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Where to find Blender 3d Documentation and Educational Resources

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So you want to learn how to use Blender 3d (free open source 3D content creation suite)

 

Okay, I won't sugar coat it, learning how to use Blender 3d is going to take some effort on your part. Don't expect to open it up and immediately create stunning artwork. There are a lot of buttons, options and menus to learn how to use. And if you are completely new to 3d software, you are also going to be trying to learn new concepts as well.

Often one of the hardest tasks is just finding the right tutorial or documentation to get you started. And if you are a completely new user, you might not even know exactly what you are looking for.

But don't run away in horror just yet. The blender community has produced an amazing amount of documentation. The greater majority of which is completely free to download, study and learn from.

I have compiled some of the communities' best documentation and tutorial resources to ease your initial learning curve.

Blender Documentation 

Free Blender Documentation and Tutorials

Get the latest documentation for Blender.
Blender Quick Start Guide
The blender Quick Start guide provides you with a basic overview of blender functionality on a single A4 page, ready to print. It is designed for beginners who don't want to read the whole documentation, and for experienced 3D artists who want to quickly learn blender.
Blender User Manual
Blender's user manual is maintained by a dedicated group of Blender users who work hard to keep it up to date with the frequent new releases of Blender and it's features.
Download the Blender Wiki in PDF
Marco Ardito converted the blender wiki to pdf format for those who need/want offline access to the latest Blender documentation. He plans to update it monthly. At this point it is a single pdf file, over 1700 pages, about 52 MB.
Noob to Pro
This book is a series of tutorials arranged in a sequence to help the new user become a Blender expert. The tutorials become increasingly more difficult. As a result, intermediate users may quickly advance to whatever tutorial is most suitable for their knowledge and can continue along the sequence. Although there are many different learning paths a user could take, we've made a concerted effort to accommodate everyone.
Essential Blender pdf
Essential Blender will get you working with modeling, materials and texturing, lighting, particle systems, several kinds of animation, and rendering. In addition, there are chapters on the new mesh sculpting tools and the brilliant compositor.

Blender Video  

Learn about the Blender interface

Super3boy's 26th Blender Tutorial(2.46 Hair, UV, and Grass)

Super3boy's 26th Ble... 0 points

1 - Interface - Curso de Blender

1 - Interface - Curs... 0 points

Toshiba Sucks (revisited) Part 1

Toshiba Sucks (revis... 0 points

Blender_Interface_8_Create,Save and Load Themes

Blender_Interface_8_... 0 points

Blender 3d Change apparence of Blender theme

Blender 3d Change ap... 0 points

Kinghybodo's First Blender Tutorial: Interface pt 1

Kinghybodo's First B... 0 points

Blender Courses 

All of the following courses are free.
Blender Basics- 2nd Edition
Classroom Tutorial Book:
The manual addresses skills in a sequential order so skipping around may leave out important skill descriptions addressed in earlier chapters.
Blender 3D Design Course
The Blender 3D Design course is intended to offer students an introduction to the world of computer generated 3-D modeling and animation. As an introductory course, it provides a basic understanding of the skills and techniques employed by 3-D designers in a wide range of applications. In this online course we will explore basic mesh modeling, applying textures and materials to 3-D objects, lighting, animation and rendering. This course should provide a good basis for further independent study in architectural, engineering and theatrical modeling and game design.
BlenderCourse.com
This projects goal is to develop free lessons and/or tutorials in PDF format for the 3D modeling tool Blender 3D. The idea is to write step-by-step courses which cover various Blender related topics in peoples native languages. All the BlenderCourses are written in the same style and layout in order to make consistent and recognisable ebooks.

Weekly Blender Animations 

Features short animations of Blender features. A new animation is added weekly.

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Blender Training DVD's 

Learn tips, tricks, techniques and secrets from the blender masters.

