Book Review:Incredible Machines

Book Review: Blender3d_Incredible Machines

By Chepkech Kevin

Incredible Machines is a 303 page book written by Allan Brito and published by Packtpub Publishers (packtpub.com).He has written two others books, Blender3d: Architecture, Buildings and Scenery and Blender3d-Guia do Usuario. He covers the use of Blender and other tools for architectural visualization at his website http://www.blender3darchitect.com where he can be reached.

From the name, the book’s about making of machines, sci-fi not of this world unless maybe in your imagination. He covers modeling, rendering and animation of these machines and all the steps that lead to its completion such as UV mapping, dealing with particles and their animation, using curves and so forth. It covers three different projects starting with the most simple to a more complex one (transforming a robot).

This book is for game developers, 3d artists and product designers who strive for realistic images, 3D models and videos and also for those interested in creating realistic models using YafaRay and LuxRender.

Blender3d 2.49 is the version used in this book and some of minimum requirements given are:

Minimum requirements:

Three-button mouse

Open GL Graphics Card with 16 MB RAM

300 MHz CPU

128 MB RAM

1024 x 768 pixels display with 16-bit color

20 MB free hard disk space

However, if you really want to get maximum performance, there is a more powerful configuration:

Three-button mouse

Open GL Graphics Card with 128 or 256 MB RAM

2 GHz dual core CPU

2 GB RAM

1920 x 1200 pixels display with 24-bit color.

There isn’t much to say about the software, only that you can run Blender on almost any operating system available. The following is the list of systems that support Blender:

Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, or Vista

Mac OS X 10.2 and later

Linux i386, x86_64/amd64 or PPC

FreeBSD 6.2 i386 and later

Irix 6.5 mips3

Solaris 2.8 sparc.

Chapter one of the book gives a brief history of blender, where and how to get it. Blender is an open source software available for free at the blender foundation website http://www.blender.org .It goes on to introduce other applications that run hand in hand with blender like YafaRay (http://www.yafaray.org) and gimp (http://www.gimp.org) which are also available for free  from their respective websites.

He goes on to introduce incredible machines, what it means and how the name came about and how he has organized the book to tackle the three projects extensively.

Chapter two to five

Deals with the first project. There’s a brief explanation on why he chose that particular object as the fisrt project and the workflow for modeling it. He uses subdivision modeling but he explains why not polygon modeling and also tells us of other modeling techniques such as nurbs modeling and spline modeling  and where they are suitable. I found the language to be an easy read and straight to the point. He introduces tools used to add detail such as:

How to use hooks in the alignment of objects

Spin tool to close up an object

Adding creases and rounded details

And finally using YafaRay to create an environment and setting up lights and adding materials to achieve that ultimate realism.

Chapter 6to 10

This is the second project bit more complex than the first one. He again gives the project workflow and goes ahead to model the object. Start by making the general shape of the machine and later on adding detail in such a way that you can’ miss anything. He uses curves to add cables and wires to the machine (I was so jazzed by this).

He tackles uv mapping and the use of blender particles.

In the rendering of the machine he further expounds on the use YafaRay and creates an impressive environment for the spacecraft as well as material.

Chapter 11 to 16

I have got to admit that I expected like a lesson on how to transform Optimus Prime from a truck to machine but that’s not what I got. If I did get that then I probably would be lost right now because it requires a lot of detail. Once I understand this fully then I would be in a position to give Optimus a try.

This is the most complex of all the machines and Allan begins by telling us what it is and how he goes about tackling it. The challenges ahead from textures and materials to animating it. In this last project he uses LuxRender instead and expounds on the pros and cons of LuxRender as compared to YafaRay and why he used LuxRender this time.

As he adds detail to the machine I got to discover functions of some modifiers I didn’t know what they did like the array modifier. He provides valuable information concerning LuxRender from where to find it (http://www.luxrender.net), and the process of installing it. I got to learn new things concerning an unbiased render engine.

I found the chapter on animating the robot long and boring, I have to admit animation isn’t one of my strong points being an impatient person I’d like to see fast results but from those long tutorials I have followed through up to the end have been worth it. The knowledge gained is very vital, the same with this chapter. He uses hierarchies, controllers, armatures and helpers. One of the functions of LuxRender is it can be used to edit and fine-tune an image within LuxRender which is so cool and afterwords using gimp to clean and remove the noise on rendered images.

Mistakes

There were a few grammatical errors although I got what the message it would be unfortunate for someone who wouldn’t and probably miss something important.

General Overview

I found it pretty good and straight forward. Aspiring game developers and 3d artists will find this a book a good stepping stone to learning the first steps of game animation and achieving the perfect realism using the different render engines.

January 5, 2010 | Categories: Blender3d, Reviews | Tags: allan brito, incredible machines, machines, packtpub | Leave A Comment »