Each chapter develops a different aspect of a Blender technique. The book is essentially a step-by-step tutorial, which builds up your knowledge throughout. It has practical examples such as lighting a tricycle in open space, lighting a wine bottle on a table, and lighting a room that has a lamp as well as sunlight coming in through the window. These examples will show you how to implement the different Blender techniques in your work. If you are a Blender user and you want to improve the quality of your renders, this book is for you. You need to have experience in Blender and know your way around the Blender interface. You may be a professional or freelancer or hobbyist willing to increase the quality of your portfolio and interested in adding perfection to your renders.

About the Author

Aaron Powell developed a passion for computer graphics early in his high school career. Developing "stick figure animations" using the primitive drawing tools of Microsoft PowerPoint, he quickly discovered he wanted to learn about other ways of using animation, always looking to broaden his scope. Tired of crashing PowerPoint, he soon stumbled upon the open source animation program Blender, and immediately got involved with the community that surrounded it. Since then, Aaron has worked as a freelance artist and tutor, focusing on lighting and rendering techniques in both Blender and Autodesk Maya.

He now attends the Rochester Institute of Technology, pursuing a degree in 3D Digital Graphics, meanwhile giving back to the Blender community through his efforts at CGShark.com. CGShark is an online blog that provides interesting news not only about Blender, but also about the computer graphics industry at large, including movie and book reviews, artist interviews, and other interesting "tid-bits" of information about computer graphics. The blog also proudly hosts Roland Hess's book, "The Essential Blender" as a free PDF download, which brings readers from beginner to computer graphics novice with Blender.