Blender 3.1 Day and Night Cycle Tutorial

[@MartinKlekner]

Loved it!

[@KaizenTutorials]

Thanks a lot Martin! Means a lot to hear it from an inspiration like yourself 🙏🏻

[@quas5086]

Yesterday, i was thinking about creating a script that changes my wallpaper based on time. And my first step was creating a day and night cycle for a blender scene (didnt go very well). Then today i open youtube and see this video. Timing couldnt be better!!! Thank You.

[@KaizenTutorials]

Haha that’s crazy timing! Glad I could help 🙏🏻

[@gargikadikar8228]

Can you tell us how you created the script?

[@OtherPeople159]

hence prove, youtube or any other app listens or tracks us more than we think lol

[@RyanKingArt]

Looks awesome! 👍‍

[@KaizenTutorials]

Thanks Ryan! 🙏🏻

[@arniferak578]

oh boy OH BOY this is certainly a miracle for me. A few days ago i had an idea of showing timelapse of forests from seeds to a chad trees. I am learning houdini at the same time so decided to do the procedural growth of trees and grasses using houdini but the UI is so scary for lighting that i thought using cute blender for a easy thing would be best. This is where i faced the damn problem.... my target was to achieve photorealism and avoid stylized/cartoony, for that i somehow managed materials using substance and used the nishita sky as lighting setup with few tweaks. When i rendered it out, the first thing that caught my eyes was the sky itself. The timelapse of sky from early morning to dark night was absolute trash..... I tried many times to match it to real world and ended giving up my hopes. Well this tut here must be a blessing from forest gods themselves. Thank you so much man I am so grateful for this. Oh btw, this forest timelapse of mine is actually an online project of my crush :3 she asked me to help her using my (low effort) CG skills. I just coudnt hurt her feelings. Once again thank you very much.

[@KaizenTutorials]

It’s meant to be! The timing really seems to be perfect haha. Thanks for sharing and glad I could help with this video. Good luck with your crush 😉

[@CreativeRehash]

This is such a great tutorial, thank you so much for this! You made it super easy to follow and the result is spectacular, exactly what I was looking for!

[@KaizenTutorials]

Glad you like it, thanks!

[@nigellill3222]

You've outdone yourself this time. This is seriously wicked & the scene you put in for the opening is awesome. Gotta be one of the best tutorials I've seen, learnt heaps from it. Stay safe & keep on smiling 👍🏼🦘

[@KaizenTutorials]

Thanks a lot Nigel! I really appreciate that. Super glad to hear you like it so much. It gives me energy to keep doing this 🙌🏻 all the best to you! 👍🏻

[@mauriciovisconti4286]

Great tutorial! 👏 Thanks a lot!

[@arpegiomial]

Thank you so much for this!

[@KaizenTutorials]

You're very welcome!

[@freedom80ful]

LOVE THIS LESSON...😍😍😍

[@KaizenTutorials]

Thank you!

[@airo_001]

Phenomenal presentation on top of everything!

[@KaizenTutorials]

Thanks a lot!

[@thorntonhough]

OMG awesome mind blown again. Great tutorial.

[@KaizenTutorials]

Haha thanks!

[@RdoGomes]

beautifully done! fast and to the point.

[@KaizenTutorials]

Thank you!

[@Klarified01]

High quality qucik guide. Thank you. Definitely learned a lot!

[@KaizenTutorials]

Thank you! Appreciate the compliments 🙏🏻🙌🏻

[@saswatswarupmandhata7860]

Saved my entire day 😅.

[@KaizenTutorials]

Happy to hear that!

[@linkzerotsang]

Using Add Shader node to add the daytime sky texture on top of the nighttime one could save some effort of manually keying the mix factor. Since the nighttime sky texture is set with the opposite sun elevation, it won't contribute to the daytime lighting. It also feels more realistic to me at twilight time

[@KaizenTutorials]

That’s a great idea as well! I will check this out for sure. Thanks for sharing 👍🏻

[@JZStudiosonline]

I know a better way to handle the transition to night that I figured out a few years ago. I don't remember how or why it works, but it does. And you can use a color ramp to fine tweak the twilight and it doesn't have stars during mid-day Add in a value node and set it up with a driver. Sum Values; Variable; Prop - Sun; Path - matrix_world[2][2]. That will give the height value of the sun light above the horizon line. I then have it running through a multiply at .5 and an add at .8. I don't remember what practical purposes they serve. Then just feed that into a color ramp with black on the right, and feed that into the day/night mix shader. You have to tinker with the sunrise/sunset values, but get it set and you don't have to manually keyframe it.

