed example of Ambient Occlusion and Radiosity settings was not given to cover the correction of bad light leaks.
Blender 3D Architecture, Buildings and Scenery - Chapter 10 of 14 Review
This chapter covers the setup and use of various lighting tools within Blender.
Different lighting types and setups are explained as are the various settings of each light type.
One mistake appears to be on page 207 as the description of the distance parameter seems to be wrong, in that it works in the reverse of the way described. And dist appears to misunderstand in how the function works.
Colour settings and lights and their effects are covered as well as a description of Kelvin charts. This may not be everyone's most useful bit of information but you never know when that information will be useful.
Most of the lamp types are explained as is volumetric lighting, some of the features of lighting have changed between Blender 2.45 and 2.46.
Surprisingly the next Section on Soft Shadows covers 2.46 Blender specific features, this was a surprise to me, as up to this point everything else was 2.45 version specific. It does make me wonder why all the other stuff wasn't updated to Blender 2.46.
Various walk through experiments are gone through on a solarium with the different light types but unfortunately, the solarium model is not included in the PDF ebook version so i could not try them out.
Different lighting types and setups are explained as are the various settings of each light type.
One mistake appears to be on page 207 as the description of the distance parameter seems to be wrong, in that it works in the reverse of the way described. And dist appears to misunderstand in how the function works.
Colour settings and lights and their effects are covered as well as a description of Kelvin charts. This may not be everyone's most useful bit of information but you never know when that information will be useful.
Most of the lamp types are explained as is volumetric lighting, some of the features of lighting have changed between Blender 2.45 and 2.46.
Surprisingly the next Section on Soft Shadows covers 2.46 Blender specific features, this was a surprise to me, as up to this point everything else was 2.45 version specific. It does make me wonder why all the other stuff wasn't updated to Blender 2.46.
Various walk through experiments are gone through on a solarium with the different light types but unfortunately, the solarium model is not included in the PDF ebook version so i could not try them out.
Blender 3D Architecture, Buildings and Scenery - Chapter 9 of 14 Review
This chapter covers UV Mapping the technique for Applying graphical textures to
meshes.
Explained are the various different ways to apply textures to object and meshes and why Uv Mapping is advantageous.
How to seam mark and unwrap meshes are covered as well as various scripts which help with that job (and some of which are no longer part of Blender 2.46). Good examples of how to use the UV Unwrapping saving feature so that your UV Unwrapping can be saved in a format which can be opened in Gimp. This makes editing the texture of a file much easier than trying to do it within Blender.
One note I would make is that the method that is described for using Gimp with UV Unwrapping could be slightly more complicated than needed. As Gimp layers are not mentioned which would mean that users would not have to worry about UV Wrapping lines if the UV Mapping picture is on a different layer.
An example wall is created and the process of UV Mapping it is carried out. With seaming and unwrapping also covered. After the example is run through a discussion of one approach to choosing the parts of a mesh to mark for seaming is discussed.
Once a mesh has been unwrapped the manipulation of the unwrapped mesh is described in terms of moving/rotating and scaling unwrapped mesh vertices, within the UV Image editor.
Pinning is also covered, which is one of the less well known features of Uv Mapping and I was pleased to see it described in reasonably good detail. Especially the associated Specials options from pressing the W key in the Uv Image editor.
Over all a useful chapter, apart from that fact that the unwrapping scripts that are mentioned, some of them are no longer in Blender 2.46 and the UV Mapping process in Blender 2.46 has changed from 2.45.
Explained are the various different ways to apply textures to object and meshes and why Uv Mapping is advantageous.
How to seam mark and unwrap meshes are covered as well as various scripts which help with that job (and some of which are no longer part of Blender 2.46). Good examples of how to use the UV Unwrapping saving feature so that your UV Unwrapping can be saved in a format which can be opened in Gimp. This makes editing the texture of a file much easier than trying to do it within Blender.
One note I would make is that the method that is described for using Gimp with UV Unwrapping could be slightly more complicated than needed. As Gimp layers are not mentioned which would mean that users would not have to worry about UV Wrapping lines if the UV Mapping picture is on a different layer.
An example wall is created and the process of UV Mapping it is carried out. With seaming and unwrapping also covered. After the example is run through a discussion of one approach to choosing the parts of a mesh to mark for seaming is discussed.
Once a mesh has been unwrapped the manipulation of the unwrapped mesh is described in terms of moving/rotating and scaling unwrapped mesh vertices, within the UV Image editor.
