Creating add-ons for Blender

by Michel Anders

Overview

This primer on writing Blender add-ons aims to be short an sweet and pretty fast paced. This means that we cover quite a lot of concepts in a short time but I have provided links to additional information where relevant.

You also need to have some experience in writing Python programs but other than that you will find that writing Blender add-ons is surprisingly simple. Almost anything is possible due to the large amount of built-in functionality available from within Python and this huge collection of classes and functions might be a little bewildering to navigate but the basics of a Blender add-on are easy to grasp in just a few hours.

In this primer you will start with an almost trivial add-on and work your way to a full fledged add-on that manipulates meshes and is fully integrated with Blender own graphical user interface, complete with user configurable properties and custom icons.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940153162171
Publisher:	Michel Anders
Publication date:	08/02/2016
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Although a Blender user for over ten years, I have to admit that I am an enthusiastic but (very) mediocre artist at best. I discovered however that I really enjoyed helping people out with programming related questions and a couple of years ago when Packt Publishing was looking for authors on the BlenderArtists/Python forum I stepped in. So far this has resulted in three books: Blender 2.49 Scripting, ISBN 9781849510400 Published by Packt Publishing in April 2010. Python 3 Web Development, ISBN 9781849513746 Published by Packt Publishing in May 2011. and recently I self published my third book: Open Shading Language for Blender, distributed by Smashwords. I maintain a blog on Blender related things, 'Small Blender Things' (blog.michelanders.nl) and I keep an eye on the coding forums at http://www.blenderartists.org/forum/ where you can also contact me via private message if you like, my nickname there is 'varkenvarken'. Recently I started offering some Blender add-ons on BlenderMarket, the first one called WeightLifter, a vertex group tool. I live in a small converted farm in the southeast of the Netherlands where we raise goats for a hobby. We also keep a few chickens and the general management of the farm is left to our cats. This arrangement leaves me with with enough time to write the occasional book.