Mastering Blender -- Acknowledgments -- About the Author -- Contents -- Introduction -- Part I: Fundamentals of Blender 3D -- Chapter 1: Working in Blender -- Data and Data Access -- Using the Outliner -- Exploring the User Preferences -- Other Options -- Improving Your Workflow -- Viewport Hot Keys and Properties -- Grouping and Selection -- Object Manipulation -- The Bottom Line -- Chapter 2: Working with Textures and Materials -- Creating UV Textures with Blender and GIMP -- Textures and Texture Mapping -- UV Mapping -- Texturing a Locomotive Smokestack -- Smoothing the Seams with Texture Baking -- Advanced Materials with Material Nodes -- Adding Soot to the Smokestack -- Hot Lava with Nodes -- Transparency and Subsurface Scattering -- Transparent Shadows -- Subsurface Scattering -- Creating Convincing Real-Time Viewport Materials with Material Capture Images -- The Bottom Line -- Chapter 3: Sculpting and Retopo Workflow -- Sculpting with Blender -- Multiresolution Modeling -- Sculpting Tools -- Sculpting a Baby's Head -- The Sculpting Process -- Retopologizing the Mesh -- Normal Map Baking -- The Bottom Line -- Chapter 4: Rendering and Render Engines -- What Is Rendering? -- Real-Time and Viewport Rendering -- Rendering with Blender Internal -- Rendering with Cycles -- Cycles and Sampling -- Nodes Revisited -- Rendering with Renderfarm.fi -- Distributed Rendering for the People -- Contributing Resources -- The Bottom Line -- Part II: Physics and Simulations -- Chapter 5: Getting Flexible with Soft Bodies -- The Hard Facts on Soft Bodies -- Understanding Soft Body Basics -- Baking -- Animating a Spring with Soft Bodies -- Force Fields and Collision -- Simulating Cloth and Clothing -- Hanging the Drapes -- Clothing for Animation -- The Bottom Line -- Chapter 6: Working with Particles -- Introducing Emitter Particles -- Adding a Particle System.

Emitter Particles -- Baking -- Physics -- Display and Render Options -- Using Force Fields and Deflection -- Setting Up an Explode Modifier with Dynamic Particles -- Working with Boids -- Setting Up the Boids System -- Working with Goals and Predators -- Creating a Simple Flying Bird -- Hair Particles -- A Trip to the Beauty Salon -- Preparing the Mesh -- Editing Hair Particles -- Releasing Your Inner Hairdresser -- Materials and Textures for Hair -- Creating Clumping, Roughness, and Kink -- Lighting and Rendering -- The Bottom Line -- Chapter 7: Volumetric Fluid, Smoke, and Fire -- Using the Blender Fluid Simulator -- Getting Started with Fluids -- Inflow and Outflow -- Time, Size, and Resolution -- Particles -- Obstacles and Animation -- Animating Fluid Properties -- Getting the Shot -- Bottle of Pop -- Rushing Creek -- Going Further with Fluids -- Simulating Smoke and Fire -- Rendering Smoke -- Simulating Flames -- The Bottom Line -- Chapter 8: Bullet Physics and the Blender -- Physics in the BGE -- Getting Started with the Blender Game Engine -- Using Actions in BGE -- Rigid Body Simulation and F-Curves -- Baking Game F-Curves -- Frame Rate and Simulation Speed -- Recording Physics and Animation -- Actor Parameters, Boundaries, and Hull Types -- General Tips on Working with Bullet -- Using Physics Visualization -- Joints, Ragdolls, and Robots -- Using Rigid Body Joint Constraints -- Using Generic 6 DoF Joints -- Setting Up a Ragdoll Armature -- Controlling an Armature -- A Passive-Walking Robot -- Further Resources -- The Bottom Line -- Part III: Video Post-production in Blender -- Chapter 9: Compositing with Nodes -- Compositing with Render Layers and Passes -- What Is Compositing? -- What Are Nodes? -- A Closer Look at Render Layers and Nodes -- Reconstructing an Image with Render Passes -- Combining Passes -- Node Groups.

