Book Image

Python Scripting in Blender

By : Paolo Acampora
5 (1)
Book Image

Python Scripting in Blender

5 (1)
By: Paolo Acampora

Overview of this book

Blender, a powerful open source 3D software, can be extended and powered up using the Python programming language. This book teaches you how to automate laborious operations using scripts, and expand the set of available commands, graphic interfaces, tools, and event responses, which will enable you to add custom features to meet your needs and bring your creative ideas to life. The book begins by covering essential Python concepts and showing you how to create a basic add-on. You’ll then gain a solid understanding of the entities that affect the look of Blender’s objects such as modifiers, constraints, and materials. As you advance, you’ll get to grips with the animation system in Blender and learn how to set up its behavior using Python. The examples, tools, patterns, and best practices present throughout the book will familiarize you with the Python API and build your knowledge base, along with enabling you to produce valuable code that empowers the users and is ready for publishing or production. By the end of this book, you’ll be able to successfully design add-ons that integrate seamlessly with the software and its ecosystem.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
1
Part 1: Introduction to Python
7
Part 2: Interactive Tools and Animation
13
Part 3: Delivering Output

Python Entities and API

Blender expands Python by making the modules of its Application Programming Interface (API) available inside the app.

These modules provide wrappers that translate Blender’s internal data into Python objects. Comprehensive documentation and an API reference are available online and can be reached from inside the application. Plus, there are some extra features to help programmers in their journey.

Much like the syntax highlight that we have met in Chapter 1, some features for developers are common-place in the programming world. Others, such as property tooltips and variables display, are specific to Blender.

In this chapter, we are going to look at some snippets, that is, chunks of code, that will help you become confident with the architecture of Blender’s API.

Generally, the API is designed to be very friendly to programmers that are already experienced with Python, only deviating a few times from the standards.

By the end of...