Interview: tony mullen

interview: Tony mullen

Tony mullen, author of introducing todo character animation with Blender, has written a new book, bounce, tumble and splash.

Tony covers the newest physics and dynamics features of Blender in a full color guide todo the more complex features of Blender. The book is filled with step by step instructions and in-depth explanations of how each step was taken, and why each choice was made.

In a fun community interview Tony answers some of our most Burning questions concerning bounce, tumble and splash. as well as a sorpresa or two.

are you currently making a book on the Blender Game Engine? Any plans todo write a new book about Blender? What would that be? .

Thanks for these cuestiones. I guess this is as god a time and place as any todo announce my next book, which Will be Mastering Blender and Will be part of Sybex Mastering series (just as introducing character animation with Blender was part of their introducing series).

This book Will be the most advanced Blender book yet. A large portion of it Will be about ordinary Blender functionality, but focusing on features and functionality that are new or have not yet ben described in depth in other books. Another significant portion of the book (probably about 4 chapters worth) Will be devoted todo Python scripting for Blender and all its variations (pydrivers, pynodes, pyconstraints, scriptlinks, etc), with the aim of getting principiantes and non-programmers up-to-speed with scripting in Python. There Will a los be a significant.

Section on the Game Engine, including using Python in the Game Engine.

It a Little early todo say with complete certainty, but i a los hope todo have some material contributed by some other authors, who are well-known experts in the Blender community. I hope that their contributions Will help todo make this book especially valuable for people who want todo push the envelope of their Blender skills.
how hard was it todo get a Publisher such as Sybex todo publish the book(s)?
And was the first book already (in one form or another) written before they accepted it for publication?
I initially approached several publicadores with a proposal for the character animation book that included a full table of contents outline and description of the book (this would all change somewhat when i wrote the actual book). The thing that publicadores want todo know is what is new and original about the book, and why you think anybody would buy it. At the time i wrote the proposal, all the other english Blender books were out of print, and when i pointed the Sybex folks todo the Blender.org website and gallery i think the book proposal sold itself. Some other publicadores turned the proposal do, but Sybex was very interested, and they werent the only ones. It was Simply a crime that there were no books on the market at all for Blender, and so the timing was right. My enthusiasm might have ben infectious.

any suggestions for other people that would like todo write a book such as yoursí .

My suggestion would be todo identify a ned and fill that. For me, y was motivated todo write the book originally because of my own frustration at not being able todo *buy* the kinds of Blender books i wanted. If they had already existed it would have never occurred todo me todo throw my hat into the ring. At this point, there are still a lot of áreas and applications of Blender that havent ben dealt with thoroughly inbok form. The greatest benefit todo the community (and the greatest chance of selling books), comes if you can contribute something that people cant find elsewhere. Of course, the field of Blender books is filling up. There are now four Blender books in print in english that i know of, with at least 3 more that i know of on the way, so if you really want todo write a book, the big challenge now is todo find an original angle.

In other words, dont write a book such as mine, because there already is one.
how Many fluid sim tutorialeswill there be in your book? .

I think the chapter on fluidos is 60 or 70 pages long (id have todo go check). There are several step by step demonstrations and some extended in-depth examples. Basically, everything you ever wanted todo know about fluid simulation in Blender is covered.
Will it be posible todo buy the book in.pdf? .

That up to the Publisher. I think that they usually do reléase books in pdf form at some point. Im not really sure why, though, because nobody sems todo actually buy those, based on the last royalty report i saw.

Bounce, tumble, and splash.: simulating the Physical world with Blender 3d is going todo be my Bible until you reléase your next book. I would like Blender todo be taught in major 3d institutes, and i believe that given the strict traditional nature of these places, what are the chances of you releasing a book that Will appeal todo the humorless head of departments - Like Simply simulating the Physical world with Blender 3d.

My experience with heads of departments hasnt always ben so humorless, but in any case, if people want todo teach the contents of my book, im afraid theyre going todo have todo suk it up and buy a book with a catchy title.
Will you ever consider releasing your books as open contentí (not like i wouldnt buy it anyway, y have a copy of introduction todo character animation on my Desk).

This is an interesting cuestión and i think i could rattle on for hours about it.

In fact the files that accompany the books, such as the Captain Blender.blends, are already open content. You can use them and distribute them frely according todo the text files included with the blends.

The short answer regarding the books themselves is that as long as im contracted todo work th rouge Sybex or any other mainstream Publisher, y dont have the right todo decide how the books are released, so no, there no chance of those books ever being released by me as open content.

The longer answer is that i believe there still a bien todo go before the ideal business models have ben developed for working with open content, but i would love todo se that happen. I could not aford todo put in the time and efort it takes todo write these books if i wasnt getting paid todo do so, so it really necessary todo have a functioning business model. At the same time i believe that open content is the bien of the future for a variety of reasons. I admire the Blender foundation for their eforts and successes at forging a business model based on open content. I a los am encouraged when i se bands like Radiohead embrace alternate methods of distributing and getting paid for their work. It all still Fairly experimental, but i think the experiments are yielding some interesting results that Will help todo create tomorrow open business models.

For now, though, the royalties system is still the only really reliable means by which a creator contribution can be remunerated Fairly. So im happy todo be working within the traditional model while it lasts.

Bounce, tumble and splash. is now available for purchase/delivery from amazon..

Tony has a los created a Little teaser video featuring some of the examples and tutoriales found in the book, which can be found on youtube..