I've got a question about the "Official Blender 2.0 Gu

Support Basics & Interface
1

First a little history.I was able to get my boss to buy me the Official Blender 2.0 Guide. I got the guide around Feb of this year and when I started to actually get into it, Nan announced Bankruptcy :frowning: So I decided I wasnā€™t going to learn a ā€œdead productā€. Then the Blender Foundation came along and right now the money meter stands at 64,006 and I donā€™t want to jinx it but it looks like the sources might be freed by November or December of this year :smiley: .
Which now brings me to a couple of basic questions.

  1. Is the guide meant to be read cover to cover or is it better to read in sections that intrest the reader?
  2. With 3D graphics what other books or online sources would be good to learn what the definitions of the various terms specific to 3D - Especially 3D Animation?

Thanks in advance.

BTW From everything that I have read in this forum The GUI seems to be a hot topic and let me just say from this newbieā€™s standpoint keep the GUI the way it is. The only suggestion I would have is to make sure that for every keyboard shortcut there is a way to do the same thing by the mouse.
I have always believed that you are creating 3D art and not a Word document. It should not be unessesarily difficult to create something but by the same token, we are dealing with light, shadow, textures and god only knows what else (see I told you I was a newbie ;)) so there should be some learning to do on the artists part as well.
Just my two cents as always.

2

I still think that the best way to learn Blender is with the many tutorials available. I also have the guide and read it cover to cover, but I used it mostly as a reference to look up things that might not have been clear in the tutorials.

3

I bought it and read it cover to cover. Itā€™s not the mostā€¦ umā€¦ coherent documentation Iā€™ve ever read. It did alert me to many possibilities with Blender that I hadnā€™t thought of before. I dig it out for a reference when I need to look up a key command or something.

4

So would the online tutorials be a better way to learn Blender?

5

I believe so. I came at Blender with previous 3D (and comp.) experience, so the way I did it may or may not apply to you. There are some good ā€œlearning the interfaceā€ tutorials, as well as some basic modelling ones available. I think that I started with the ā€œmodelling a castleā€ one.

You can find the latter at IngieBeeā€™s excellent collection of tutes

http://www.ingiebee.com/Blender%20tutorial%20Building%20a%20Castle.htm

You can also check out the rest of her site for more.