Pinning is also covered, which is one of the less well known features of Uv Mapping and I was pleased to see it described in reasonably good detail. Especially the associated Specials options from pressing the W key in the Uv Image editor.
Over all a useful chapter, apart from that fact that the unwrapping scripts that are mentioned, some of them are no longer in Blender 2.46 and the UV Mapping process in Blender 2.46 has changed from 2.45.
Blender 3D Architecture, Buildings and Scenery - Chapter 8 of 14 Review
This chapter covers what textures are and their different types. Descriptions of both
Procedural and Bitmap textures are covered, their differences and difference approaches
to using them. Pointers of where to get different kinds of textures are detailed by
pointing readers towards various websites, most of these are good sites but some are
very out of date or very flaky.
A very detailed description of how to apply textures is given and various ways to apply multiple textures.
The various options on the textures panel are described though unfortunately, some options are not explained. For example the description of Normals and Normal maps is very sketchy and it would of helped to have a much better description and example of how to use them.
Uv Mapping is covered next in the book but unfortunately it has changed how it is used with Blender 2.46, so the screenshots do not match. Also some pictures are mismatched because of layout disorder because the pictures are switched. Seam marking is covered as well as unwrapping meshes, though one of the unwrapping script ArchiMap Uv Projection is mentioned and even has screenshots but no longer appear to be shipped with Blender 2.46.
Then it gets really strange when you find out that all the stuff on UV Mapping is the subject of chapter 9, so the stuff in this chapter appears to be mistakenly repeated.
A very detailed description of how to apply textures is given and various ways to apply multiple textures.
The various options on the textures panel are described though unfortunately, some options are not explained. For example the description of Normals and Normal maps is very sketchy and it would of helped to have a much better description and example of how to use them.
Uv Mapping is covered next in the book but unfortunately it has changed how it is used with Blender 2.46, so the screenshots do not match. Also some pictures are mismatched because of layout disorder because the pictures are switched. Seam marking is covered as well as unwrapping meshes, though one of the unwrapping script ArchiMap Uv Projection is mentioned and even has screenshots but no longer appear to be shipped with Blender 2.46.
Then it gets really strange when you find out that all the stuff on UV Mapping is the subject of chapter 9, so the stuff in this chapter appears to be mistakenly repeated.
Blender 3D Architecture, Buildings and Scenery - Chapter 7 of 14 Review
This chapter (Materials) covers using Materials in terms of Organisational use within
Blender's graphical user interface setup. It give a reasonably good description of what
materials are. After describing in general terms it gets to the specifics by first
explaining how to create and organise your newly created materials. It also show how to
link and append material from other files which is very useful. Buffer copy and pasting
methods are also covered so the more rarely covered aspects seem to be covered almost
right at the beginning, which is a good thing.
Once the creating an organising of materials has been cover things move on to material properties and settings and describes some of them. This is a problem because most of them, is not all of them, and a description of more of the options and buttons within the GUI would of been very useful; as it's not entirely certain to a newbie what some of the options affect. For example the specular and mirror colour buttons options aren't described in the chapter until later. Strangely though one of the more advanced features of materials, Ramp shaders is covered but much too briefly. It would of been useful to have more examples of what this feature can be used for. As it does have many, many uses. The one example that it does give is so poor, and so under represent ramp shader powers as to be almost useless.
Next comes good descriptions of the different shaders for Diffuse and Specular shading, though examples of how they affect colour and models would of helped.
Another different between older versions of Blender and Blender 2.46 pops up in the form of a completely different layout for the Mirror and Transparent panels. While it should not be to difficult to track what the new panel does, it really should of been updated in the book.
The useful setting for creating glass materials and mirror effects are mentioned which will come in handy for newbies.
One thing I was really impressed with was the clear description of what Fresnel effect does. Out of many tutorial and books that I have read specific to Blender not many of them give good descriptions of what Fresnel is about.
Ray Traced shadows are given a brief description and how to make transparent shadows is also described. While short and needing more expansive coverage of the settings for shadows, will none the less prove useful to some users.
This chapter could of given many more examples and covered a lot more details. But the information it did give was clear if too short.
Once the creating an organising of materials has been cover things move on to material properties and settings and describes some of them. This is a problem because most of them, is not all of them, and a description of more of the options and buttons within the GUI would of been very useful; as it's not entirely certain to a newbie what some of the options affect. For example the specular and mirror colour buttons options aren't described in the chapter until later. Strangely though one of the more advanced features of materials, Ramp shaders is covered but much too briefly. It would of been useful to have more examples of what this feature can be used for. As it does have many, many uses. The one example that it does give is so poor, and so under represent ramp shader powers as to be almost useless.
