Blender 2.5 Character Animation Cookbook
eBook - ePub

Blender 2.5 Character Animation Cookbook

  1. 308 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Blender 2.5 Character Animation Cookbook

About this book

In Detail

Blender is an open source 3D graphics application that can be used for modeling, rigging, animating, rendering and thousands of other things. While modeling characters isn't the biggest of your worries, animating them to make them feel as-good-as alive is what differentiates a professional from an amateur.

This book offers clear, illustrative, and easy-to-follow recipes to create character rigs and animations for common situations. Bring your characters to life by understanding the principles, techniques and approaches involved in creating rigs and animations, you'll be able to adapt them to your own characters and films.

The book offers clear step-by-step tutorials, with detailed explanations, screenshots and support files to help you understand the principles behind each topic. Each recipe covers a logical step of the complete creation of a character rig and animation, so you're not overwhelmed with too much information at once.

You'll see numerous examples and screenshots that guide to achieve various rigging and animation tasks, logically separated so you can understand each in detail. The rigging topics are divided by each region of the body (torso, limbs, face, eyes), and further separated by the specific topic (neck, fingers, mouth, eyelids, etc) for clarity. All rigging tasks are accomplished with the built-in tools in Blender, without the complexity of coding custom Python behaviors or user interface elements.

The animation topics deal with common situations found in real world productions, showing good practices to understand and overcome the challenges.

Approach

Part of Packt's Cookbook series, each chapter focuses on a different aspect of animation. If you don't have the time to work your way through a long tutorial, then this is the book for you. The step-by-step recipes are independent from each other so you can dip in and out of the book to add great effects as and when you need them.

Who this book is for

Blender users who already know the basics of adding, modeling and rendering objects within the program, but are eager to learn how to turn a character's mesh into a living creature.

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Information

Publisher
Packt Publishing
Year
2011
Edition
1
eBook ISBN
9781849513203
Topic
Ciencia de la computación
Subtopic
Gráficos computacionales

Blender 2.5 Character Animation Cookbook

Table of Contents

Blender 2.5 Character Animation Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgements
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more
Why Subscribe?
Free Access for Packt account holders
Preface
What this book covers
Who this book is for
Conventions
Reader feedback
Customer support
Downloading the example code
Downloading the color images of this book
Errata
Piracy
Questions
1. Get Rigging
Introduction
Defining good orientations for your bones
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Correcting the orientation
Axis conventions
Rigify
See also
Using separate bone chains for different tasks
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more
Don't get tied up on those chains
See also
Customizing shapes and colors for your bones
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more
Pay attention to the Outliner
See also
Using corrective shape keys
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more
Drivers
See also
Making an IK-FK switcher
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more
Custom interfaces
Stretching
See also
Tips on weight painting your character
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more
Brush hardness
See also
2. Rigging the Torso
Introduction
How to create a stretchy spine
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
Rigging the pelvis
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more
Stretching the pelvis
See also
Making your character breathe
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more
Stacking constraints
See also
Controlling the neck and head
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more
Not just the neck and head
See also
3. Eying Animation
Introduction
How to control where your characters look at
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
The eyelids controllers
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
More control to the eyelids
See also
Controlling the pupils
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
4. Poker Face? Facial Rigging
Introduction
Adding expressions using Shape Keys
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
Face controls with lattices
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
Creating the jaw controller
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Controlling your tongue
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
5. Hands Down! The Limbs Controllers
Introduction
Controlling fingers
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
Creating IK legs with a three-pivot foot
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
Stretch those limbs!
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
Setting up the shoulders
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
Cartoon bending for arms and legs
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Different spaces for IK hands
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
6. Blending with the Animation Workflow
Introduction
Animating in layers
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Changing between FK and IK in a shot
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Grasping and throwing objects
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
Silhouette and mirrored rendering
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
Tracking animation arcs
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
Using video for background reference
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Working with linked assets and characters
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Non-linear animation
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
7. Easy to Say, Hard to Do: Mastering the Basics
Introduction
Adjusting and tracking the timing
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
Spacing: favoring and easing poses
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Anticipating an action
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Using squash and stretch
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Breaking the symmetry
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
8. Shake That Body: The Mechanics of Body Movement
Introduction
Animating a tennis serve
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Heavy metal
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Glory for your team: kicking the ball
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Run, Forrest! (in cycles)
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
9. Spicing it Up: Animation Refinement
Introduction
It's time for secondary actions
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Hold, but not still: using moving holds
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Animating characters with appendages
How to do it...
How ...

Table of contents

  1. Blender 2.5 Character Animation Cookbook

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Yes, you can access Blender 2.5 Character Animation Cookbook by Virgilio Vasconcelos in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Ciencia de la computación & Gráficos computacionales. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.