In the course of the past five years, many publishers have made books about Blender, also in other languages than English. Typically online bookstores like Amazon will list them for you well.
Recent publications are:
Animating with Blender, by Roland Hess
Bounce Tumble & Splash, by Tony Mullen
Introducing Character Animation, by Tony Mullen
Das Blender Buch, by Carsten Wartmann
This fully revised and updated second edition has been written with Blender 2.48, and covers all improvements for game creation thanks to the Open Game Yo Frankie! project.
The Blender GameKit starts with an extensive section for people who are new to 3D - explaining all basic concepts - or new to Blender; with a full introduction to the interface. Then it shows in step-by-step tutorials the fun of creating models, adding motion to them, and how to turn them into simple games. Experienced 3D artists will appreciate the more complex game demos, the character animation tutorials, the introduction to Python, a tutorial with the Frankie character, and the advanced reference section.
Essential Blender, the latest book from the Blender Foundation, is your official guide to learning the fundamentals of this open and free 3D software suite. The book can be used as a step-by-step guide for people new to Blender or new to the latest changes in Blender.
This book has been written based on Blender 2.43, and is the ideal companion for the previous 2.3 Blender guide.
This complete guide to Blender is based on the Blender 2.32 release (2004). Rewriting all available old material, and based on the OpenContent documentation project at blender.org, editor Stefano Selleri and designer Samo Korosec have created a new highlight in the Blender book history!
The book is almost 800 pages, in 2 color design and has 16 page gallery section and cdrom with sample files and lots of demos.
Currently you can only purchase the pdf version of this book in our e-shop.
There is currently a community project to produce a freely distributable and up-to-date Blender user manual. This manual is constantly updated to keep it current.
The (old but still valid) 2.3 manual is browsable in two parts: The User Guide and the Reference Guide.
There are also archives of older online manuals and other useful documentation files that can be found at Blender.org's Documentation Listing.
If you would like to get involved in the Blender documentation project, please visit the Blender wiki website, or join the Docboard mailing list.
The Blender Gamekit is now available as free downloadable (pdf and cdrom).
It starts with an extensive section for people who are new to 3D or new to Blender, explaining the basic concepts with a full introduction to the interface. Then, with step-by-step tutorials, it shows the fun of creating models, giving them motion, and how to turn them into simple games. Experienced 3D artists will appreciate the more complex game demos, the character animation tutorials, the introduction to Python and the advanced reference section.