Next comes good descriptions of the different shaders for Diffuse and Specular shading, though examples of how they affect colour and models would of helped.
Another different between older versions of Blender and Blender 2.46 pops up in the form of a completely different layout for the Mirror and Transparent panels. While it should not be to difficult to track what the new panel does, it really should of been updated in the book.
The useful setting for creating glass materials and mirror effects are mentioned which will come in handy for newbies.
One thing I was really impressed with was the clear description of what Fresnel effect does. Out of many tutorial and books that I have read specific to Blender not many of them give good descriptions of what Fresnel is about.
Ray Traced shadows are given a brief description and how to make transparent shadows is also described. While short and needing more expansive coverage of the settings for shadows, will none the less prove useful to some users.
This chapter could of given many more examples and covered a lot more details. But the information it did give was clear if too short.
Blender 3D Architecture, Buildings and Scenery - Chapter 5 and 6 of 14 Review
This chapter (Modelling Details) is basically a walk through chapter which has the
reader building a window, chair and a door, step by step. I enjoyed this chapter as it
actually allowed the use of some of the Blender features which chapters previously had
been limited in.
A brief description of level of detail was explained and why it helps to plan the project so that only the things that will be needed will be modelled and any extraneous details are not rendered or modelled. Also explained is the importance of the position of the camera which was briefly mentioned.
Good use was mode of various modifiers and various faces and edge loops techniques were used to model the Windows, Door and a chair.
Chapter 6 (Modelling Furniture) covers the techniques for modelling and planning and organising furniture. A discussion is had to discover when it is better to make your own models or use pre-made libraries of models. Various websites are mentioned that have repositories of models for the user to import/open in Blender.
Strangely though the official Blender Model Repository is not included in the list of urls included.
Instructions on how to append and convert various non Blender format files in ways that allow them to be used within Blender are described and the append navigation techniques are described.
The difference between Appending and Linking files within Blender is explained. Unfortunately proxy objects don't seem to be mentioned and this would be very useful when working with Linked files.
Next the chapter moves on to modelling a chair and a sofa and they are very simple designs but it's useful for getting to grips with certain modelling approaches. A handy use of the loop cut and the subsurf modifier is used to show how to make Subsurf more controllable in term of what things it curves.
This chapter could of done with more models to build and more links to some of the better modelling sites would also have been useful.
Another mistake I noticed was at one point it was mentioned that selecting vertices that were obscured behind other vertice was only possible while in Wire display mode, this is simply not true, "occlude background geometry button" allows this and it is on the 3D Viewport header bar (it's the icon of a box).
A brief description of level of detail was explained and why it helps to plan the project so that only the things that will be needed will be modelled and any extraneous details are not rendered or modelled. Also explained is the importance of the position of the camera which was briefly mentioned.
Good use was mode of various modifiers and various faces and edge loops techniques were used to model the Windows, Door and a chair.
Chapter 6 (Modelling Furniture) covers the techniques for modelling and planning and organising furniture. A discussion is had to discover when it is better to make your own models or use pre-made libraries of models. Various websites are mentioned that have repositories of models for the user to import/open in Blender.
Strangely though the official Blender Model Repository is not included in the list of urls included.
Instructions on how to append and convert various non Blender format files in ways that allow them to be used within Blender are described and the append navigation techniques are described.
The difference between Appending and Linking files within Blender is explained. Unfortunately proxy objects don't seem to be mentioned and this would be very useful when working with Linked files.
Next the chapter moves on to modelling a chair and a sofa and they are very simple designs but it's useful for getting to grips with certain modelling approaches. A handy use of the loop cut and the subsurf modifier is used to show how to make Subsurf more controllable in term of what things it curves.
This chapter could of done with more models to build and more links to some of the better modelling sites would also have been useful.
Another mistake I noticed was at one point it was mentioned that selecting vertices that were obscured behind other vertice was only possible while in Wire display mode, this is simply not true, "occlude background geometry button" allows this and it is on the 3D Viewport header bar (it's the icon of a box).
Blender 3D Architecture, Buildings and Scenery - Chapter 4 of 14 Review
The Modelling for Architecture chapter is as the name suggests a chapter which
describes the basic modelling techniques usually used within architecture, for things
such as making walls, floors, roofs, etc.
