Does anyone have any recommended books or courses for learning Blender Addon Development

Coding Beginning Blender Code and Development
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I’m looking to expand my knowledge for developing addons for Blender. This would just be small apps to help me with common tasks. Though I do have a few ideas for some amazing addons. :grin:

Right now I’ve just been using chatGPT and Copilot, which has been somewhat helpful in some cases and I have learned a few things but I’d like to better understand the code and know more about how things function and what does what.

Are there any good courses or books anyone can recommend?

I prefer paid courses over free or YouTube unless they are really good. Especially any course where I can get support and ask questions.

Thanks guys!
-Jeremy

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Maybe have a look here

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Thank you! This is my second recommendation for this specific course. It must be good! I’ll definitely check it out!

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Sometimes peoples recommendations are… different on the same subject… because preferences and affections differ…
…i suggested ( therefor *“maybe” and “a look”) this mostly because: some of the lessons are free… and it’s not “any” of those XYZ-channels which make money because of their click counts… :wink:

…and… it’s blenderstudio… :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
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You should take a look at Serpens visual scripting, it’s an addon for creating addons that can be less of learning curve as you can use nodes to represent your coded addon.

It still allows you to edit the outputted code and include custom python markup.

Maybe a solution to quickly Prototyping your ideas into an exportable addon.

It has a free test version that can be used in Blender 3.6 and lower.

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Thanks Sam. I’m actually a bit of an addon junkie. LOL. I usually save up and buy a ton of addons on Black Friday. Serpens was actually one of them. Haven’t had a chance to check it out just yet but it’s on my list!

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Its worth purchasing and there is a good community that is active in helping to understand how it works.

This is one of many addons I built using Serpens, Building your addon in real time using nodes is always a nice touch as you can prototype UI fast. https://blendermarket.com/products/blenderrenderalert

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Probably not useful in the context of addons but could be great to understand blender.
There is a book called: Core Blender Development: Understanding the Essential Source Code

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I think it’s worth learning regular python code, I don’t have something in mind, it doesn’t have to be super advanced but basically blender python API allows you to do things in blender with code, but at some point to make good tools you’ll need to manipulate data or use external modules and that’s where a good knowledge of python is going to be very useful.

Probably the first thing to check is openclassroom they probably have good python educational material…

The only weird stuff is creating UI but it’s always possible to dissect existing addons for that to grab a few tricks.

Finally , maybe the first step is to read the actual doc : https://docs.blender.org/api/current/index.html

StackExchange is a great place too, when googleing a specific issue I always end up there with already made answers. Probably the kind of support you get from Chat GPT, but at least you are sure it works and you can run through different answers for the same problem with more explanations…

Have fun !

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