3D for iPhone Apps with Blender and SIO2: Your Guide to Creating 3D Games and More with Open–Source Software Paperback – 16 Feb. 2010

I bought this book a while ago when sio2 was still in its 1.x release and I think the book is great.The book is very easy to read and it has a simple step by step workflow so you don't get confused or miss any steps.It's surprising the quality of 3d app that you can create in relatively little time by following this book!If you are thinking of buying this book I would like to let you know that sio2 is now in its 2.x release and is NOT free (open source) anymore. You can't use the sio2 framework without either getting a 30 day trial or buying a license, as you need a license key which you need to enter in the framework for it to compile.However, the 1.x release is still available (from time of writing) from the sio2 website, so I would download it now while you can, as the 1.x framework is open source. I don't know how long the 1.x framework will remain on the site though.

Very nice read, the book is based on basically the latest stable SIO2 release and Blender release (2.49a instead of 2.49b, but I doubt you will find big differences) so it contains very useful tips and tricks about what you can do with tools out now and not years ago.This book will help you avoid some very common beginner mistakes which would take you a while to discover later on (like forgetting to use the Normals option in the SIO2 exporter and have very funky lighting as result ;)).SIO2 + Bullet Physics basis + Blender == great read :).

I am a iphone app developer. I wanted to learn the 3D programming for apps. I already did some homework on OpenGL es. If you are not familiar with Blender you will be lost. Seem this book is written for Blender users who want to get into Iphone apps not for Iphone programmers who want to get into 3D programming. Until you get comfortable with Blender, don't get into this one.I gave 3 stars as it seems the writer is trying to explain things step by step. But there are some missing steps and believe me Blender is not intuitive at all, so you cannot make out those steps yourself. I took introductory tutorial on Blender also but it didn't help. Seems one need to know blender to use this book.Eg on page 38 Step 15 "then open up a UV/Image editor window" HOW ??? I tried couple of things and gave up. I cannot make any progress from here on.

Die Welt hat sich weitergedreht und SIO2 ist längst auf einem neuen Versionsstand angekommen und leider auch nicht mehr Open Source - dafür kann natürlich der Autor nichts. Somit sind die Code-Beispiele nicht mehr unmittelbar lauffähig da sich einige API-Änderungen ergeben haben.Aber trotzdem kann das Buch helfen einen schnellen Einblick gewähren in die Möglichkeiten und auch die täglichen Arbeit mit SIO2. Es ist eins von jenen Werken, die den Leser extrem an die Hand nimmt soll heißen mit Screenshots regelrecht bombardiert. Reine Geschmackssache, macht es aber in dieser Ausführlichkeit zu einem Buch, dass sich auch in der U-Bahn lesen lässt ohne das Notebook greifbar zu haben. Sehr ausführlich wird auf die Tool-Chain Blender - SIO2 eingegangen und auch die Beispiele sind stets von Blender (ebenfalls mit Screenshots) bis zum XCode-Projekt gehalten.Mir hat es geholfen bei der Evaluierung verschiedener Game-Engines, der Grund, mich am Ende gegen SIO2 zu entscheiden war nicht das Buch. Ein Stern Abzug für zu viele Screenshots, ein weiterer für die Tatsache, dass es leicht veraltet ist.

At last a book that may have the stuff we beginners need. I got this book only last week and I am only on chapter2. So here is my first review to kick things off.About me first:I have been coding for years but never on a Mac. I am a Microsoft coder and use Visual Basic, JavaScript, HTML for the [...] Framework. The coding software is Visual Studio. So hay I want to write a cool game and make some money on my code and people buying the game. So I got a Mac, IPod and install Xcode, Blender and SIO2.Now starts the adventure. With now 10 books on the subject of Objective-C, Game coding and Blender and 10 Months later, I was fading hope in finding a book that would take a beginner to the light of this cool world of iPhones/IPod/iPad coding. I am not stupid but I just was not getting it from these books. It may be the Microsoft code in my blood. Xcode is way harder to work in then Visual Studio, something Apple has a long way to go to be even close to Visual Studio, but any way Xcode it is.Yes - after looking around it came to two engines that I would code this game in, Cocos2d or SIO2. I started to work with Cocos2d and see its power but still needed help. I moved away from this and started to download and learn SIO2. The website is great and the on line videos are a must see but I still needed that first steps of help, this is were this book comes in.I ordered this month ago before it was release in the hope this was the missing part to my learning, and YES it looks to be. I am only on Chapater 2 but OMG this book as great. The author is walking me step by step to using the SIO2 code and at this point in time I would have to say this is the best ever games tutor book out there. I will get back to this review again when I have complete the whole book. But for now - 5 start from me, well done.

Das Buch lifert einen sehr schönen Einstieg in die Welt der 3D-App Programmierung mit der kostenlosen SIO2-Engine und versucht, alle Aspekte(z.B. auch das 3D-Modelling) abzudecken. Dadurch bekommt man praktsich ein Rundumpaket, das komplett auf kostenlose Tools setzt und mit dem man schnell erste Erfolge hat. Allerdings bleibt man immer sehr eng an die Beispiele des Buches gebunden; wie man die einzelnen Kapitel nun zu einem großen Projekt zusmmenfügt oder in einem großen Projekt nutzt, wird leider nicht erläutert.Insgesamt bleibt das Buch etwas oberflächlich und versucht, den Leser so schnell wie möglich in so viele Themen wie möglich einzuführen. Das ist auf der geringen Seitemzahl leider nicht ganz zufriedenstellend möglich, dennoch bietet das Buch einen guten Einstieg.

If you have ever tried to write a game with just plain openGL ES then you know that's not the way to develop a full-fledged iPhone 3D game. The path laid out in this book is the way to go.The book starts with a simple introduction to OpenGL ES to illustrate my point above. Chapter 2 is an introduction to SIO2 programming. Chapter 3 and 4 explore the Blender world and integrate the scene created in Blender into iPhone SDK via SIO2. By chapter 4, we have the "World" spinning on the iPhone device, in 3D (a wicked twist on the classic "Hello World" program, loved it). You also get a nice pat on the back from the author for making it so far! The chapter on 'Picking and Text' is excellent. The rest of the chapters does a nice job of finishing up the introduction to all areas of a 3D game.There are some errors too in the book - especially in chapter 3 - where we select the edge loop - the way described in chapter did not work for me, but referring to the Appendix on Blender helped. It is also very easy to get lost in all the intricacies of Blender and C/C++, but with a little bit of exploring it's easy to get back on track - persistence pays off. I wish the author had added an Appendix on advanced C/C++ for the features used in the book.