[@ryndesign5309]

thanks for this, found it to be super efficient and gets rid of a temporary blackout that occurs if you mix between to shaders with the keying mix factor method.

[@indieartsmidwest4042]

This tutorial was fun. Thank you!

[@KaizenTutorials]

Love to hear it, thanks!

[@michaelchurch2957]

To get the stars to follow the position of the moon exactly, you can copy the “Sun Rotation” driver to the Z coordinate of the mapping node, and the “Sun Elevation” driver to the X coordinate of the mapping node. Just make sure the X driver is positive and the Z driver is negative.

[@KaizenTutorials]

Great Addition, thanks!

[@michaelchurch2957]

Thanks! Great video by the way!

[@KaizenTutorials]

Thank you!

[@michaelchurch2957]

@@KaizenTutorials I've encountered a small problem when rendering. The transition between night and day doesn't happen at all. The animated field doesn't update when I render it as an animation. Any idea what is causing this? I am using 3.3.1

[@carmatic]

2:22 if you keyframe the Time input in the Sun Position add-on , it will change the rotation of the Sun light object you assigned to it.... but only in the 3D viewport when you change frames on the timeline Once you start rendering an animation, it will not do anything with the Sun light object

[@KaizenTutorials]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. The Sun light object should rotate based on the addon input. Maybe it doesn't work anymore in newer versions of Blender...

[@carmatic]

@@KaizenTutorials I think I found the issue, the Sun light object must not be inside any Collection , otherwise the add-on will not be able to 'connect' to it

[@appidydafoo]

Very nice, thank you

[@KaizenTutorials]

Welcome 😊

[@digitalrendezvous]

Simple and helpful. Thank you

[@enigmawstudios4130]

This is definitely good to know, but for better realism and ease of use I definitely recommend the Physical Starlight and Atmosphere add-on

[@KaizenTutorials]

I completely agree! I just wanted to show a way to control this in Blender without addons. Also you could definitely expand this with loads of features! Would be way quicker to just get the addon though haha

[@enigmawstudios4130]

@@KaizenTutorials yeah, however, it's definitely good to know how to make this work, particularly in the beginning. Awesome job!

[@KaizenTutorials]

Thanks!

[@silenceimpaired]

Subscribed. Thanks!

[@KaizenTutorials]

😎🙌🏻

[@atkdgn]

Thank you so much!!!!

[@KaizenTutorials]

You're welcome! :-D

[@GnanSai3DArtist]

Thank you

[@KaizenTutorials]

You’re welcome!

[@sureyeah3574]

NOICE!

[@KaizenTutorials]

Thanks a lot!

[@ikouze1]

This is awesome! I don't see a lot of people doing outdoor time-lapses in blender, which is a shame. This is very well done. When I tried this on my own scene, I did notice that when the sun elevation reaches 90 degrees (noon), my scene becomes extremely washed out. I have been trying to resolve it, and have heard it can be due to the exposure (our eyes automatically adjust to different brightness levels). I was just wondering if you encountered a similar issue, and if there was any workaround for it? Great work, Thank you !

[@KaizenTutorials]

Thank you! And yeah at some angles the sun can get intense. What you’re saying is correct and if you look at a camera it does exactly the same. It adjusts for the exposure automatically (if ur using auto settings). What we can do is compensate for this exposure. That’s called EV Compensation and Default Cube has a very good tutorial on that; I believe it’s all compositing magic. You can see the video here; kzbin.info/www/bejne/n2iyi4RodtCWnZI

[@ikouze1]

@@KaizenTutorials Thank you for linking me to that video. That definitely helps a lot, and with some tweaking I should be able to expose the scene properly. Great work, I look forward to more great content!

[@DerpyPlayz429]

#Frame everyone 10:25

[@zoobloomafoo]

For future videos would you mind zooming in? It is really hard to see the nodes.

[@KaizenTutorials]

I’ll try and get a bit closer on the nodes! Thanks for the feedback.