Creature Factory
This extensive tutorial set, created by the renowned Blender artist Andy Goralczyk, teaches artists how to craft a fully finished 3D animated scene. Tracking the evolution of an idea from creation to final render - and beyond. The result of the tutorials is an epic 90 second trailer.
The ManCandy FAQ
The ManCandy FAQ is a collection of animations and video tutorials for rigging and animating with ManCandy. The animations are in question and answer format (hence the title) and are intended to be a fun way of documenting the rig.
The BlenderNewbies Tutorial Compilation DVD-ROM
This special compilation disc is packed with BlenderNewbies Blender video tutorials that cover a wide range of subjects while maintaining a presentation style that allows even beginners to keep up when things get to be more advanced.

In addition to the BlenderNewbies tutorials, you'll get several important bonuses that will enhance your studies of Blender.
Training DVDs from Montage Studios

    Introduction to Character Creation, Part 1

      Meant as a crash course in modeling with Blender for newer users, this training DVD takes the viewer through the basics of the interface, navigation, modeling, etc. Then puts all of it to the test with a step-by-step modeling exercise in creating your first character!

    Modeling the Female Head

      One of the most challenging things in the realm of 3D is to create a realistic human head. Whether it's dealing with proportions, features or edge flow, the human head is a difficult undertaking to model. This DVD tries to ease that process by providing ample demonstrations and techniques from start to finish on modeling the female head.

    Modeling the Female Body

      The follow-up to modeling a human head is of course modeling the body. This second training DVD takes the viewer through all the processes, techniques, and explanations of creating the female body in Blender 3D. All of the companion files are included on the dvd, both model files and reference images.
Big Buck Bunny
Big Buck Bunny - Project Peach - was Blender Foundations second Open Movie project,
Just like project Orange, the movie itself and all of the production files have been published under the Creative Commons, free to be reused and for everyone to learn from. More importantly, the team has challenged Blender itself to the max, inspired the entire development community to prove Blender is ready for feature quality 3D cartoons. Special attention has been paid to fur editing and rendering, and animating cartoonish characters.
Apricot Open Game DVD
On the Apricot DVD you will find:
- The game itself, with installer, running in Linux, Windows and OS X.
- All .blend files, models, textures, sound clips, game sources, and so on... all the material used to create the game.
- Documentation and video tutorials by the team members about all technical aspects the game; like how to re-use assets, animate characters, or add new levels.
- The Peach movie in various formats

Newest Blender Books 

Blender Books

Harness the great power of Blender with these amazing books written by respected community members.

Josh Beck Video Tutorial Series 

An excellent set of Blender tutorials aimed at getting the user comfortable with blender and it's functions.

Blender Tutorial --Texturing and Bump Mapping

Blender Tutorial --T... 0 points

UTB-Bleder Project (Bridge)

UTB-Bleder Project (... 0 points

Blender Sculpting Tutorial -- Sculpting Tools Part 1

Blender Sculpting Tu... 0 points

Blender Tutorial Lesson 7

Blender Tutorial Les... 0 points

Blender Tutorial Bridge Building Lesson 1

Blender Tutorial Bri... 0 points

20 more products: See all

Blenderart Magazine 

The magazine was started for the blender community, having the aim of publishing a bi-monthly PDF magazine; free for download. The goal of the magazine is to provide quality learning content for the blender community, from the efforts of the community itself.

Each issue contains a wide selection of tutorials and articles based on a single theme.

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Blender Videos 

Modeling Videos

Super3boy's Tenth Blender Tutorial(UV Mapping)

Super3boy's Tenth Bl... 0 points

Super3boy's Second Blender Tutorial(part 1)

Super3boy's Second B... 0 points

Super3boy's Third Blender Tutorial(Subsurf)

Super3boy's Third Bl... 0 points

Blender 3D Modeling Tutorial Multiresolution Face

Blender 3D Modeling... 0 points

how i model 3d heads

how i model 3d heads 0 points

Blender 3D Modeling

Blender 3D Modeling 0 points

Blender Summer of Documentation 

The Blender Summer of Documentation was a community project launched during the summer of 2006 to produce in depth documentation of various areas of Blender usage. The following documents were produced and have become a valuable learning resource for the Blender community.
Blender Summer of Documentation