A section on proportions and the importance of having good proportional measurements are detailed and on the whole is clear. Planning is covered as one of the approaches to successful architectural projects and the like. To be honest I can see why this section was covered but I would of preferred less of this sort of stuff and more model building tasks and tutorials. Though the section on how to reduce the amount of rendering and modelling work by simply not modelling items that cannot be seen is useful. Though to be honest if you have to be told about doing backups then you probably shouldn't be allowed to use any 3D application let alone Blender!
One slight inaccuracy that I found when reading was that moving and editing while using CTRL moved items to snap to grid lines. This is not true using CTRL forces the selected object/vertex to move by a fixed discrete amount. It DOES NOT snap the object to grid lines. That fact that if you happen to be already on a grid line when you use the CTRL key means it looks like it is snapping to a grid line, it is just a coincidence.
Manipulation and use of layers and their uses for organisation of Scene data is covered. One useful thing the book mentioned was using layers for backup storage before altering objects.
A simple wall is modelled and some of the techniques used for this are explained and how to make rounded corners on the walls is explained. Which is surprising because a lot of other stuff is not covered, still it's welcome that some of the more useful techniques for doing the less obvious kinds of modelling are covered.
Then another issue pops up while explaining pivot points and their use. It uses the incorrect pivot point type as it goes through a walk through and since it does explain all the other pivot points, it's not obvious why the reader will get the wrong result if you don't switch to the right pivot point.
Also the book states that object when added to the scene are added perpendicular to the current view, this is no longer true in the Blender 2.46 version, some objects aren't (such a the Plane) and the option can be altered in the Preference window.
The mirror modifier is then explained and I liked this section as it described most of the things that are important in using the modifier.
Various methods for filling/bridging faces and vertice are covered, but unfortunately the book makes some claim about when the fill function can be used, which are no longer true with Blender 2.46. And more importantly it mentions scripts which don't appear to be shipped with Blender 2.46 (basically because 2.46 can do this stuff internally). Some very convoluted way of aligning object and vertices are used, and again the Magnetic Snap tool is not used. Also how to install scripts is not covered, which is a shame.
Then the book describes the processes involved in importing pre-made CAD/Blender models for using in Blender.
A section on proportions and the importance of having good proportional measurements are detailed and on the whole is clear. Planning is covered as one of the approaches to successful architectural projects and the like. To be honest I can see why this section was covered but I would of preferred less of this sort of stuff and more model building tasks and tutorials. Though the section on how to reduce the amount of rendering and modelling work by simply not modelling items that cannot be seen is useful. Though to be honest if you have to be told about doing backups then you probably shouldn't be allowed to use any 3D application let alone Blender!
One slight inaccuracy that I found when reading was that moving and editing while using CTRL moved items to snap to grid lines. This is not true using CTRL forces the selected object/vertex to move by a fixed discrete amount. It DOES NOT snap the object to grid lines. That fact that if you happen to be already on a grid line when you use the CTRL key means it looks like it is snapping to a grid line, it is just a coincidence.
Manipulation and use of layers and their uses for organisation of Scene data is covered. One useful thing the book mentioned was using layers for backup storage before altering objects.
A simple wall is modelled and some of the techniques used for this are explained and how to make rounded corners on the walls is explained. Which is surprising because a lot of other stuff is not covered, still it's welcome that some of the more useful techniques for doing the less obvious kinds of modelling are covered.
Then another issue pops up while explaining pivot points and their use. It uses the incorrect pivot point type as it goes through a walk through and since it does explain all the other pivot points, it's not obvious why the reader will get the wrong result if you don't switch to the right pivot point.
Also the book states that object when added to the scene are added perpendicular to the current view, this is no longer true in the Blender 2.46 version, some objects aren't (such a the Plane) and the option can be altered in the Preference window.
The mirror modifier is then explained and I liked this section as it described most of the things that are important in using the modifier.
Various methods for filling/bridging faces and vertice are covered, but unfortunately the book makes some claim about when the fill function can be used, which are no longer true with Blender 2.46. And more importantly it mentions scripts which don't appear to be shipped with Blender 2.46 (basically because 2.46 can do this stuff internally). Some very convoluted way of aligning object and vertices are used, and again the Magnetic Snap tool is not used. Also how to install scripts is not covered, which is a shame.
Then the book describes the processes involved in importing pre-made CAD/Blender models for using in Blender.