Pulling a Green Screen Matte with Nodes -- Working with Green Screen Video -- Working with Composite Nodes -- Using the AnimAll Add-on -- Animating the Garbage Matte -- Using Render Layers and Nodes -- Using Alpha Overlays and Premultiplication -- Spill Correction and Cleaning Up -- Tweaking Color Channels -- Finishing Off the Matte -- Muting Nodes -- Learning More about Compositing -- The Bottom Line -- Chapter 10: Advanced 3D/Video Compositing -- Camera Tracking and the Movie Clip Editor -- Camera Tracking from Video -- Anatomy of a Good Feature -- Tracking Markers and Track Settings -- Tracking -- Getting Good Tracks -- Camera Solving -- Setting Up the Scene in 3D -- Reconstruction Mode -- The Node Setup -- Masking in the Clip Editor -- Editing the Mask -- Compositing with Masks -- Other Mask Features -- The Bottom Line -- Chapter 11: Working with the Video Sequence Editor -- Introducing the Video Sequence Editor -- Importing Video and Image Sequences -- Setting Frame Rates -- Working with Sequence Strips -- Editing Sound -- Using Markers -- Accessing Other VSE Display Modes -- Adding Transitions and Compositing in the VSE -- Alpha Overlays -- Fades and Transitions -- Fading to Black -- Transform -- Other Effects -- Meta-Strips -- Working with Blender Scenes in the VSE -- Adding Captions to a Video -- Composited Scenes -- Rendering and Output -- The Bottom Line -- Part IV: Blender-Python -- Chapter 12: The Blender-Python Interpreter -- Introducing Python -- What Is Python? -- Why Python? -- Further Resources -- Understanding the Python Development Environment -- Using the Command-Line Shell -- Accessing the System Console -- Using the Text Editor -- Understanding Python Syntax -- Data Types and Structures -- Control Flow -- Functions -- Classes and OOP -- The dir() Function -- Modules -- The Bottom Line -- Chapter 13: Python Scripting for Blender.

Editing and Running Scripts in Blender -- Calling Functions from the Command Line -- Working with Text Editors -- The Blender Text Editor -- Script Format and Templates -- Adding a Simple Mesh Object to the Scene -- Creating an Interactive Add-on -- The Addon Add Object Template -- The bl_info Block -- Working with Custom Properties -- Composing the Add-on -- The Complete Add Bouncing Cone Code -- The Bottom Line -- Part V: Mastering the Blender Game Engine -- Chapter 14: Creating Assets for the Blender -- Creating Content for the Game Engine -- Modeling a Simple Low-Poly Character -- Texture Painting -- Rigging and Animating the Character -- Creating a Walk Cycle -- Setting Up the World -- Baking Procedural Textures for a Simple Skybox -- Creating a Simple Maze -- Getting More Familiar with the BGE Environment -- Placing Your Objects in the Game World -- Setting Material Options -- Using Lighting in the Game Engine -- Vertex Painting for Light Effects -- The Bottom Line -- Chapter 15: Making Things Happen in the -- Working with Logic Bricks -- Understanding Logic Brick Basics -- Setting Up the Camera -- Using Properties, Messages, and States -- Setting Up Bad Guys -- Collecting Treasure and Racking Up Points -- Creating Special Effects with Textures -- Creating Dynamic Text -- Creating Animated Textures -- Working with Sound in the BGE -- The Bottom Line -- Chapter 16: Python Power in the Blender -- From Logic Bricks to Python -- Controlling a Character with Python -- Python Power for the BGE -- Creating a Teleportation Machine with Python -- Creating a Login Screen -- Sound Effects and Multiple Viewports -- Working with Viewports -- Accessing Sound with Python -- Further Resources -- The Bottom Line -- Appendix: The Bottom Line -- Chapter 1: Working in Blender -- Chapter 2: Working with Textures and Materials.

Chapter 3: Sculpting and Retopo Workflow -- Chapter 4: Rendering and Render Engines -- Chapter 5: Getting Flexible with Soft Bodies and Cloth -- Chapter 6: Working with Particles -- Chapter 7: Volumetric Fluid, Smoke, and Fire -- Chapter 8: Bullet Physics and the Blender Game Engine -- Chapter 9: Compositing with Nodes -- Chapter 10: Advanced 3D/Video Compositing -- Chapter 11: Working with the Video Sequence Editor -- Chapter 12: The Blender-Python Interpreter -- Chapter 13: Python Scripting for Blender -- Chapter 14: Creating Assets for the Blender Game Engine -- Chapter 15: Making Things Happen in the Game Engine -- Chapter 16: Python Power in the Blender Game Engine -- Index -- Gallery.