Realizing 3D Animation in Blender : Master the Fundamentals of 3D Animation in Blender, from Keyframing to Character Movement / Sam Brubaker.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brubaker, Sam, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Unity (Electronic resource).

Blender (Computer file).

Three-dimensional display systems.

Computer graphics.

Video games--Design.

Video games.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (456 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Birmingham, England : Packt Publishing, [2024]

Biography/History:

Brubaker Sam: Sam Brubaker first downloaded Blender in 2004 and has been a 3D artist for the majority of his life. After earning his degree in Art & Design, he worked as an instructional designer, successfully teaching 3D animation in Blender to children as young as seven. Today, he is a professional animator, Blender tutor, and dogmatic advocate of free and open-source software. He is also fond of drawing, carpentry, and analog synthesizers.

Summary:

Unlock the secrets of Blender animation and leverage advanced techniques to become a 3D animation professional with this illustrated guide Key Features Master the essentials of 3D animation through engaging step-by-step exercises Go from linking and posing a character to using a nonlinear animation editor Discover unique insights and top tips that you won't find in the Blender documentation Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook Book Description Completely free and open source, Blender, with its supportive community and powerful feature set, is an indispensable tool for creating 3D animations. However, learning the software can be a challenge given the complexity of its interface and the intricacies of animation theory. If you want to venture into 3D animation but don't know where to start, Realizing 3D Animation in Blender is for you. Adopting a practical approach, this guide simplifies the theory of 3D animation and the many animation workflows specific to Blender. Through detailed exercises and a sharp focus on the animation process, this book equips you with everything you need to set out on your path to becoming a 3D animator. It's much more than just an introduction; this book covers complex concepts such as F-Curve modifiers, rigid-body physics simulation, and animating with multiple cameras, presented in an easy-to-follow manner to avoid common pitfalls encountered by novice animators. By the end of this Blender 3D animation book, you'll have gained the knowledge, experience, and inspiration to start creating impressive 3D animations on your own. What you will learn Become well-versed with the simple rules of keyframing and interpolation Understand the function and behavior of Blender's animation curves Bring a character to life with Blender 3D character animation Utilize multiple cameras and the video sequence editor for advanced shot composition Get to grips with Blender's mysterious non-linear animation tool Explore advanced features such as physics simulation and camera techniques Who this book is for This book is for anyone seeking guidance in the world of 3D animation using Blender. Whether you're an aspiring 3D animator, a beginner or intermediate-level Blender user, or a visual media producer looking to expand your skill set, this resource will prove invaluable. As long as you have basic familiarity with Blender and have the software already installed on a computer that meets system requirements, you're ready to dive into this book. While prior experience with Blender's animation tools is not necessary, having at least modeled a scene, added simple shading and lighting, and rendered a few still images will be beneficial.

Contents:

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Contributors

Table of Contents

Preface

Part 1: Introduction to Blender and the Fundamentals of Animation

Chapter 1: Basic Keyframes in the Timeline

Technical requirements

Navigating the Timeline

Moving through time

Setting the frame range

Adjusting the Timeline view

Animation playback

Creating simple movement with keyframes

Keying the initial location

The keyed property

Keying the second location

Principles of keying

Keying rotation

Editing keyframes in the Timeline

Basic keyframe editing

Duplicating keyframes

Holding a position

Editing the timing of your animation

Animating nearly any property in Blender

Other keying methods

Keying the material color

Summary

Questions

Chapter 2: The Graph Editor

Getting the ball rolling

Navigating the Graph Editor

Bringing up the Graph Editor

The X and Y axes in the Graph Editor

Animation channels

Adjusting the Graph Editor view

Interpolation and easing

Setting the interpolation mode

Setting the easing type

Making the ball bounce

Linear interpolation for objects in mid-air

Adding bouncing keyframes in the Graph Editor

F-curve extrapolation

Linear extrapolation

Cyclic extrapolation

Chapter 3: Bezier Keyframes

One tired animator

The connected parts of our unicycle

keying the course checkpoints

A novel method for inserting keyframes in the Graph Editor

Bezier handle types

Exposing keyframe handles

Overview of Bezier handle types

Automatic and Auto Clamped Bezier handles

Vector and Aligned handles

Combining Vector and Aligned handles

Editing Bezier handles

Smooth movement with Aligned handles

Bounces with Free handles.