[@a_art_man]

Thanks ! Patreon no, KZbin yes 😅 it’s better to go through together with you in this tutorial and learn a bit then just get a standalone file with all you did your self …

[@KaizenTutorials]

Hahah, that is definitely true from a learning perspective ;-) But Patreon really helps me to keep doing these videos, so instead of just seeing it as a 'support' platform I decided to give away files aswell, as an extra incentive to join! I also have a cheaper Tier with no files, just to support the channel 🙌

[@a_art_man]

@@KaizenTutorials but I thought KZbin monetize well all the KZbinrs? Is it not a case ? I understand Patreon scope to support, well may be when the world will be more stable …

[@KaizenTutorials]

I am monetized yes! But that is not even close to enough to live from sadly, so Patreon is a good additional source of income. No worries if you’re not able to join though! I appreciate any support, such as your comment a lot 🙌🏻

[@nicholaspatton3797]

@Kaizen Tutorials, this is a very great tutorial you did. I wanted to create a day/night cycle in Blender to give realistic lighting to my models, but I was wondering about something. There is a node called Black Body, which helps with giving light sources more accurate light temperatures. Is there a way to incorporate that node into the day/night cycle you made; and if there is, how would I go about doing that?

[@KaizenTutorials]

Thanks a lot Nicholas! Sadly there is no way to control the Nishita Sky Texture temperature out of the box. What you could do however is create a more difficult workaround using and actual sun- and moonlight. Tie these to the sun position add-on, combine them with general world shaders for the sky and night and then you could control the light temperature with a blackbody node. There's also this awesome (and free) procedural sky shader. Which you could use to generate an animated sequence aswell. You can get it here; spooky-iluha.gumroad.com/l/procsky.

[@nicholaspatton3797]

@@KaizenTutorials I'll definitely try both ways you mentioned in the future and see which I feel more inclined to use to try creating a realistic day/night cycle in Blender. Thanks so much for your input

[@KaizenTutorials]

Good luck!

[@ohlawdy6855]

Following this exactly in Blender 4.1, when I'm creating the key frames for the Mix Shader it's doing the effect, but no key frames are on the timeline.

[@KaizenTutorials]

You have to select the node and object for the keyframes to appear in the timeline!

[@ohlawdy6855]

@@KaizenTutorials Perhaps I missed the object selection part, because I was at least hovering over the node. Thanks a lot! :)

[@HiImKyle]

I have to have the sun size set to 0.1 for the night sky otherwise I don't get shadows which is odd. You have it set to 0.001 with shadows, so maybe things have changed since 3.1?

[@KaizenTutorials]

Ah yeah that can definitely be the case! A lot of my older content isn't 100% accurate anymore, but so is the life of tutorials I guess haha. Thanks for sharing!

[@JZStudiosonline]

Making the night sky rotation -sun_rotation doesn't work because it's going off global coordinates and not diametrically opposed. If you have the day sun rotation set to 45 degrees, the night sun is set to -45 degrees so it's 90 degrees apart, not 180. Irritatingly, trying to subtract 180 from the value doesn't work either. I don't know how to fix that, but I DO know a better way to handle the transition to night that I figured out a few years ago. I don't remember how or why it works, but it does. Add in a value node and set it up with a driver. Sum Values; Variable; Prop - Sun; Path - matrix_world[2][2]. That will give the height value of the sun light above the horizon line. I then have it running through a multiply at .5 and an add at .8. I don't remember what practical purposes they serve. Then just feed that into a color ramp with black on the right, and feed that into the day/night mix shader. You have to tinker with the sunrise/sunset values, but get it set and you don't have to manually keyframe it. I also set the rotation mapping for the stars to -23.4 on the X (Earth's axial tilt) and 90 on the Z so it lines up with north from the sun position. Y is the actual rotation that's being driven by the sun rotation, so it's a fairly accurate representation of actual star paths. The only problem is the poles by default in Blender are on the x-axis, and north with sun position is on the y, hence the 90 z-axis. The issue is you can't move the north line because without doing a bunch of trigonometry I don't know how to do, it throws the star rotation all out of wack.

[@KaizenTutorials]

Thanks for your extensive input! There’s so many ways of doing this so it’s great to see different variations to the problem.

[@OddDuck64]

(Just a theory), but i think the reason subtracting 180 isn't working is because it is in radians? Try subtracting pi instead.

[@michaelchurch2957]

​@@OddDuck64 You're right. To make the sun and moon oppose each other, I kept the night sky "Sun Elevation" driver as -sun_elevation, but ended up changing the "Sun Rotation" expression to sun_rotation+pi.

[@ryndesign5309]

Awesome tutorial. I was able to get a good result. The only issue I ran into was the world shader animation (fading from day / night /day) didn't apply when I rendered the sequence as part of the video sequence editor (VSE) I had to render the sequence independently and add it in. Is there a workaround to avoid this?

[@KaizenTutorials]

Thank you! I'm not sure if there is a fix for it. It seems like something that shouldn't happen, but I guess it did. Are you sure you didn't accidentally have anything overriding your render in the background? Like some cached renders e.g.

