What this book covers
Chapter 1, Introducing Blender and Animation, will help you to get your first hands-on use of Blender, a brief but very relevant bit of history of animation and computer animation and an overview of the basic principles of animation.
Chapter 2, Getting Comfortable Using the 3D View, includes some fun exercises that explore the usage of the Blender window system and the basic elements that are found in the 3D View window.
Chapter 3, Controlling the Lamp, the Camera, and Animating Objects, explains the basics of lights in Blender, good use of the camera, and making your first animation.
Chapter 4, Modeling with Vertices, Edges, and Faces, teaches you the fundamentals of 3D modeling, using Vertices, Edges, and Faces. You'll be introduced to Blender's library of premade objects and have fun bending and distorting Blender's lovely mascot, Suzanne.
Chapter 5, Building a Simple Boat, will teach you box modeling techniques. You will learn how to use them to make a small jon boat, give it a color, and make wooden seats. Then you will study the different lights that Blender has.
Chapter 5A, Lighting a Small Boat, will help you explore Blender's different lights. This chapter can be found online at https://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/4909OS_05A_Lighting_a_Small_Boat.pdf.
Chapter 6, Making and Moving the Oars, focuses on the oars for the boat. You will use more advanced modeling and animation techniques and discover how to create more complex keyframe animations.
Chapter 6A, Using Stereoscopic Cameras, gives you a brief introduction to setting up stereoscopic 3D cameras. This chapter can be found at https://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/4909OS_06A_Using_Stereoscopic_Cameras.pdf.
Chapter 7, Planning Your Work, Working Your Plan, teaches you to create templates to help you plan your modeling. You will get an introduction to modeling with Bézier curves, take a look at storyboarding and planning an animation, as well as being introduced to some charts and guides that help you plan your work.
Chapter 8, Making the Sloop, helps you to make the hull of the sloop using box modeling and subdivision surfaces. You will learn to make holes in objects with Boolean operations and create the ship's wheel with Spin Tools and DupliVerts.
Chapter 9, Finishing Your Sloop, explains how to use text and fonts in naming your sloop. Then you will assemble all the objects you made in this and the previous chapter, build some sails using NURBS surfaces, and add a few extras that have been provided in your download pack.
Chapter 10, Modeling Organic Forms, Sea, and Terrain, helps you build and paint an island and the ocean. You make trees for it, and assemble some prefab buildings, and also make a pier from four simple parts.
Chapter 11, Improving Your Lighting and Camera Work, focuses on professional lighting and camera techniques. You will also learn more about animation and ways to speed up performing test renders and improve the final rendering quality.
Chapter 12, Rendering and Compositing, covers assembling strips of animated sequences in the Video Sequence Editor to create a completed and edited animation with sound. You will use the node editor to assemble a 3D stereoscopic animation and get introduced to the cycles renderer, which adds even more realism and possibilities to a Blender scene.