Heading, weight, and balance

Motion paths as a visual guide

Tilting while turning

Leaning into it

Copying keyframes to another channel

Copying keyframes

Keying a single property

Pasting keyframes

Scaling keyframe values

Chapter 4: Looking into Object Relationships

Understanding object origins

The truth about objects and origins

Centering the origin

Grabbing the origin

Parenting objects

The parent/child relationship

Understanding constraints

Adding a constraint

World space versus local space

Copying constraints

Following a path

Editing the animation path

Adding a Follow Path constraint

Animating the path

Drivers

Adding a driver

Editing a driver

Driver F-curves

The final chart of object relationships

Chapter 5: Rendering an Animation

Setting up the camera

Adding a camera to the scene

Camera view-finding

The animated camera

Rendering basics

What is rendering, really?

Controls for rendering

Setting up our scene for rendering

Predicting and managing render performance

Rendering an image sequence

Why output an image sequence and not a video?

Output settings

Pre-render checklist

Rendering the animation

Viewing the rendered frames

Converting an image sequence to a video

The Video Sequence Editor

Output settings for video export

Outputting a video

Part 2: Character Animation

Chapter 6: Linking and Posing a Character

1Technical requirements

Linking a character in a new scene

Linked libraries

Making a library override

Understanding Rain's armature

The art of rigging Rain

The CloudRig interface

Posing an armature

Pose mode

IK bones

FK bones.

Fingers, faces, and other accessories

Creating a library of poses

The Asset Browser

Creating a pose asset

Practicing poses

Chapter 7: Basic Character Animation

Preparing Rain in a new scene

A brief recap on linking Rain into a new project

Using a pose asset

Setting bone relationships for an animation

Hiding bones

Keying pose bones

Blocking or roughing the animation

Reviewing our key poses

The Dope Sheet

Introduction to the Dope Sheet

Organizing the Dope Sheet

Going further into animating this character

Two more in-between poses

In-between operators for posing

Waving

Polishing the animation

Using the Graph Editor on bones

Animating Rain's accessories

Chapter 8: The Walk Cycle

Preparing the walk cycle scene

The timeline of a walk cycle

Timeline markers

Getting Rain ready to walk

Moving forward on the Y axis

Establishing the stride length

Looping the animation

Putting Rain on a treadmill

Using a preview playback range

Adding more periodic motion

Torso movement

Swaying from side to side

The Action Editor

More torso animation with sine waves

Advanced footwork

Rolling the foot

Picking up the feet

Correcting the motion of the legs

Copying animation from the left foot to the right foot

Finishing the walk cycle

FK toes

FK arms

Final touches?

Chapter 9: Sound and Lip-Syncing

Using sound in Blender

Importing audio files into the Video Sequencer

Using sound strips

Timeline settings for working with sound

Acting without speaking

Key facial expressions

Automatic keyframing and keying sets

The science of lip-syncing

Phonetics for animators.

Animating the mouth

Chapter 10: Prop Interaction with Dynamic Constraints

Touching the object

Setting up the shot

Reaching for an object

Setting up an object-to-bone relationship

Dummy bones - a smarter way to rig

The Copy Transforms constraint

Constraints with animated influence

Keying the influence of a constraint

Releasing the ball

Animating a throwing/tossing motion

Animating the ball being thrown

Part 3: Advanced Tools and Techniques

Chapter 11: F-Curve Modifiers

Where to find F-curve modifiers

Adding our first F-curve modifier

Getting fancy with F-curve modifiers

The Stepped Interpolation modifier

The Built-In Function modifier

Setting the clock with math

Using the Noise modifier

Adding the Noise modifier

Copying modifiers

More fun with Noise modifiers

Using a Noise modifier to simulate an explosion

Restricting the frame range of a modifier

Chapter 12: Rigid Body Physics

Creating a rigid body world

Our first rigid body simulation

Active and passive rigid bodies

Rigid body collision

The smashing-junk-together algorithm

Collision shapes

Selecting rigid body collision shapes

Destroying a wall

Building a wall

Destroying the wall

Baking the simulation

Chapter 13: Animating with Multiple Cameras

Ready camera two

Setting up multiple cameras

The active camera

Switching cameras in the Timeline

Camera overrides

Viewing with a local camera

Using multiple cameras in the Video Sequencer

Chapter 14: Nonlinear Animation

Reusing actions

Appending the walk cycle.

Assigning an action in the Action Editor

A hard lesson in forgotten settings

The action strip

Introduction to the Nonlinear Animation editor

Actions in the NLA

Layering actions

Appending the second action

Animated Strip Time

The Strip Time property

Index

About PACKT

Other Books You May Enjoy.

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781801076562

OCLC:

1440216700