Blender 3D Cookbook, Volume 1

I am pleased to announce the publication of Volume 1 of my Blender 3D Cookbook available from lulu.com, either as a book or a PDF download, at:

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-blender-3d-cookbook-volume-1/11777448

The Blender 3D Cookbook consists of the scripts to 62 or my my Blender 3D tutorials, at http://www.youtube.com/irakrakow. Each script has a link to the Youtube video, if you purchase the book as a PDF. If you purchase the book, the URL is printed. Many of you have requested such a book. I called the book a “cookbook” because you can think of the scripts as “recipes” for producing a desired effect in Blender.

I don't assume any particular level of Blender expertise. My videos cover a wide variety of topics, from beginner to advanced, including some that I have not seen as tutorials anywhere else. Like a cookbook, you can pick and choose those recipes you are interested in and skip the ones that you either know about or that you're not interested in. I tried to include something for everyone, including topics such as the Blender Game Engine and Python scripting that have only been lightly covered in other tutorials. If you have suggestions for future tutorials, please email me at ira.krakow@gmail.com.

As of this date, Blender is undergoing a massive rewrite and restructuring. The current, production version, 2.49b, will eventually be replaced by version 2.5. 2.5 has a different user interface and has many improvements to old features, as well as many new features. It is currently in alpha, which means that there could be some changes made until the day when 2.5 becomes the production version of Blender. On my Blender 3D forum, at http://forum.irakrakow.com, I took a survey of who used what version. I discovered that roughly half worked in Blender 2.4x (although 2.49b is the most current production version, some were working in earlier versions), and the other half worked in Blender 2.5. I have written tutorials based on both versions. For each tutorial, I note which version (2.49 or 2.5) I made it for. Some of the 2.5 tutorials were done in different alpha versions, such as Alpha 0 or even pre Alpha. For the most part, the effects I write about can be produced in any version.

These tutorials are not intended to cover every conceivable Blender feature. That would, in my opinion, be too thick a volume. Note that I suffixed the title to this cookbook “Volume 1”. Blender is too complex and rich a program, undergoing constant upgrading and changing, for that. I plan on publishing many more volumes of the Blender 3D Cookbook, in the future, that will explore other amazing and unique Blender features.

I welcome your feedback and hope you enjoy my cookbook.