[@boface]

Had the same problem. Took 9 hours to render the animation only to realize that the night/day cycle fading didn't get applied to the final render. It was just night throughout the entire render.

[@KaizenTutorials]

Sorry to hear that! If you want to speed up your renders btw I’ve got a video now that’ll help you improve a lot on render times. Might save you a couple hours!

[@ryndesign5309]

@@boface I believe (but haven't tested it) that the Time value we animate in our 3d scene is being overridden by the Video Editing / VSE scene which has no time animation in it so the passing of time isn't occurring. Not sure if this is a bug, or just the intended effect of having unique scene values.

[@boface]

@@ryndesign5309 I rendered out again with the time animation but without key framing the mix shader, and it seems to work, although the day and night doesn’t look as good

[@EduardoRamirez-em5qw]

Neil Degreese Tyson will be very upset with the night time shader jejejejeje

[@KaizenTutorials]

Hahahaha whoops

[@azuretooth]

is this compatible for Blender game engine with Eevee renderer?

[@KaizenTutorials]

It’s not, sorry! It’s a Cycles only function as it uses the nishita sky.

[@fatihturkmen4728]

Veryniece..

[@KaizenTutorials]

Thank you!

[@VoyagerVentures]

is there anyway this could work in eevee? Because the default setting for the sun lighting mod doesn't work with eevees

[@KaizenTutorials]

Sadly, not an easy one. For this to work in EEVEE would require some difficult stuff using HDRI’s or custom node based sky shaders, made specially for EEVEE. Honestly I think the best option would be to look for an add-on specifically for EEVEE sky stuff!

[@VoyagerVentures]

@@KaizenTutorials alright cool. Thanks

[@KaizenTutorials]

You’re welcome! Sorry I couldn’t be of more help

[@fraxbnezl]

help the sun position is not showing how do i do it

[@KaizenTutorials]

I'm not sure what you mean? Have you enabled the sun position add on?

[@ArnzTheGreat]

For local renders this works great but when trying to render this using SheepIt, the sky texture is stuck with the angle from the first frame. The Sun Position add-on is not being carried over. One of the fixes I found is baking the data using a python script but, this only works for the position of the sun. The sky texture is still stuck on the first angle. Any help would be appreciated!

[@KaizenTutorials]

Hmm yeah that's going to be an issue. Honestly I don't know a fix for this, sorry :-( The only thing I can think of is doing everything manually and keyframing things. But that's going to be a huge pain in the ass.

[@cristicode4301]

Can HDRI be added to this instead of making stars from extra nodes and shaders?

[@KaizenTutorials]

You could yes, just use mix shaders or mix color nodes to mix HDRI's. Since Nightsky HDRI's don't have much color mixing those in is actually quite simple.

[@AreYouCurious1]

can you have the same effect using evee?

[@KaizenTutorials]

Well not really since sky textures don’t work, but you can get something similar if you find a procedural HDRI. There’s one for free somewhere online!

[@vicsar]

🤯

[@KaizenTutorials]

🙈

[@zwatchxd9175]

Ducky3D said that you need to lower the exposure instead of the strength, it look great in the viewport but the lowered exposure isnt in the rendered file (.exr). someone also said that its a bug in sun position that makes that happen, do you have any solution? thanks

[@KaizenTutorials]

I just had a similar question and did some research. Apparently there's a lot of exposure stuff that doesn't get saved to your EXR files, but the data is there though. You can actually just take the EXR file, open it up in your editing software of choice and then tweak the exposure there. So e.g. in Photoshop you can add an adjustment layer with an exposure filter and tweak it there! All the metadata to allow the light-change is still in the file! Hope that helps. :-)

[@zwatchxd9175]

@@KaizenTutorials thanks for explaining it man, also, i have seen a couple of your videos lately through searching and home page, definitely gonna subscribe, have a good day/night

[@KaizenTutorials]

Great! Thanks, welcome to the club 💪🏻

[@ahadasif8402]

It's on evee or cycle

[@KaizenTutorials]

Cycles!

[@ahadasif8402]

@@KaizenTutorials thnks:)

[@ahadasif8402]

@@KaizenTutorials @kaizen tutorial Hmm kaizen can you provide me day and night cycle file so i can do things little quick

[@bunnysenpai7471]

Why is it blurry when I hit play?

[@KaizenTutorials]

That's because Blender can't playback Cycles in realtime, so it's giving you approximizations of every frame. If you render out the final product it should be sharp. Also it could be you enabled Depth of Field in the Camera.