Cycles Rendering Engine - A practical approach

Cycles is a rendering engine, a program that transforms a 3D virtual environment into a 2D image, or render. It does this by making calculations of the lighting and shading of the scene, taking into account factors such as the nature of "physical" objects - their textures, the effects - in order to produce the end result. From version 2.62 of Blender, Cycles comes ready-installed, and since then the list of functionality has grown, with new features in each release. This manual is aimed at those who have a basic knowledge of Blender and want to know the features, functions and capabilities of Cycles rendering engine; a basic knowledge of Blender Render is recommended, yet not required. Even those who already have a good knowledge of Cycles will find this manual useful, since they can expand and deepen the knowledge of the tools and key techniques of lighting and shading. Francesco Milanese is a Blender Foundation Certified Trainer; he publishes (video)tutorials and books on Blender and other Cg software.