Blender Cycles: Lighting and Rendering Cookbook
Copyright 2013 Packt Publishing
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First published: December 2013
Production Reference: 1191213
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
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ISBN 978-1-78216-460-9
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Cover Image by Bernardo Iraci (<>
)
Credits
Author
Bernardo Iraci
Reviewers
Patrick Boelens
Fernando Castilhos Melo
Acquisition Editors
Akram Hussain
Luke Presland
Lead Technical Editor
Amey Varangaonkar
Technical Editors
Tanvi Bhatt
Kapil Hemani
Akashdeep Kundu
Shiny Poojary
Faisal Siddiqui
Copy Editors
Roshni Banerjee
Brandt D'Mello
Deepa Nambiar
Karuna Narayanan
Shambhavi Pai
Alfida Paiva
Adithi Shetty
Project Coordinator
Navu Dhillon
Proofreaders
Lucy Rowland
Elinor Perry-Smith
Indexer
Priya Subramani
Graphics
Ronak Dhruv
Yuvraj Mannari
Abhinash Sahu
Production Coordinator
Shantanu Zagade
Cover Work
Shantanu Zagade
About the Author
Bernardo Iraci was born in Livorno, Italy in 1985. He followed a standard education career until he graduated in Economics in 2009. He always had a great passion for computers, especially gaming. During the latter part of his studies, he also developed a passion for 3D graphics, and this soon became the main focus of his career. It was at this time that he came to understand that his passion was the most important thing to pursue, more important than even attending university.
Even though Bernardo later participated in various online courses teaching the different aspects of computer graphics, he has been largely self-taught. In 2010, he moved to Warsaw, Poland, where he was finally able to start working full-time in computer graphics as a 3D generalist in the field of movies VFX and advertisments. He also started work as a freelancer.
Bernardo constantly works to improve his skills and knowledge about computer graphics and thinks that this is the only way to keep pace with this field. When he is not busy with graphics, he likes to travel, watch movies, and play the guitar.
I would like to thank my family because they gave me the tools and the spirit to pursue my dreams. It is thanks to them that I am able to do what I do today.
I would also like to thank my girlfriend as she constantly supports, pushes, and inspires me every day of my life.
About the Reviewers
Patrick Boelens is a 3D content creator, programmer, and game designer with a passion for anything in which these fields meet. While studying Communication and Multimedia Design, he started producing video tutorials for the CG Cookie Network, showing people how to make custom scripts and add-ons for the open source software Blender. He was also a part of the team behind the studio's first iOS game, Eat Sheep. He has since worked on a wide variety of projects, including client- and server-side web development, games, and applications.
Fernando Castilhos Melo lives in Caxias do Sul, Brazil, and works in a software house as a software developer and systems analyst. Since 2009, he has been working on 3D modeling in his spare time using the software Blender. He has conducted some lectures on Blender and 3D modeling in several Brazilian free software events such as FLISOL and TcheLinux. Fernando is majoring in Computer Science at the UCS (University of Caxias do Sul). He is developing an integration between Blender and Kinect to generate a 3D animation as his coursework in the university. For more information, access his webpage: http://www.fernando.melo.nom.br/.
I want to thank my fiance Mauren, my parents Eloir and Miriam, my friends, and my teachers from the university, for the support during the review of |this book.
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Preface
One of the most advanced 3D packages on the scene, Blender now has a powerful new tool to allow its users to achieve even more astonishing results: the Cycles rendering engine. Cycles is based on an accurate lighting model and realistic shaders. It is also blazing fast thanks to the fact that it can take advantage of modern GPUrendering capabilities. Cycles is definitely a modern and effective tool that every Blender user wants to know in order to get the best results. Blender Cycles: Lighting and Rendering Cookbook will take you a journey through the new great Blender rendering engine Cycles. We will start with understanding the fundamental concepts of this rendering engine, and use them to learn the creation of any kind of lighting, material, texture and setup. At the end of the book, both beginners and more advanced users will not only be able to create virtually any kind of shader and lighting, but will also be able to find and experiment with new techniques on their own. Thanks to the logical way in which the topics are presented in the book readers will be able to create their work without additional tutorials just using the knowledge they will master by reading this book.