One of the most requested tutorial topics for the Master 3D Environments in Blender course was how to add lightning to your shots. In this free tutorial on our YouTube channel, we go deep into how to do just that!

You will learn how to use Grease Pencil to add animated lightning, light up your scene with it, and then composite it into your rendered footage.

Simultaneously, we added similar lessons to the course's Chapter 15 that focuses on weather effects:

Here are the 2 new lessons of chapter 15:

• Lightning
• Lightning Compositing

We added a new section about creating a stormy ocean to the Master 3D Environments in Blender course.

The first part of this section uses the Ocean modifier to simulate the stormy waves. Then we employ Dynamic Paint to capture proximity data and allow spray particles to be emitted only from the highest portions of the waves.

The last lesson breaks down the rendering and compositing process.

These new lessons added almost 30 minutes of new content to chapter 11!

Here are the 3 new lessons of chapter 11:

• Stormy Ocean Waves
• Stormy Ocean Spray
• Stormy Ocean Compositing

We added the second full chapter of the "Epic Creature" sculpting exercise, with 11 new videos and a running time of ~1.5 hours, to our Master 3D Sculpting in Blender course.

In this new chapter, you will learn how to add the fine details to the creature. Here we will use the default sculpting tools, masking techniques but also brush textures to add high resolution details like scales and skin.

Additionally, you will learn how to create your own custom brush textures from 3D data and 2D photos.

Check out the chapter introduction video to learn more.

Here are the NEW lessons of chapter 9:

• 9.1 - Chapter Introduction
• 9.2 - Preparation
• 9.3 - Basic Head Details
• 9.4 - Basic Body Details
• 9.5 - Scales with Masks
• 9.6 - Scales with Alphas
• 9.7 - Skin Details - Part 1
• 9.8 - Skin Details - Part 2
• 9.9 - Tongue
• 9.10 - Custom Alphas from 3D Objects
• 9.11 - Custom Alphas from 2D Photos

We also UPDATED the Download Section of the course, where the new chapter is now included:

• Download the new chapter

Next we will work on the "Epic Creature Shading" chapter, where you will learn how to color the creature. We don't have a release date yet, but it will be at some point in 2022. Stay tuned!

Time to finish up the new Geometry Nodes chapter of the Master 3D Environments in Blender course! In the last few videos, you will learn some extra Geometry Node techniques, including creating a dynamic fence, using proximity data to scale nearby objects and more. Rendering and compositing lesson is of course a must!

With that, Chapter 17 is now complete, featuring 1 hour of new content!

Here are the 3 new lessons of chapter 17:

• 17.9 - Proximity Scattering
• 17.10 - Rendering and Compositing
• 17.11 - Bonus: Dynamic Fence

We added 8 new lessons to chapter 9 "Character Animation" (1:20 h of new content) to the Cubic Worlds course for Blender. This chapter is now complete.

In these new lessons, we will create a full character animation from a video reference, and then combine it with the walk cycle created before, to form a final animation. Then we will bake the animation and add a stop-motion effect.

With this chapter being done, Part 2 of the course is now complete. Watch the video below to learn what Part 2 is all about.

Here are the newlessons of chapter 9:

• 9.10 - Non-Looping Animation - Part 1
• 9.11 - Non-Looping Animation - Part 2
• 9.12 - Non-Looping Animation - Part 3
• 9.13 - Non-Looping Animation - Part 4
• 9.14 - Modular Animation
• 9.15 - Baking Animations
• 9.16 - Stop-Motion Effect
• 9.17 - Animating Characters in big Scenes

We also updateDthe Download Section of the course, where the new chapter is now included:

• Download the new chapter

Next we will work on the last Part 3 "Scene Breakdowns", where we will have a closer look at some other Cubic Worlds scenes. We don't have a release time frame just yet, but it is planned for 2022. Stay tuned!

We added the first 9 new lessons to chapter 9 "Character Animation" (~1 hour of new content) to the Cubic Worlds course for Blender.

In this new chapter, you will learn all important basics on how to animate low poly human characters in Blender. We will create looping animations, use video references, combine modular animations, bake animations and much more.

Here are the NEWlessons of chapter 9:

• 9.1 - Chapter Introduction
• 9.2 - Animating Characters is Hard
• 9.3 - Fixing Asset Browser Issues
• 9.4 - Character Animation Basics - Part 1
• 9.5 - Character Animation Basics - Part 2
• 9.6 - Video Reference
• 9.7 - Walk Cycle
• 9.8 - Repeating Loop
• 9.9 - Walk on Path

All in all, this chapter will have 17 videos with 2+ h of content. The missing lessons will be published early next week. Stay tuned!

Apart from exploring some new Geometry Node workflows, the 4 new lesson of Master 3D Environments in Blender will also show you how to export literally anything from Google Maps and import it in high quality into Blender.

We will also go through finishing up the scene's camera, lighting and atmosphere, adding mid-ground and background to the grasslands.

Here are the 4 newlessons of chapter 17:

• 17.5 - Adding Background
• 17.6 - Vertex Group Scattering with Geometry Nodes
• 17.7 - Adding the City from Google Maps
• 17.8 - Finalizing the Lighting and Shadows

The remaining lessons will deal with rendering and compositing, and also some extra geometry node and particle work. To be available soon!

The time has finally come to explore Geometry Nodes in Blender!

In chapter 17 of the Master 3D Environments Course titled "Grassland" you will be able to dip your toes into this topic in order to use GeoNodes in your 3D environment workflows.

Here are the first 4 new lessons of chapter 17:

• 17.1 - Geometry Nodes and Reference
• 17.2 - Displacing Terrain with Geometry Nodes
• 17.3 - Scattering Assets with Geometry Nodes
• 17.4 - Finishing the Geometry Nodes Network 

The rest of the chapter is coming soon. There you will learn how to quickly get 3D city models into your scenes, learn a few more Geometry Node tricks, finish up the scene you see above, and as usual, render and composite everything together.

We updated our Blender Hotkey Sheet PDF to reflect the changes in the new stable version of Blender 3.0. 🧾

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 the first full chapter of the "Epic Creature" sculpting exercise, with 16 new videos and a running time of 2+ hours.

In this new chapter you will learn how to model the base sculpting of the creature from scratch, without fine details. Here we follow a creative sculpting workflow where we try to keep it as little technical as possible.

Here are the new lessons of chapter 8:

• 8.1 - Chapter Introduction
• 8.2 - What shapes the body?
• 8.3 - Head
• 8.4 - Torso
• 8.5 - Arms
• 8.6 - Fingers
• 8.7 - Legs
• 8.8 - Tail
• 8.9 - Big Scales
• 8.10 - Jaw Bone
• 8.11 - Clean Up - Head
• 8.12 - Clean Up - Body
• 8.13 - Clean Up - Arms
• 8.14 - Clean Up - Legs
• 8.15 - Clean Up - Body Adjustments
• 8.16 - Clean Up - Merging all Parts

We also updated the Download Section of the course, where the new chapter is now included (English captions are still missing and will be added in the next few days):

• Download the new chapter

Next we will work on the "Epic Creature" detailing chapter, where we will learn how to sculpt all the fine scales and skin details. We aim for a release in February / March 2022. Stay tuned!