Blender 3D Architecture, Buildings and Scenery - Chapter 3 of 14 Review
This chapter goes on to describing some of the different classes of object types that
are supported within Blender and gives a limited description of how they work and what
they can be used for. Obviously given that it is an architecture based modelling book,
the book goes into more explanations of Mesh Primitives, describing most of the Mesh
types. The Mesh Tools panel is highlighted for particular attention. Here is where I
started to notice the problem of the author calling things menus when he really means
panels. Also they should really be describing GUI areas in terms of Context >
SubContext > Panel. But this does not seem to happen consistently.
Transformations are covered, but more importantly, Transforming with Precision is covered. All very important for architectural modelling. My only complaint here is that using direct numerical entry with the keyboard and the Transform Properties window is not mentioned. This is a fairly big omission as a really good way to speed up precision modelling is to use the keyboard and Transform Properties window.
The various manipulations of edges and vertices are covered with things such as selecting and creating edge loops described. With this information the reader is guided through buidling a side wall. It's just a shame that these individual objects that we do build are not brought together for us to form a complete whole of something.
One mistake I did notice that seems particularly important was in the New Edges and Faces section of page 51, where it is stated that Make Edge/Faces tool requires the user to be in Vertex mode, this is not the case.
Another minor annoyance was that page 59 gives a layout view of a floor plan you can build but doesn't give the dimension for it so you left guessing. Not very good.
I notice that some of the pictures around this section of the book are switched and showing the wrong things, this really should of been spotted, pages 63 and 64 the "proofreaders" must of been on a go slow.
The section on Modifiers covers only the modifiers that will really be useful to an Architectural Modeller. The Array Modifier is covered in some detail, though some of it's usage descriptions are a little unclear/off. For example the Fix Length option in the Array Modifier is not explained very well and could be done better. It would of helped if an example of each option had been displayed and used to show exactly what they do. Though it does take the floor plan (that you were trying to build for the flats, but they didn't give the dimensions to), and use the Array Modifier to create the other floors.
How to position and align specific vertices is covered though strangely the Magnetic Snap icon usage on the header bar is not explained and the book constantly states that it's method for aligning objects and vertices is the fastest method when sometimes the magnetic snap tool would be much easier and quicker.
One thing that I was pleased about is that Groups were given a reasonably good covering, though unfortunately once they are covered here they are never used in the book on any of the modelled items the book has you build (and those are few and far between anyways).
And lastly Proportional Editing is covered along with it's various settings and uses and some examples of it's affects are given.
Not a great chapter there should of been more examples and more actual building of models should of been carried out. Though it covered some of the basics to get you started.
Transformations are covered, but more importantly, Transforming with Precision is covered. All very important for architectural modelling. My only complaint here is that using direct numerical entry with the keyboard and the Transform Properties window is not mentioned. This is a fairly big omission as a really good way to speed up precision modelling is to use the keyboard and Transform Properties window.
The various manipulations of edges and vertices are covered with things such as selecting and creating edge loops described. With this information the reader is guided through buidling a side wall. It's just a shame that these individual objects that we do build are not brought together for us to form a complete whole of something.
One mistake I did notice that seems particularly important was in the New Edges and Faces section of page 51, where it is stated that Make Edge/Faces tool requires the user to be in Vertex mode, this is not the case.
Another minor annoyance was that page 59 gives a layout view of a floor plan you can build but doesn't give the dimension for it so you left guessing. Not very good.
I notice that some of the pictures around this section of the book are switched and showing the wrong things, this really should of been spotted, pages 63 and 64 the "proofreaders" must of been on a go slow.
The section on Modifiers covers only the modifiers that will really be useful to an Architectural Modeller. The Array Modifier is covered in some detail, though some of it's usage descriptions are a little unclear/off. For example the Fix Length option in the Array Modifier is not explained very well and could be done better. It would of helped if an example of each option had been displayed and used to show exactly what they do. Though it does take the floor plan (that you were trying to build for the flats, but they didn't give the dimensions to), and use the Array Modifier to create the other floors.
How to position and align specific vertices is covered though strangely the Magnetic Snap icon usage on the header bar is not explained and the book constantly states that it's method for aligning objects and vertices is the fastest method when sometimes the magnetic snap tool would be much easier and quicker.
One thing that I was pleased about is that Groups were given a reasonably good covering, though unfortunately once they are covered here they are never used in the book on any of the modelled items the book has you build (and those are few and far between anyways).
And lastly Proportional Editing is covered along with it's various settings and uses and some examples of it's affects are given.
Not a great chapter there should of been more examples and more actual building of models should of been carried out. Though it covered some of the basics to get you started.
