Introducing Character Animation with Blender [Paperback]

I reviewed this book when it was first released, and gave it a 5-star review. I've come back to edit that review because, in retrospect, I realise that I was so delighted to find ANY book on Blender character animation that I overlooked some definite flaws. I now rate it as 4-star (but while Amazon allows me to revise my wording, it won't let me change the number of stars.)

I've recently been working through the book again, and have come back to give the following revised review.
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For several years, I downloaded Blender on a regular basis, tried to learn how to use it, and gave up because I found it far too difficult.

The appearance of this book changed that. Now for the first time, I 'get' Blender, and see that its quirky and apparently non-intuitive interface really makes a lot of sense.
I'm also even more awestruck at how jaw-droppingly good Blender actually is. Yes, this FREE downloadable program is shockingly *better* than 3D software packages I've purchased at several hundred pounds/dollars a shot.

This book takes you all the way on your journey, from the interface basics, to modeling your figure, to full-fledged animation. I highly recommend it, and would go so far as to say that it *is* an essential purchase for a Blender user.

There are a few minor annoyances - not everything that's supposed to be on the accompanying disk is actually there, and there are a few minor typos scattered through out the text and places where the instructions could have been a little clearer.

Sadly there are some that are not quite so minor. For example in setting up the rig to animate my model, I followed the instructions exactly, yet always ended up with a rig that just didn't work. After many, many frustrating attempts, I loaded up the author's figure from the accompanying disk, and checked through it bone by bone...

And found that an important set of bones in the author's rig were set up differently from the instructions in the book. I guess the sentence about re-parenting the hand IK bones must have dropped out somewhere.

Thereafter, having wasted days trying to figure out what was going wrong, I kept two instances of Blender open. In one, I had my own work-in-progress, in the other I had the author's model, and I kept comparing them every step of the way.

I would go so far as to say that if you don't have the accompanying disk, this book will be... well, not *useless*, but you'll never succeed in following the projects it outlines.

In spite of the above, I still think it's currently the best (uh... the only?) book available on Blender Character animation. I still think it's a must-buy for someone trying to learn Blender. But I would add this caution: Make sure you get a version that includes the disk of examples (ie, don't get a second-hand book where the disk has gone astray, and don't get an electronic download (which doesn't include the material on the disk.)

Because of the errata, I now rate this book at 4 stars, but so long as you heed the caution about needing (and using) the disk, I would still recommend it highly.

This book is great! You'll learn a lot about Blender in a few hours, following excercices. I bought this book, to get started in animation, actually, I had the official Blender guido to learn the basics, interface, etc - But, this book, does that all! You'll open the first page and start following the recomended exercices and even without noticing you're getting all the basics uppon your head! Honestly, I'm new in 3d, but theres been a few months and I've read a lot of stuff...done nothing out of this world...got kind a scared...you know?! and then...bought this up! I hope that mister Tony Mullen keeps up the good work! We need you man!

Since this was written, having in mind v2.3 (available in cd-rom), you'll get confused in one or two diferent things (basic stuff, you'll feel dumb when you figure out and see how easy it was ) - but this will help you think and improve your knowledge! I'm using 2.43a and having a really good time, heehehehe, i'm so happy that I'm writting this...duh! ;D

TONY, please! please! Start writting the vol2!! PLEASE!! hehehe

Thanks a lot man! I'm really happy about people like Tony Mullen, Ton Roosendall and all the Blender community and Foundation!

As a total newbie to 3D software I needed a careful, thorough, step by step guide through the basics of character building (and modelling in general). I certainly didn't get what i needed in this book. A big part of its weakness is that the illustrative images are absolutely dreadful, as they are black and white (and when you see YELLOW and WHITE vertices illustrated in black and white you will understand just how useless that is). Steps that should be illustrated in picture form aren't, or are illustrated in that terrible, totally faint and unclear black and white form. I have tried and retried to undertake the tasks in this book, but the guidance fails me every time. Much better tutorials, more thorough and well illustrated can be found on the web on the Blender site, or on Wiki tutorials. It is a real shame, because Blender can do amazing stuff, it's free, and revenue for those putting it out there is no doubt generated by these books. But as far as I'm concerned this book is a frustrating waste of time and effort.