Book Animation in Blender

A series of video tutorials on the Blender Cookie website show how to create a book with realistic page-turning effects.  This is a useful technique for several purposes.

When combined with a video plane, this technique can be used as a transition effect, essentially allowing you to create a “book” of scenes, and “turn the page” between them.  This effect is especially useful when producing films where there is a strong “storyteller” or “classic literature” theme to them, because it draws the audience into the story as if they themselves were reading the book being presented… in a fashion.

This can also be a useful effect with object tracking (a tool that is expected to be added to Blender during the “Tears of Steel” project), which can create special animated books for various uses… a couple of examples that come to mind are the linking books of Myst or the eponymous “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”  Of course, I generally recommend making your own story worlds, and not borrow off of Douglas Adams or the Brothers Miller, but you get the idea.

This can also be used as an opening sequence where a tabletop with a book is shown, most likely associated with the previous examples, but not necessarily tied to them (A dossier for a spy series, or a notebook of blueprints or research notes on a science fiction film or other “industrial action” work).

Check it out, and try combining it with the tricks picked up in the credits series presented so far.