Blender 3D Architecture, Buildings and Scenery - Chapter 2 of 14 Review
Before I get started in reviewing the rest of the chapters from B3D ABS, I want to have
a rant about the overall quality of this book.
My first complaint is that the grammar used in this book is awful. I didn't really notice it in the 1st chapter of the book, but pretty much all the chapters after that were loaded with strange grammatical errors. I don't mean punctuation, as much as I do just wrongly worded/words in the wrong order in the book. Now I know that Allan Brito's native language is not English so he can be forgiven for being lose with the English language. However the publisher and editors that should support (i.e. the Packt Publishing team) Brito by finding and correcting these kind of issue for him, are not doing their jobs correctly.
The proofreaders that were supposed to have proofread this book (Dirk Manuel, Chris Smith); as far as I can tell did no such thing. As no proofreader would leave so many errors in a text. This is what makes the following paragraphs at the back of the book even more comical:
"We welcome all inquiries from people who are interested in authoring. Book proposals should be sent to authors@packtpub.com. If your book idea is still at an early stage and you would like to discuss it first before writing a formal book proposal, contact us; one of our commissioning editors will get in touch with you.
We're not just looking for published authors; if you have strong technical skills but no writing experience, our experienced editors can help you develop a writing career, or simply get some additional reward for your expertise."
There definition of experienced editors leaves something to be desired, if this books is anything to go by.
My second complaint is that most of the text and pictures within this book covered the older version of Blender (2.45) and not the newer 2.46 version. Now I was prepared to put this down to the fact that the book had been printed before 2.46 had come out, and leave it at that, I mean it happens. However on getting through the book I find there is a 2.46 specific section in it. This being the case why was it not possible to make the rest of the book 2.46 specific as the svn and graphicall.org build versions of 2.46/2.45 rinky releases have been around for a long time.
It seems to me that it is very lazy to use old screenshots which no longer match up to the way Blender 2.46 now is. Especially as some of the options and settings that have changed are important.
My third complaint is that at the end of chapter 1, a picture is shown of a ray traced table the implication being that using this book we will be modelling such a table. No such table is ever modelled in this book and certainly anything that is modelled is not modelled to that sort of quality.
The book from the beginning chapters gives the impression that you will be building entire buildings and offices. None of this ever happens. You are left to build partial models and no overall building emerges.
At one point you get to make a floor, window, door and a chair and that is about it as far as object modelling goes. The book doesn't even pull together these individual mode into a whole.
My forth complaint is one that I'm not really sure who to blame so the blame will have to fall to Allan Brito. The complain is that almost constantly throughout the book menus and panels are confused; so often panels that have names are given the title menu. This would be very confusing for a Blender newbie who would start look at the menu bar and not at the panel which is what is really needed.
My fifth complaint is one that I had a feeling would happen; and that is that the book is much too broad and doesn't go into enough depth in most of the chapters to make the information in those chapters useful enough to a professional Architectural Modeller. This is a big problem as it mean that a true Blender Newbie can't use the book very well because it add in a lot of architectural concerns which won't really interest the newbie Blender user. On the other hand a professional Architect wont get enough architectural information and depth from this book for it to be overly useful to them. That's not to say there aren't some useful chapters in the book, it's just that they are spread very thinly.
My sixth complaint is that the person in charge of checking the layout of the book didn't do a very good job as in one place an entire section appears to be repeated twice and numerous times pictures and screenshots were incorrectly placed and indicated to be showing something they were not.
Anyway, all that said lets get on with more chapter reviews....
Blender 3D Architecture, Buildings and Scenery - Chapter 2 of 14 Review
This chapter describes the interface basics of Blender, such as the names of the various bits of the interface. Blender scenes and screens features are given a brief description, with enough information to be able to use them. Having gone through scenes and screen, we are moved onto the various ways in which interface windows can be manipulated in terms of splitting/resizing and closing. The various window types are described and it is shown how to switch between them. The importance of keyboard input is explained and the various uses of Numpad for switching to various viewpoints are described.
Various methods of manipulating objects such as rotation/scaling/selecting and moving objects are explained. How to rename an object is shown, but for reasons only known to the author, using the N key to open the Transformation Properties window to rename objects is not explained.
The Outliner is very well described and most of it's features are described in a fairly detailed ways. Rendering options and the various uses of them are described briefly, as well as the links to the Camera and the rendered scene.
Uses of the 3D cursor and the pivot point are described.
All in all this chapter seems fairly complete.
