Master 3D Environments in Blender

Chapter 3 – Basic Workflows

If you aren't too sure about your Blender skill set, you can jump into Chapter 3, where I will explain different methods for landscape creation that we will be using throughout the course.

We will also go through various basic modeling, particle and node-based workflows. Whenever the need arises, you can come back and freshen up your skill set in this chapter.

14 tutorials | ~55 minutes running time

Chapter 4 – ANT Landscape: Lone Mountain

In this first workflow chapter, we will learn how to use the ANT landscape add-on, which comes built into Blender.

We will make use of its displacement, erosion and weight map generating capabilities. Also, we go over some basic shader node creation and texture mapping, and put everything together into a final lake scene, complete with rendering and compositing breakdown.

16 tutorials | ~1:34 hrs running time

Chapter 5 – Node Workflow #1: Desert

The first node-based displacement workflow will guide you through the creation of a desert environment.

We will combine various Shader Editor node textures, and mix them all together to form a desert vista, complete with dust, cloudy sky, cloud shadows and more.

18 tutorials | ~1:34 hrs running time

Chapter 6 – Node Workflow #2: Mountains

The second node-based workflow will expand on the Desert chapter, showing you even more ways to combine your node in the Shader Editor, to produce unique displacement effects.

We will then add clouds, mist and particle snow into the scene.

14 tutorials | ~55 minutes running time

Chapter 7 – Combined Workflow: Arctic

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!

11 tutorials | ~56 minutes running time

Chapter 8 – Displacement Workflow: Highlands

If you have your own displacement maps ready, there is nothing easier than using it with the Displace modifier directly on your mesh, no node work needed.

In this chapter, we will use several such displacement textures, to make a misty highlands environment, full of trees and rocky shapes.

8 tutorials | ~45 minutes running time

Chapter 9 – GIS Add-on: Scottish Lake

This chapter will teach you all about the GIS add-on in Blender, allowing you to get satellite images and elevation directly into your 3D scene.

We will then proceed to dress up the landscape, add particle trees and bushes and finish it up by adding atmospheric effects and some free scanned elements.

12 tutorials | ~55 minutes running time

Chapter 10 – Treescape

Mysterious tundras filled with endless forests, glittering under the thick cover of snow and the light of Aurora Borealis. Such environments always captivated the imagination.

In this lesson, we will learn how to make such an environment, by filling a landscape mesh with both 3d and 2d tree particles. In the process, you will learn how to properly utilize 2d tree cards and make them look more three-dimensional. On top of that, you will learn how to make a starry night sky and Aurora Borealis from scratch.

11 tutorials | ~1:08 hrs running time

Chapter 12 – Cloud Types

What would be an environment course without a chapter about clouds?

This chapter will teach you how to quickly and easily add various types of node-generated clouds into your shots, as well as how to utilize the power of VDB volumes.

9 tutorials | ~32 minutes running time

Chapter 13 – Atmospheric Effects

To make your environments believable, you don't need just good textures, great displacement maps and lots of details. You also need a layer of atmosphere, covering your scene, the further away from the camera you get.

In this chapter, we will learn various ways to achieve this, both by using volumes and 2D elements.

3 tutorials | ~9 minutes running time

Chapter 14 – Custom Trees and Vegetation

Having a library of vegetation and tree assets is extremely important for creating your large-scale scenes quickly.

In this chapter, we'll have a look at how to build such a library using free tools and add-ons.

You'll also learn how to convert computational-heavy 3D trees to much lighter 2D planes with 3D properties.

5 tutorials | ~31 minutes running time

Chapter 15 – Weather Effects

Snow and pouring rain, lightning and hailstorm, all these are going to be the topic of this chapter.

We will learn how to utilize particle effects and dynamics to achieve such effects.

7 tutorials | ~42 minutes running time

Chapter 17 – Geometry Nodes: Grassland

Blender 3.0 created a lot of buzz especially because of its brand-new Geometry Nodes. Everybody was talking about its possibilities, everybody commented the development, and then stared sharing jaw-dropping results achieved with those little nodes.

So let's dive deep and include some of the geometry node techniques into our landscape workflows! Apart from GeoNode scattering, landscape displacing and more, you will also learn how to get any models directly from Google Maps into your scenes.

11 tutorials | ~1:06 hrs running time