What do you get with a Packt Subscription?

Free for first 7 days. $19.99 p/m after that. Cancel any time!

Unlimited ad-free access to the largest independent learning library in tech. Access this title and thousands more!

50+ new titles added per month, including many first-to-market concepts and exclusive early access to books as they are being written.

Innovative learning tools, including AI book assistants, code context explainers, and text-to-speech.

Thousands of reference materials covering every tech concept you need to stay up to date.

Subscribe now

View plans & pricing

Key benefits

Discover ready-to-go scripts that provide a clear solution to your problems

Find out how to automate repetitive tasks in an efficient way

Extend Blender’s actions and user interface with your code

Description

Blender, a powerful open source 3D software, can be extended and powered up using the Python programming language. This book teaches you how to automate laborious operations using scripts, and expand the set of available commands, graphic interfaces, tools, and event responses, which will enable you to add custom features to meet your needs and bring your creative ideas to life. The book begins by covering essential Python concepts and showing you how to create a basic add-on. You’ll then gain a solid understanding of the entities that affect the look of Blender’s objects such as modifiers, constraints, and materials. As you advance, you’ll get to grips with the animation system in Blender and learn how to set up its behavior using Python. The examples, tools, patterns, and best practices present throughout the book will familiarize you with the Python API and build your knowledge base, along with enabling you to produce valuable code that empowers the users and is ready for publishing or production. By the end of this book, you’ll be able to successfully design add-ons that integrate seamlessly with the software and its ecosystem.

Who is this book for?

This book is for Blender users who want to expand their skills and learn scripting, technical directors looking to automate laborious tasks, and professionals and hobbyists who want to learn more about the Python architecture underlying the Blender interface. Prior experience with Blender is a prerequisite, along with a basic understanding of the Python syntax—however, the book does provide quick explanations to bridge potential gaps in your background knowledge.

What you will learn

Understand the principles of 3D and programming, and learn how they operate in Blender

Build engaging and navigation-friendly user interfaces that integrate with the native look and feel

Respect coding guidelines and deliver readable and compliant code without the loss of originality

Package your extensions into a complete add-on, ready for installation and distribution

Create interactive tools with a direct response to the user's action

Code comfortably and safely using version control

What do you get with a Packt Subscription?

Free for first 7 days. $19.99 p/m after that. Cancel any time!

Unlimited ad-free access to the largest independent learning library in tech. Access this title and thousands more!

50+ new titles added per month, including many first-to-market concepts and exclusive early access to books as they are being written.

Innovative learning tools, including AI book assistants, code context explainers, and text-to-speech.

Thousands of reference materials covering every tech concept you need to stay up to date.

Subscribe now

View plans & pricing

Frequently bought together

€33.99

Photorealistic Materials and Textures in Blender Cycles

€37.99

Procedural 3D Modeling Using Geometry Nodes in Blender

€33.99

Total € 105.97

FAQs

What is included in a Packt subscription?

A subscription provides you with full access to view all Packt and licnesed content online, this includes exclusive access to Early Access titles. Depending on the tier chosen you can also earn credits and discounts to use for owning content

How can I cancel my subscription?

To cancel your subscription with us simply go to the account page - found in the top right of the page or at https://subscription.packtpub.com/my-account/subscription - From here you will see the ‘cancel subscription’ button in the grey box with your subscription information in.

What are credits?

Credits can be earned from reading 40 section of any title within the payment cycle - a month starting from the day of subscription payment. You also earn a Credit every month if you subscribe to our annual or 18 month plans. Credits can be used to buy books DRM free, the same way that you would pay for a book. Your credits can be found in the subscription homepage - subscription.packtpub.com - clicking on ‘the my’ library dropdown and selecting ‘credits’.

What happens if an Early Access Course is cancelled?

Projects are rarely cancelled, but sometimes it's unavoidable. If an Early Access course is cancelled or excessively delayed, you can exchange your purchase for another course. For further details, please contact us here.

Where can I send feedback about an Early Access title?

If you have any feedback about the product you're reading, or Early Access in general, then please fill out a contact form here and we'll make sure the feedback gets to the right team.

Can I download the code files for Early Access titles?

We try to ensure that all books in Early Access have code available to use, download, and fork on GitHub. This helps us be more agile in the development of the book, and helps keep the often changing code base of new versions and new technologies as up to date as possible. Unfortunately, however, there will be rare cases when it is not possible for us to have downloadable code samples available until publication.