My first complaint is that the grammar used in this book is awful. I didn't really notice it in the 1st chapter of the book, but pretty much all the chapters after that were loaded with strange grammatical errors. I don't mean punctuation, as much as I do just wrongly worded/words in the wrong order in the book. Now I know that Allan Brito's native language is not English so he can be forgiven for being lose with the English language. However the publisher and editors that should support (i.e. the Packt Publishing team) Brito by finding and correcting these kind of issue for him, are not doing their jobs correctly.
The proofreaders that were supposed to have proofread this book (Dirk Manuel, Chris Smith); as far as I can tell did no such thing. As no proofreader would leave so many errors in a text. This is what makes the following paragraphs at the back of the book even more comical:
"We welcome all inquiries from people who are interested in authoring. Book proposals should be sent to authors@packtpub.com. If your book idea is still at an early stage and you would like to discuss it first before writing a formal book proposal, contact us; one of our commissioning editors will get in touch with you.
We're not just looking for published authors; if you have strong technical skills but no writing experience, our experienced editors can help you develop a writing career, or simply get some additional reward for your expertise."
There definition of experienced editors leaves something to be desired, if this books is anything to go by.
My second complaint is that most of the text and pictures within this book covered the older version of Blender (2.45) and not the newer 2.46 version. Now I was prepared to put this down to the fact that the book had been printed before 2.46 had come out, and leave it at that, I mean it happens. However on getting through the book I find there is a 2.46 specific section in it. This being the case why was it not possible to make the rest of the book 2.46 specific as the svn and graphicall.org build versions of 2.46/2.45 rinky releases have been around for a long time.
It seems to me that it is very lazy to use old screenshots which no longer match up to the way Blender 2.46 now is. Especially as some of the options and settings that have changed are important.
My third complaint is that at the end of chapter 1, a picture is shown of a ray traced table the implication being that using this book we will be modelling such a table. No such table is ever modelled in this book and certainly anything that is modelled is not modelled to that sort of quality.
The book from the beginning chapters gives the impression that you will be building entire buildings and offices. None of this ever happens. You are left to build partial models and no overall building emerges.
At one point you get to make a floor, window, door and a chair and that is about it as far as object modelling goes. The book doesn't even pull together these individual mode into a whole.
My forth complaint is one that I'm not really sure who to blame so the blame will have to fall to Allan Brito. The complain is that almost constantly throughout the book menus and panels are confused; so often panels that have names are given the title menu. This would be very confusing for a Blender newbie who would start look at the menu bar and not at the panel which is what is really needed.
My fifth complaint is one that I had a feeling would happen; and that is that the book is much too broad and doesn't go into enough depth in most of the chapters to make the information in those chapters useful enough to a professional Architectural Modeller. This is a big problem as it mean that a true Blender Newbie can't use the book very well because it add in a lot of architectural concerns which won't really interest the newbie Blender user. On the other hand a professional Architect wont get enough architectural information and depth from this book for it to be overly useful to them. That's not to say there aren't some useful chapters in the book, it's just that they are spread very thinly.
My sixth complaint is that the person in charge of checking the layout of the book didn't do a very good job as in one place an entire section appears to be repeated twice and numerous times pictures and screenshots were incorrectly placed and indicated to be showing something they were not.
Anyway, all that said lets get on with more chapter reviews....
Blender 3D Architecture, Buildings and Scenery - Chapter 2 of 14 Review
This chapter describes the interface basics of Blender, such as the names of the various bits of the interface. Blender scenes and screens features are given a brief description, with enough information to be able to use them. Having gone through scenes and screen, we are moved onto the various ways in which interface windows can be manipulated in terms of splitting/resizing and closing. The various window types are described and it is shown how to switch between them. The importance of keyboard input is explained and the various uses of Numpad for switching to various viewpoints are described.
Various methods of manipulating objects such as rotation/scaling/selecting and moving objects are explained. How to rename an object is shown, but for reasons only known to the author, using the N key to open the Transformation Properties window to rename objects is not explained.
The Outliner is very well described and most of it's features are described in a fairly detailed ways. Rendering options and the various uses of them are described briefly, as well as the links to the Camera and the rendered scene.
Uses of the 3D cursor and the pivot point are described.
All in all this chapter seems fairly complete.
Blender 3D Architecture, Buildings and Scenery - Chapter 1 of 14 Review
This chapter called "Introduction to Blender and Architectural Visualization", is as
you would expect from the name, an introductory chapter covering very briefly the
background of what architectural visualisations are; and information on contrasting the
older and newer ways of producing them (made and crafted out of physical materials
versus produced in a 3D computerised environment such as Blender).
