I am a bit reluctant to announce a commercial book in this forum but as this project started out by following up on a question from a publisher in the Python and Plugins forum http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=161497 and I intend to help out my readers via this forum if I’m able, so I’ll announce it anyway:
Please do let me know what you think of it and if you still have questions after reading the book, feel free to ask on the Python forum or via private message and I will do my best to help out.
even when 2.5 is released it will take some time to reach the level we have with 2.4x (years in some cases I expect), 2.4x is a bit terse in places but can be very useful for practice cases.
Ok - i went off and had a look at the book at the referenced link. I’m wondering whether there are any example snippets from the book or Table of contents / index that could be seen?
The sample chapter looks promising. Especially the final example of creating a script for impressions is interesting.
FreeMind: I don’t agree with you. Though the python api in 2.5 is an improvement in some areas compared to 2.4, it isn’t stable yet (and I wouldn’t be surprised if it would still be slightly unstable by the end of this year). Besides that, a lot of the knowledge of scripting in 2.4 also applies to 2.5. So this book seems to be a good way to get started in this interesting area of Blender.
varkenvarken: one thing you might think about is offering the script examples in the book as a download (for people who bought the book). That way it’s much easier to just change a line and see what happens (otherwise you’d first have to manually write the entire script, without any typing mistakes). Just a thought
ok,i know why, but that’s a real shame that it’s making people think twice!
Having seen you be so helpful on the python sub forum I’ll bet this is good!
I do hope that you get some sales of this and that the publisher sees fit to do a 2.5 version with you too!
I just received the book for reviewing and just from skimming through it I can already tell that this is going to be very helpful. The examples are very practical and the coverage is pretty wide. I’m seeing things that have never been properly addressed in a tutorial, so I’m excited to read through it (yes, I’m going to actually go through the entire book before reviewing it).
This definitely will need a 2.5/2.6 edition when the software stabilizes.
I have always been interested in programming, but unfortunately my time is quite limited for now. If I do get some spare weeks in my break, I may consider this book.
Thanks for the kind remarks. Now that the book is finished I hope I can devote more time to the forum. Any questions are welcome (in a thread or via private message if you prefer) but of course I do not claim to know all the answers, but I’ll sure do my best
@crouch: the source code for all examples is available from the publishers site
@michaelw: I hope my publisher will make some money from it, I am not doing for the money and that is a good thing too, because when you set off the hours of work against the royalties, especially after income tax, writing surely is not a well paid job Nevertheless, it was an experience I enjoyed very much and I certainly don’t want to discourage any future writers: just remember to multiply the publishers work estimate by at least a factor of three
@all: surely I am considering a book that will address 2.5/2.6 but that may take some time as not only should it be stable but also more or less feature complete.
