Includes index.

Blender basics : interface and objects -- Working with meshes -- Armatures and rigging -- Shape keys and facial rigging -- Basics of animation -- Armature animation -- Facial animation and lip sync -- Nonlinear animation -- Further issues in character animation -- Lighting, rendering, and editing your animation -- Using Python scripts -- Full-scale productions : Elephants dream and Plumiferos -- A look into Elephants dream -- Feifi the canary : Plumiferos takes wing -- Blender in the pipeline -- Other software and formats -- Resources for futher learning.

Let this in-depth professional book be your guide to Blender, the powerful open-source 3D modeling and animation software that will bring your ideas to life. Using clear step-by-step instruction and pages of real-world examples, expert animator Tony Mullen walks you through the complexities of modeling and animating, with a special focus on characters. From Blender basics to creating facial expressions and emotion to rendering, you'll jump right into the process and learn valuable techniques that will transform your movies.--From publisher's description.