New "Presentation" (shading and rendering) chapter has been added!

We added 24 new lessons (4+ hours of new content) to the Master 3D Sculpting in Blender course.

Check the video below to see what the new chapter is all about:

This is the last chapter of the "Part 2 - Cute Creature" sculpting process and marks a big milestone of the course update. Now, besides all the sculpting fundamentals (which are explained in part 1 of the course), the full sculpting workflow is explained in detail, using the cute creature as a practical example.

In the new chapter, you will learn how to create a clay shader from scratch, which you can use to make all your sculptings look nice, in a few seconds (see image below). You will learn how to use the new Sculpt Vertex Colors and combine them with procedural shading workflows to color the creature.

Then you will learn an advanced workflow to pose the creature, using the Pose Brush and the Mesh Deform modifier.

At the end we will create a flexible camera and lighting set up and render out some still renders and a turntable animation, and enhance the image with some post-processing effects in Blender's Compositor.

Here are the newlessons of chapter 7:

• 7.1 - Chapter Introduction
• 7.2 - Clay Shader - Preparation
• 7.3 - Clay Shader - Bump Map
• 7.4 - Clay Shader - Roughness and Color
• 7.5 - Clay Shader - Node Group
• 7.6 - Sculpt Vertex Color Basics
• 7.7 - Coloring - Preparation
• 7.8 - Coloring - Vertex Colors
• 7.9 - Coloring - Body
• 7.10 - Coloring - Body Details
• 7.11 - Coloring - Eyes
• 7.12 - Coloring - Backpack
• 7.13 - Pose Brush Basics
• 7.14 - Posing - Cage Mesh
• 7.15 - Posing - Binding and Face Sets
• 7.16 - Posing - Create a Pose - Part 1
• 7.17 - Posing - Create a Pose - Part 2
• 7.18 - Camera and Light Setup
• 7.19 - Artistic Lighting and Render Settings
• 7.20 - Post-processing
• 7.21 - Batch Still Renders - Clay Shader
• 7.22 - Batch Still Renders - Color
• 7.23 - Turntable Animation
• 7.24 - Image Sequence to Video File

We also added the new chapter to the download section of the course, which you can access here. The total size of the new chapter is 21.5 GB in high quality, and 17.4 GB in medium quality.

New character creation and rigging chapter has been added!

We added 22 new lessons (3.5 hours of new content) to the Cubic Worlds course for Blender. This is the first chapter of "Part 2 - Characters & Machines" of the course.

In the new chapter, you will learn how to create human characters by using a base character as foundation. We will dive into rigging this character by learning everything important about the armature object, bones, constraints and drivers.

In the second part of the chapter, you will learn how to model a dog, and fully rig it, by using the human character rig as foundation.

Here are the newlessons of chapter 7:

• 7.1 - Chapter Introduction
• 7.2 - Character Modeling Overview
• 7.3 - Yourself in Cubic Worlds
• 7.4 - Armature and Bones Basics
• 7.5 - Character Rig - Deform Bones
• 7.6 - Character Rig - Controller Bones
• 7.7 - Constraints Basics
• 7.8 - Character Rig - Constraints
• 7.9 - Skinning Basics
• 7.10 - Character Rig - Skinning
• 7.11 - Drivers Basics
• 7.12 - Character Rig - Drivers
• 7.13 - Character Rig - Organization
• 7.14 - Change a Rigged Character - Part 1
• 7.15 - Change a Rigged Character - Part 2
• 7.16 - Attach Objects to Hands
• 7.17 - Dog Preparation
• 7.18 - Dog Modeling - Part 1
• 7.19 - Dog Modeling - Part 2
• 7.20 - Dog Rig - Reusing the Human Rig
• 7.21 - Dog Rig - Constraints and Skinning
• 7.22 - Dog Rig - Drivers

We also added the new chapter to the download section of the course, which you can access here. The total size of the new chapter is 4.82 GB in high quality, and 2.25 GB in medium quality.

Last lessons added! Vegetation & Add-ons Chapters

It is done! The Master 3D Environments Course, the way it has been envisioned by Martin a year ago, is now finally finished. All the lessons are available, and you can watch them at your leisure. 

The newest among them are focused on building your own tree and vegetation library, using free add-ons and assets. And while the assets you'll get are high-quality, they are also expensive to render in their 3D form. That's why you'll also learn how to put such 3D assets (deciduous trees in our case) onto 2D planes and make them look somewhat 3D, using just texture nodes and shading tricks.

And though this course has always been structured so that you are not required to buy any expensive products, we are by no means against using add-ons. That's why Martin added Chapter 16, where he focuses on various paid tools he uses most often, to speed up his 3D environment workflows.

To make the add-ons a bit more accessible, we've added special CG Boost discounts to a lot of them.

A total of 81 minutes of lessons has been added, finalizing the course's length at 12 hours!

Here are the newlessons of Chapter 14:

• 14.1 - G-Scatter & Vegetation Assets  
• 14.2 - MTree Add-on
• 14.3 - Making 2D Tree Particles  
• 14.4 - Shading 2D Tree Particles
• 14.5 - Shading 2D Tree Particles Advanced

Here are the new lessons of Chapter 16:

• 16.2 - Grove
• 16.3 - Graswald
• 16.4 - Scatter
• 16.5 - Botaniq
• 16.6 - Tree Vegetation Add-on
• 16.7 - Blender Terrain Mixer
• 16.8 - True Terrain

New backpack sculpting videos and download section have been added!

