[...]... entirely new to Blender are encouraged to read my previous work, The Essential Blender, which is a no-knowledge-assumed guide to learning this wonderful piece of free software The Essential Blender is available from the normal book outlets through No Starch Press, directly from the Blender Foundation’s e-shop (http://www .blender. org/e-shop), or for free online in Wiki format at http://wiki .blender. org/index.php/Books/Essential _Blender_ %28text%29... months, it could have been compressed down to five 40 hour weeks, or, even worse, three or four 60 hour weeks While the finished project has its shortcomings (I am not a hard core animator), it was designed from the beginning to work as a learning tool for this book Animating with Blender: How to Create Short Animations from Start to Finish assumes a great degree of familiarity with Blender It is not for the... reel, covering up the relevant portions of the storyboards With each new shot you finish, the story reel evolves from a series of still images into a moving compendium of your animation genius And frankly, at this point you hope it’s genius, because you’ll have soaked months of your life into it 7 Animating with Blender Figure 1.11 The story reel with several shots in place After the final shot is animated,... but it would only be a waste of time, both now and later when the calculation of each and every bone takes its toll on rendering times Figure 1.7 A control rig and mesh for a character 5 Animating with Blender Along with the characters, you build rough sets, as in Figure 1.8 Really, all you need at this point are placeholders for final set elements—boxes that represent chairs, rocks, or statues of Abraham... hands on this rough track because it will probably be personally embarrassing and most likely cost you any chance of ever running for political office Figure 1.3 Storyboards assembled with a soundtrack 3 Animating with Blender The temporary soundtrack is matched to the storyboards so that it forms a primitive version of what will someday be your masterpiece This rough representation of your animation... traditional story development Time is extremely limited, and, as we will see later in the chapter, costly Therefore, the story must do its job quickly and without extraneous elements You will, essentially, be creating a visual short story 13 Animating with Blender The late author, Roger Zelazny, a prolific writer of short stories, once said that his short stories were born either from a plot, a character,... were creating the story If your characters are not driving the action, then consider “circumstance/ the universe/fate/God” to be a character, and ask it the same question 17 Animating with Blender ● ● ● Tell someone else the story without delivering a conclusion Act as though you have a conclusion but want them to guess what it is first This seems underhanded, and it might feel like cheating, but there... turn and creating a fully satisfying story If you can pull together a good character, plot, and image, unify them with a strong theme, grab your viewers with a hook, and satisfy them with a well-crafted turn, then you have a story worth slaving over for the next several months Writing It Down With the story taking shape, your next task is to write it if you haven’t already Although actually writing the... about your resources: Are you working by yourself or with a partner or small team? Remember, you (or your team) will be responsible for every aspect of the production: storyboarding; the modeling and surfacing of all characters, sets, and props; the rigging, skinning, and animation of all characters; rendering and compositing; 21 Animating with Blender sound; and final editing Think about the longest... weeks” on Listen to the DVD commentary tracks on some of the best animated movies, and you’ll hear open admissions of things the animators and directors feel are lacking in the finished product 9 Animating with Blender The Importance of Following the Work Flow All of that was just the barest overview It should be obvious that creating a decent short animation is a very specific and involved process However, .