When we publish the book, the code files will also be available to download from the Packt website.

How accurate is the publication date?

The publication date is as accurate as we can be at any point in the project. Unfortunately, delays can happen. Often those delays are out of our control, such as changes to the technology code base or delays in the tech release. We do our best to give you an accurate estimate of the publication date at any given time, and as more chapters are delivered, the more accurate the delivery date will become.

How will I know when new chapters are ready?

We'll let you know every time there has been an update to a course that you've bought in Early Access. You'll get an email to let you know there has been a new chapter, or a change to a previous chapter. The new chapters are automatically added to your account, so you can also check back there any time you're ready and download or read them online.

I am a Packt subscriber, do I get Early Access?

Yes, all Early Access content is fully available through your subscription. You will need to have a paid for or active trial subscription in order to access all titles.

How is Early Access delivered?

Early Access is currently only available as a PDF or through our online reader. As we make changes or add new chapters, the files in your Packt account will be updated so you can download them again or view them online immediately.

How do I buy Early Access content?

Early Access is a way of us getting our content to you quicker, but the method of buying the Early Access course is still the same. Just find the course you want to buy, go through the check-out steps, and you’ll get a confirmation email from us with information and a link to the relevant Early Access courses.

What is Early Access?

Keeping up to date with the latest technology is difficult; new versions, new frameworks, new techniques. This feature gives you a head-start to our content, as it's being created. With Early Access you'll receive each chapter as it's written, and get regular updates throughout the product's development, as well as the final course as soon as it's ready.We created Early Access as a means of giving you the information you need, as soon as it's available. As we go through the process of developing a course, 99% of it can be ready but we can't publish until that last 1% falls in to place. Early Access helps to unlock the potential of our content early, to help you start your learning when you need it most. You not only get access to every chapter as it's delivered, edited, and updated, but you'll also get the finalized, DRM-free product to download in any format you want when it's published. As a member of Packt, you'll also be eligible for our exclusive offers, including a free course every day, and discounts on new and popular titles.

Filter reviews by

All

Feefo verified reviews

Amazon verified reviews

N/A Nov 27, 2023

A little hard to follow when typing in code. It would be nice to have the complete code at the end of the book. What I type in is rarely what is shown in the github examples. Could be a little clearer as to where code changes are needed in a project. I am not a programmer so the problems could just be me, I think the book is very good.

Feefo Verified review

Gareth Hewes Jul 29, 2023

Even with extensive experience with C# and a good amount with Python, my first attempts to get into plugin scripting for Blender were challenging. The structure of the scripts, the whole way of working, it all seemed very unintuitive.Even wrapping my head around the idea that you basically want the script to do in words what you do with the UI only helped somewhat.So this book was a great help in understanding the less obvious things that are happening under the hood when writing scripts for Blender.I would highly recommend this to anyone looking to get into Blender's deeper capacity and infinite possibilities using Python!

Amazon Verified review

N Russell Jun 17, 2023

I'm a Tech Artist in Video Games and R&D space and didn't have Blender experience before reading this book. Though now I'd say I have a very clear vision on how I'd approach Blender in a Games pipeline.The code samples show practical use cases that are easy to fit to typical Tech Art needs. And the book has a lot of info presented at a reasonable pace, but is organized well and was easy to skim through to get quick answers when I wanted.If you're familiar with any scripting language and any 3d software, this book should be an easy read for you. Highly recommended to anybody interested in scripting for Blender, or in learning Tech Art.

Just_A_Reader Jul 09, 2023

Whether a novice or an expert, this book will help readers become efficient Blender and Python users. Peppered with informative diagrams and solid explanations, the book is outlined in a straightforward manner, making it easy to read and follow. I wish the book was available when I first used Blender. Now it’s a staple on my bookshelf. Anyone wanting to learn how to program with Blender and create their own add-ons should read this book. It won’t disappoint.

kblack21 Jun 23, 2023

Some of the concepts are deep if you're new to programming, but with some novice-level experience with Python, or general coding knowledge, this book is a great read and a wealth of knowledge to expand Blender's robust capabilities. You'll almost jump out the gate writing add-ons but never fear Paolo is a knowledgable guide.

Python Scripting in Blender: Extend the power of Blender using Python to create objects, animations, and effective add-ons

What do you get with a Packt Subscription?