About the Reviewers
Luo Congyi has spent over 4 years on the localization of Blender in China on behalf of Blender as a Blender Foundation Certified Trainer (BFCT), doing such things as translating the training DVD from http://www.blender.org and Open Movie Project tutorial series as well as the i18n translation of Blender itself.
Meanwhile, Luo is now maintaining http://www.blenderget.com to provide the translated Blender news and tutorials to the whole world as well as the current Open Movie on Gooseberry's blog.
Besides his online work, Luo has written the first and also the best-selling Blender book, Blender: The Definitive Guide, Mechanical Industry Press, in Chinese, and it is ranked 4.5 on Amazon. Also, he had made some open presentations in several conferences, such as Open Source Technology Conference and HTML5 annual meeting to talk about the Blender.
I would like to appreciate Env's great offer to me; it is my honor to join the review work of this book. Also, I would like to thank my parents and my wife, Li Jie, who supported me during these days.
Waqas Abdul Majeed is a CG Generalist originally from Lahore, Pakistan, but is based in Dubai, UAE. He enrolled in bachelors of animation in 2008 and completed his graduation in 2010. Being an open source technology fan, he started to define his workflow from the commercial tools he widely used to work on his personal or commercial projects on open source and discovered Blender 3D. Ever since, he mostly uses open source technology at work, for freelance and personal projects. He is directing Luke's Escape - An Animated Short and has also modeled some environments and props in the film; Luke's Escape was presented at the Blender Conference in Amsterdam in 2013.
He also has a lot of interest in video games; in 2013, he started to explore Unity3D, a well-known game engine, and recently he has been focusing more on the technical side. He works with artists and the programmers, mostly solving problems and finding solutions, but at the same time, he does very much like modeling, texturing, lighting, and rendering. His website is http://waqasmajeed.com and his Twitter handle is @iowaqas.
I am very much thankful to Packt Publishing for giving me the opportunity to review this book; I must say that I've myself learned a lot from this book and I hope the other readers do as well. I also would like to thank my parents, friends, and mentors for always being supportive and believing in what I do.
Reynante M. Martinez is a self-taught computer graphics artist with a variety of backgrounds and skills, including web design, illustration, photography, graphic design, architecture, and other related fields. He has been using Blender (alongside other open source applications) for over 10 years now.
He is currently working as a staff and production artist at Blender Guru. Over the past few years, he has worked as a team leader in several local animation studios, participated in collaborative short films, and also tendered his services as a 3D instructor to several colleges and universities in the Philippines.
I'd like to thank Shipra Chawhan for the patience and tenacity in keeping me updated on things and for this opportunity. I'd also like to extend my gratitude to my fiancée and my family for the utmost support and love.
Jordan Matelsky is a student of neuroscience and computer science at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and a co-principal of Medella Medical (http://medellamedical.com), where he seeks to bring beautiful, conscientious designs to the world of medicine and healthcare.
Jordan has been an avid user of Blender since both he and the software were younger and simpler. Now, as an active software developer, he enjoys finding ways to bring music, knowledge, and 3D design to the Internet.
Jordan can be reached at http://jordan.matelsky.com or on Twitter (@j6m8).
I thank my parents, Robin and Paul, for all they have done to nurture my bizarre hobbies and interests. Also, I thank my sister, Loren, who is by far the best sister I have ever had.
Ian Smithers is an experienced software developer specializing in game and web development. In 2002, he started to work at Electronic Arts, which kick-started his career in game development. Over the last 10 years, Ian has acquired a unique set of skills due to his perse background and experience. Currently, he works as a .NET developer in Melbourne, Australia, but continues to offer a variety of services as a freelance game and app developer. He has most recently completed a VR app using Samsung's Gear VR technology based on Oculus and using Unity. In his spare time, Ian enjoys mathematics and philosophy, and he whittles the hours away on interesting prototypes and catching up on the latest and greatest in video games.
I would like to say thank you to Packt Publishing, especially Judie and Shipra, for their patience and understanding. I would also like to say a huge thank you to my wife, Elain, and of course, our families. I really hope readers enjoy this book; it was a lot of fun to work through.