Blender Videos 

Blender Materials

Node material test

Node material test 0 points

Blender Transluscency

Blender Transluscenc... 0 points

blender ZTransp to get alpha on a model

blender ZTransp to g... 0 points

Blender Fireball test

Blender Fireball tes... 0 points

Susanne Carpaint

Susanne Carpaint 0 points

College: Weather Report

College: Weather Rep... 0 points

Blender Game Engine 

Game Engine Documentation
Blender has a fully integrated realtime/3d game creation engine. You can find the latest documentation and information on it's use here.
Original Blender Gamekit + CDROM
With the newly announced Gamekit 2nd edition coming, the Blender Foundation has released the Original Blender Game kit for free download along with all the files that were supplied on the accompanying CDROM. (includes Blender 2.25)

Please note that the book and .blend files were written for Blender 2.25.

The Blender GameKit starts with an extensive section for people who are new to 3D - explaining all basic concepts - or new to Blender; with a full introduction to the interface. Then it shows in step-by-step tutorials the fun of creating models, adding motion to them, and how to turn them into simple games. Experienced 3D artists will appreciate the more complex game demos, the character animation tutorials, the introduction to Python and the advanced reference section.

The CDROM contents is part of this downloadable product too, and contains 10 playable and editable Blender game demos, all created by the renowned artist department of Not a Number. It also contains all the files needed for the tutorials and Blender V2.24, for all platforms.

Blender Videos 

Blender Animation Videos

Blender 3D walk cycle test

Blender 3D walk cycl... 0 points

Human female dummy walk cycle and pose - Blender 2.46

Human female dummy w... 0 points

My walk animation

My walk animation 0 points

Cat Walk Cycle (Blender 3D Animation)

Cat Walk Cycle (Blen... 0 points

Blender Walk Cycke

Blender Walk Cycke 0 points

Walk cycle

Walk cycle 0 points

What others are saying about Blender 3d 

Blender For Dummies” Available for Pre-order at BlenderNation ...
December 4, 2008 at 12:51 pm (Blender 3D) Tags: Blender books, Blender for "Dummies". I was just over at BlenderNation and saw that Jason has finished his book, Blender for Dummies and it is now ready for pre-order. via ?Blender For ...
"Blender For Dummies" Available for Pre-order at BlenderNation
This book spans 408 pages of information specifically tailored for beginners to Blender and 3D computer graphics, written in the friendly "Dummies" style. And even though it's targeted for raw beginners, experienced users may find it ...
Create a Checkered 3D Chess Figure Scene - Tutorialized
NET, AutoCAD, Blender 3d, Bryce 3d, C and Cpp, Cinema 4D, ColdFusion, CSS, DB Design, DB2, Delphi, Dreamweaver, eCommerce, Final Cut Studio, Fireworks, Flash, Gimp, HTML, Illustrator, Java, Javascript, Legal, Lightwave 3D, Linux ...

Explore more Blender Related Lenses 

Here is a list of my Blender related lenses, all nicely organized and contained in one spot.

You can find lenses on the following Blender topics:
Blender Resources
Blender Artist Spotlight
Misc Blender Related Lenses
Blender How-to's and Tutorial Le...

Thanks for stopping by! 

I hope these resources have eased your entry into the world of Blender 3d.

Blender 3d is a constantly evolving program and as such, blender documentation constantly changes to keep pace.

If you know of a great learning resource that should be listed here, just leave a link and short description below and I will get right on it.

flatpyramid wrote...

Again! a very nice and well organized lens.. keep it up! 5 star! Anyway, If you have a time please drop by at 3d model Sweepstakes. Asked your friends to sign up, you might win a $250 credits worth of 3d Models.

ReplyPosted September 02, 2008

Freebirth wrote...

More cool blender resources! Lenserolled!

ReplyPosted August 30, 2008

LucyVet wrote...

Great info for blender users!

ReplyPosted August 30, 2008

James20 wrote...

I have been to your other blender lens and like to get into this. 5*****

James

ReplyPosted August 30, 2008

saraht43 wrote...

Cool lense, a little beyond me yet, I still sometimes have difficulty with cutting and pasting animated clip art. Especially if its in Javascript form, which doesnt work on Squidoo lenses. UGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

ReplyPosted August 29, 2008

 
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