The chapter then moves on to giving a little information on the features that Blender has that make it ideal for powerful visualisation works. Here is the first hiccup I noticed; It has a link to the older Elephants Dream movie (www.elephantsdream.org), showing that this book is slightly out of date as regards the version of Blender it is using as the newest movie is Big Buck Bunny (www.bigbuckbunny.org). That said, this book will mostly be covering Architecture type modelling concerns and not doing character animations or wanting anything furry, so this will probably not be too much of an issue. You will just have to keep an eye out for slight interface mismatches and Buttons, Panels not being where the book says. Let's just hope this doesn't happen to often.
Then the chapter moves onto how to obtain Blender and gives a little background information on the Blender Foundation and their role in coordinating Blender as a whole. This is where the next slight weakness kicks in. They explain where to download Blender but not how to install it for the different platforms, or mention where to get platform specific version for different operating system. A section on installing from package management systems and repositories for Linux users would have been helpful.
Then the text moves on to detail the hardware specifications both minimum and recommended specs.
Next some of the extra tools that can be used to post process visualisations are covered, such as Gimp and various CAD systems. Though Blender in my opinion can carry out most of the CAD tasks itself without any help. Same goes for the tools the chapter describes for doing presentations, Blender has a video sequence editor and would be ideal for doing that sort of stuff internally rather than externally with other tools.
They also give a few locations for obtaining freely available models in both native Blender format and various other formats that Blender can import. Though strangely the official blender model repository (http://e2-productions.com/repository) doesn't seem to be included in the list of places. But since the official model repository may be lacking in models that would be any good for visualisations, this may be why.
Finally the chapter lists some sites of visualisations made with Blender and rendered with various renders and shows a screen shot of a dining room that is made throughout the course of the book.
This is after all an introductory chapter so all it really does is demonstrate how your going to proceed through the rest of the book. I do wish more examples of what can be done with visualisations had been included in this chapter so we could see what was possible with Blender without having to flit about from website to website. Still on the whole a clear chapter, if a little incomplete as regards to installing Blender.
(Is it just me or does anyone else find it strange that a publisher in the United Kingdom England uses American spellings; they should get told off by the Queen!)
The chapter then moves on to giving a little information on the features that Blender has that make it ideal for powerful visualisation works. Here is the first hiccup I noticed; It has a link to the older Elephants Dream movie (www.elephantsdream.org), showing that this book is slightly out of date as regards the version of Blender it is using as the newest movie is Big Buck Bunny (www.bigbuckbunny.org). That said, this book will mostly be covering Architecture type modelling concerns and not doing character animations or wanting anything furry, so this will probably not be too much of an issue. You will just have to keep an eye out for slight interface mismatches and Buttons, Panels not being where the book says. Let's just hope this doesn't happen to often.
Then the chapter moves onto how to obtain Blender and gives a little background information on the Blender Foundation and their role in coordinating Blender as a whole. This is where the next slight weakness kicks in. They explain where to download Blender but not how to install it for the different platforms, or mention where to get platform specific version for different operating system. A section on installing from package management systems and repositories for Linux users would have been helpful.
Then the text moves on to detail the hardware specifications both minimum and recommended specs.
Next some of the extra tools that can be used to post process visualisations are covered, such as Gimp and various CAD systems. Though Blender in my opinion can carry out most of the CAD tasks itself without any help. Same goes for the tools the chapter describes for doing presentations, Blender has a video sequence editor and would be ideal for doing that sort of stuff internally rather than externally with other tools.
They also give a few locations for obtaining freely available models in both native Blender format and various other formats that Blender can import. Though strangely the official blender model repository (http://e2-productions.com/repository) doesn't seem to be included in the list of places. But since the official model repository may be lacking in models that would be any good for visualisations, this may be why.
Finally the chapter lists some sites of visualisations made with Blender and rendered with various renders and shows a screen shot of a dining room that is made throughout the course of the book.
This is after all an introductory chapter so all it really does is demonstrate how your going to proceed through the rest of the book. I do wish more examples of what can be done with visualisations had been included in this chapter so we could see what was possible with Blender without having to flit about from website to website. Still on the whole a clear chapter, if a little incomplete as regards to installing Blender.
(Is it just me or does anyone else find it strange that a publisher in the United Kingdom England uses American spellings; they should get told off by the Queen!)
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