Help with technical questions on buying Blender books.

Support Basics & Interface
1

Hello All,

How are you all doing?

Now I must ask you if I should only get “The Blender Gamekit” to understand Blender so I can make a game or movie but I have a budget. And I am not sure if to just buy The Gamekit or try to get more books like “The Official Blender 2.0 Guide” that someone recommended in the full details section of the e-shop on “The Blender Gamekit”.

Is the “The Blender Gamekit” only sold in Europe. If so that means the publisher “No Starch Press” is publishing an American version for you guys. Because I asked and they said the version they are printing is not finished yet.

I saw amazon.com have a The Official Blender GameKit book with CD at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1593270046/qid=1046041349/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-8698713-0140157?v=glance&s=books but they have it titled its a special order. Why? They maybe waiting on the “No Starch Press” version :wink:

Anyway,

Should I really get both? Can the gamekit for fill all my needs? Its easier for me to get it through amazon.com but I just want to know what should I buy normally if I wanted to go from beginner onwards to expert level and now if I had a budget then what should I buy for the same type of goals…

Help blender looks like a God-sent I want to blow away my friends with awesome 3d/2d or both games and visually stunning movies.

Thank you for your time.

Yours Truly,
D. J. Trotman.

2

heyho.

well… i have the blender guide #2… it’s a great book. but it lacks one thing… and this is what the gamekit consists of: an explenation of the gameengine.

now… i can’t tell, how detailed the gamekit book is.
but i guess it’s about your priority…

if u wanna learn to use blender in general, the guide would be your choice.
if you are focusing on game creation u should grab the gamekit.

my advice: grab both! heh… i am planning to buy the gamekit as well… if i got money… heh

i hope, this was a help… :smiley:

3

Hey there,

You can buy the Blender Gamekit from the e-shop at http://www.blender3d.org/e-shop/

They can ship it anywhere in the world.

The 2.0 Guide is good, but perhaps getting a little bit out of date now (it doesn’t cover the new armature character animation systems, etc.).

Here’s a list of the different Blender books that are available, in case it’s any help:
http://www.blender3d.org/Education/?sub=Books

4

I don’t have the Game guide, but i do have both the Blender book, and the Blender 2.0 guide. i don’t think that their is any book that covers the armture system. Fortunately, there are a fair numbr of good tutorials out there.

If you were on budget, I’d recommend the 2.0 guide. Then depending on your experience with 3d, I would get a general purpose book. I, for one, was totally baffled by all of the options such as meshes, nurbs, splines, and whatnot. I stumbled onto a copy of Bill Fleming’s 3D Modeling and Surfacing. That book really cleared up a lot for me. If you are new to 3d, and only had bucks for one book, I would skip a Blender book and go with that.

-Andy