Where can I find good tutorial for starting to use Python with Blender?

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1

I have worked through some basic (non-Blender) Python tutorials and would like to learn how to use it with Blender. I’d like to get to the point where I could use Python “on-the-fly” in Blender, as a way to assist in modeling. For instance, I realized the other day that I would like to select the longest edge in a mesh, and this must be fairly simple to do with a few lines of Python.

Any suggestions for good tutorials? Thanks.

2

If you know python then you really only need to know the Blender API’s to see what you can do with them. When I started I found this helpful for showing possibilities. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Advanced_Tutorials/Python_Scripting/Export_scripts

I’m not sure how up-to-date it is but I think the general concerpts are still sound.

3

the official docs are great:
http://www.blender.org/documentation/250PythonDoc/

especially

  • Blender/Python Quickstart: new to blender/scripting and want to get your feet wet?
  • Blender/Python API Overview: a more complete explanation of python integration
  • Blender/Python Addon Tutorial: a step by step guide on how to write an addon from scratch
  • Blender/Python API Reference Usage: examples of how to use the API reference docs

The Python Console inside of blender is also a great tool for testing, mainly because of the auto-complete (Ctrl+Space)

4

Patrick Boelens (I think that’s how you spell his name) did a very good introductory series of tutorials. The first is here. It’s for the game engine, but has really good general advice too.

5

I found this http://airplanes3d.net/pydev-000_e.xml to be a great resource about writing add-ons in python.

Alessandro

6

First you need make sure you know python well enough , I have made a book for total begineers here -> http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Kilon/Python_book_of_magic . Suffice to say if you dont know the basics I teach in this book, you are not ready to code for blender at all.

Second you will need something to teach you the basics of the Blender API -> http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:2.5/Py/Scripts/Cookbook/Code_snippets

and last but not least you will need to study the api itself -> http://www.blender.org/documentation/blender_python_api_2_64_release/

From there on , studying addons source code is a good practice and you will find tons of them included with blender or distributed online.