We added 7 new lessons (over 1 hour of new content) to chapter 6 "Cute Creature Details", of the Master 3D Sculpting in Blender course update. This chapter is now complete.

In the new lessons, we will create a backpack for the creature, using the new cloth tools in sculpt mode.

In the upcoming chapter, we will dive into posing, coloring, lighting and rendering the creature, to have a final render, which we can share with the world.

Here are the NEWlessons of chapter 6:

• 6.13 - Backpack: Main Element - Part 1
• 6.14 - Backpack: Main Element - Part 2
• 6.15 - Backpack: Lid
• 6.16 - Backpack: Lid Details
• 6.17 - Backpack: Straps
• 6.18 - Backpack: Details - Part 1
• 6.19 - Backpack: Details - Part 2

We also updated the download section for this course, for a better download experience and smaller file sizes.

• One Section: Instead of heaving the download section for each chapter separate, we now added all into one download section.
• Smaller File Size: We reduced the course download size to 19.2 GB, with the 2k video quality.
• Low Resolution Videos (optional): If 19.2 GB is still too much, we also added the videos in a slightly lower resolution (1080p), which reduces the full course download size to 11 GB.

You can find the new download section here

New fur sculpting videos have been added!

We added 5 new lessons (over 1 hour of new content) to chapter 6 "Cute Creature Details", of the Master 3D Sculpting in Blender course update.

In the new lessons, we finalize the detail sculpting part of the cute creature, by adding the fur and other fine details.

In the upcoming lessons, we will create a backpack for the creature, using the new cloth tools in sculpt mode.

Here are the NEWlessons of chapter 6:

• 6.8 - Fur: Analysis
• 6.9 - Fur: Sculpting
• 6.10 - Fur: Additional Elements
• 6.11 - Fur: Additional Elements Details
• 6.12 - Details: Claws and Body

We updated the download section for the Cubic Worlds course, for a better download experience and smaller file sizes.

• One Section: Instead of heaving the download section for each chapter separate, we now added all into one download section.
• Smaller File Size: The original course download was ~40 GB in size, which we now reduced to ~23 GB, with the same 2k video quality.
• Low Resolution Videos (optional): If 23 GB is still too much, we also added the videos in a slightly lower resolution (1080p), which reduces the full course download size to ~13 GB.

You can find the new download section here

New Basics Section Added!

The Master 3D Environments in Blender course has been out for several months now in its Early Access stage. However, the final release is drawing near and so the last remaining lessons are being steadily added.

Based on the most frequent questions and feedback from the students, a whole new Basics section has been uploaded to chapter 3. There you will learn various tips and tricks that will introduce you to some of the fundamental workflows that keep repeating throughout the course. 

A total of 40 minutes of new material has been added to help especially the Blender-beginners among you to get up to speed!

Here are the newlessons of Chapter 3:

• 3.7 - Know Your Node Wrangler Operations
• 3.8 - Setting up Lighting with HDRi
• 3.9 - Camera Clipping Issues
• 3.10 - Know Your Shader Nodes
• 3.11 - Basic Particle Setup
• 3.12 - Rendering Tips for Heavy Scenes

We updated our Blender Hotkey Sheet PDF to reflect the changes in the new stable version of Blender 2.93. 🧾

You can sign up here for free to get it (email required), or just login to your CG Boost Academy account if you have signed up already, and download it.

We added 6 new lessons to the new chapter 6 "Cute Creature Details", of the Master 3D Sculpting in Blender course update.

In the new lessons we will adjust the base geometry with shape keys, and start sculpting the details on the head of the cute creature.

Here are the newlessons of chapter 6:

• 6.2 - Opening the Eyes
• 6.3 - Opening the Mouth
• 6.4 - Teeth and Tongue
• 6.5 - Details: Teeth and Tongue
• 6.6 - Details: Mouth and Nose
• 6.7 - Details: Horns

New Arctic Chapter Added!

In chapter 4 we explored the A.N.T. landscape add-on and in chapters 5 & 6 we dived into the node-based workflows. Now, in the new chapter of the Master 3D Environments in Blender course, it's time to combine these approaches and add a new tool to your arsenal - sculpting!

Chapter 7 will teach you how to utilize A.N.T. to generate a base mesh, use texture-based sculpting to add details on it and finally, use the node-based shading methods to create a snow-ice material blend. On top of it, I will of course breakdown my final scene, its rendering and compositing. You will also learn how to make a neat translucent water volume!

All in all we added almost 1 hour of new content to the course.

Here are the newlessons of Chapter 9:

• 7.1 - Arctic Reference Images
• 7.2 - Creating the Glacier Base
• 7.3 - Skewing the Glacier
• 7.4 - Sculpting the Glacier
• 7.5 - Snow Material
• 7.6 - Ice Material
• 7.7 - Blending & Transparency
• 7.8 - Adding Translucent Water
• 7.9 - Finishing the Scene
• 7.10 - Rendering the Arctic Scene
• 7.11 - Arctic Scene Compositing