Taking Blender to the Next Level: Implement advanced workflows such as geometry nodes, simulations, and motion tracking for Blender production pipelines

Taking Blender to the Next Level
Contributors
About the author
About the reviewer
Preface
    Who this book is for
    What this book covers
    To get the most out of this book
    Download the example files
    Download the color images
    Conventions used
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Part 1: Modeling, Materials, and Animation Workflows
Chapter 1: Using Geometry Nodes to Create Dynamic Scenes
    Introduction to Geometry Nodes in Blender
        The Geometry Nodes workspace
        Geometry Nodes
    Creating and manipulating geometry using nodes
        Creating the base mesh
        Creating a new Geometry Nodes modifier
        Creating our instance object
        Creating our first nodes
        Specifying the instance object
        The Subdivide node
        The Point Scale node
        Different types of attributes
        The Point Rotate node
        The Point Translate node
        The Attribute Randomize node
        Randomizing the Scale attribute
        Randomizing the Position attribute
        Randomizing the Rotation attribute
        Changing the instance object
        Muting nodes
    Using textures to control attributes
        The Attribute Sample Texture node
    Animating with Math nodes
        The Attribute Vector Math node
    Summary
Chapter 2: Creating a Motion Graphics Scene Using Geometry Nodes
    Creating our base mesh and instance object
        Creating the base mesh
        Creating the instance object
        Distributing the instance object across our base mesh
    Using an empty object to calculate proximity data
        Calculating the proximity
    Using the proximity data to modify the attributes
        Adding our nodes
        Naming the input value
    Animating our scene
        Adding keyframes
        Adjusting the overall scale of the instance objects
    Adding color using materials
    Summary
Chapter 3: Organic Modeling P1: Creating a Mushroom
    Creating our base mesh for the mushroom
        Using primitive objects to create our base mesh
        Optimizing our topology
    UV unwrapping our model
        The UV Editing workspace
        Adding seams
        Unwrapping the faces
        Adding more seams
        Unwrapping the stem
        Optimizing the UV layout
    The multiresolution modifier
        Statistics overlay
    Sculpting finer details
        Setting up the sculpting workspace
        Sculpting basics
        Sculpting finer details onto our mushroom
    Using a lattice to shape your overall model
        The Lattice modifier
        Shaping your mesh using the lattice object
    Creating a low-poly and high-poly mesh
        Duplicating our models
        Applying the modifiers
    Baking the normal map
        Creating the blank normal map image texture
        Baking from the high-poly mesh to the image texture
        Saving the normal map texture
    Summary
Chapter 4: Organic Modeling P2: Creating the Landscape around the Mushroom
    Creating the landscape
    Adding grass using Geometry Nodes
        Creating the individual grass blades
        Scattering the grass blades using Geometry Nodes
    Summary
Chapter 5: PBR Materials: Texturing our Mushroom Scene
    Adding materials to the mushroom
        The mushroom stem
        The top part of the mushroom
    Adding materials to the landscape
    Creating a procedural grass material
    Using an HDRI, Sky Texture, and Sun to light our scene
    Summary
Chapter 6: 3D Scanning and Photogrammetry: Creating Your Own 3D Scans
    Taking photos for 3D scanning/photogrammetry
        Camera settings and best practices
    Using Meshroom to convert photos into a 3D model
    Cleaning up a model using Blender
        Importing the model created by Meshroom
    Optimizing the topology of a model using Instant Meshes
    UV unwrapping and texture baking
        UV unwrapping
        Texture baking
    Summary
Chapter 7: Modeling an Alien Cartoon Character
    Creating reference images of your character
    Setting up the reference images in Blender
    Modeling an alien cartoon character
        Modeling the body
        Modeling the head
        Modeling the legs and feet
        Modeling the arms and hands
        Modeling the eyes
        Modeling the mouth
        Adding smaller details to our character
    Summary
Chapter 8: Rigging and Animating Your 3D Cartoon Character
    Installing the Rigify add-on
    Importing our character and getting it ready for the rigging process
        Importing our character model
        Applying any active modifiers
    Rigging the character using Rigify
        Rigging the upper part of the character
        Rigging the lower part of the character's body
        Rigging the torso, arms and hands of our character
        Final rig alignment
    IK versus FK and rig layers
        IK versus FK
        Rig layers
    Animating the walk cycle
        Setting up key pose number one
        Setting up key pose number two
        Setting up key pose number three
        Setting up key pose number four
        Creating inverted keyframes
        Looping the walk cycle
    Summary
Part 2: Let's Do Some Physics
Chapter 9: Rigid Body Simulation: Destroying a Statue Using Physics 
    Installing the required add-ons
    Setting up the scene
    Using Cell Fracture to break our model into smaller pieces
    Fracturing the impact point using the Annotation Pencil
    Rigid Body physics
        Rigid Body physics properties
        Transferring Rigid Body physics properties to other objects
        Configuring mass, gravity, and speed
    Linking fractured pieces together using Rigid Body Constraints
    Animating a Rigid Body impact object
    Baking the final physics simulation
    Summary
Chapter 10: Dynamic Cloth Simulations
    Importing our character and walk cycle
    Adding a rest pose
    Creating clothing for our character
    The cloth simulation
    Using forces to enhance the simulation
    Baking the cloth simulation
    Adding final modifiers
    Summary
Chapter 11: Creating Dynamic Hair Using Particles
    Reusing our alien character and walk cycle animation
    Creating a Vertex Group
    Creating hair particles that interact with physics
    Grooming and styling
    Baking the hair simulation to cache
    Setting up a hair shader for rendering
    Summary
Part 3: Match Moving and Compositing
Chapter 12: Matching Blender's Camera Movement to Live Action Footage
    Creating an image sequence from a video
    Importing the image sequence into Blender
    Camera tracking or match moving
        Placing trackers in the viewport
        Tracking features that go off-screen
    Solving and refining the track and orienting the scene
    Testing the camera track with test objects
    Summary
Chapter 13: Compositing the Alien Cartoon Character onto the Live Action Footage
    Importing our alien character and tracked camera into a new Blender project
        Converting the tracked camera to keyframes
        Importing the tracked camera into our new project
        Importing the live-action image sequence
        Positioning our character in the scene
    Matching the lighting to our live-action scene
        Adding an HDRI image to light our scene
    Configuring View Layers
        Using collections to separate render elements
    Compositing using nodes
        Rendering out one frame
        Initiating the compositing process
        Changing the backdrop image
        Color grading the live-action footage
        Blurring shadows
        Color grading our image
    Summary
Chapter 14: The Final Render
    Understanding the render settings
        Enabling Motion Blur
    Rendering an animation as an image sequence
    Converting the image sequence into an MP4 video
    Summary
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