Any good book for "procedural 3D"?

gfxnut

Hi,

I find the concept of "a PROGRAM generating 3D" to be incredibly awesome, and I would like to learn something about it. Is Python in Blender a good choice to do this? And are there any good books on this subject?? I ask of course, cause it's free

Thanks for your help.

poopipe

Python and blender is a good choice - max and maya are both entirely capable too. 
Houdini is built for doing this though so may be your best option. 

There are two parts to pcg. 
One is the maths required to generate the patterns. 
The other is turning the patterns into geometry that actually works.

These are both very wide subjects and depending on what you want to do it can be very complex or very simple. 
I would suggest choosing a task and then learning the things required to complete it. 

Do you have an idea in mind? 

PolyHertz

Yea you can make procedural 3D objects in Blender using Python, but the amount you can do will be largely based on how good at math you are (specifically; Vectors, Matrices, Sine, Cosine, Radians, Cross Product, Dot product, Euler Angles, and right triangle math). If you're still a student in school, and still have direct access to math teachers, definitely use that resource to try and learn as much as you can about the above written math concepts. I use vector math in like half of all the tools/scripts I write.

RN

I don't know of any books, but Inigo Quilez's site is really inspiring:

https://www.iquilezles.org/www/index.htm

He's in the shader demoscene, specializing in procedural shaders (and the science behind them).