How to Make The Earth in Blender! (Cycles & Eevee)

In this Blender tutorial video, we learn how to make the Earth (and other planets) in Blender easy, using an amazing free planet shader!
Download the shader: www.fraserfx.com/pages/planet...
Free 6K Earth textures here: www.fraserfx.com/pages/planet...
Cinematic Planet Textures: www.fraserfx.com/products/pla...
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Chapters
0:00 - Intro
0:31 - Planet trailer
1:10 - More talk
2:04 - Scene setup
3:39 - Appending the shader
6:05 - Textures
7:43 - Atmosphere color
8:52 - Clouds and lights
10:21 - Shadow illumination
12:31 - Shadow illumination (Cycles)
17:18 - Sun mask hardness
20:04 - Sunset
22:15 - How the atmosphere works
23:04 - Atmosphere settings
24:34 - Outro
Music from Artlist
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Hashtags
#Blender #Planet #SciFi #VisualEffects #Vlog #ChristopherFraser #Filmmaking #Filmmaker #Creator #VFX #Blender3D #MotionGraphics make a realistic planet in blender make a planet in blender planet eevee earth tutorial planet textures fraserfx blender planet orbit blender space

[@lua9502]

Hey great Video! I have a little problem right here. When I plug "Color" from the Sun Mask into the Planet Shader. The lights stay on in the day part. This happens in Eevee and Cycles. "Eevee Color" works but I can't use cycles then. I would appreciate your help Edit: Okay, I think I fixed it by linking the X/Y/Z coordinates in the Sun Mask Node with the sun_position object as you showed it in the Video

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

Awesome! Im glad you got this figured out. A lot of people seem to forget that step. I wish it could be easier in cycles! Edit: pinning for now, so hopefully people will see this before commenting about it ;)

[@El_Maximo_Grande]

@@ChristopherFraserVFX i think some settings might of changed because this no longer works as good.

[@adelkl5711]

amazing tutorial and the Andrew Kramer impersonation rocks.

[@Ace-yf8qy]

One of the best tutorials ever. Neatly explained and the shader is one of the best things ever

[@fo1711]

One of the rarest tutorial i can actually follow and just work!! Thanks, this is great!

[@ExactSerious]

Really appreciate that you took time to create this great tutorial! Awesome!

[@rimraakez9207]

highly underrated tutorial and although it includes a ready made shader everything is still explained very well, awesome job!

[@digitalpaintingschool]

Your two tutorials are awesome man! Keep it up :) And thanks a lot for the shaders.

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

Thank you!

[@zellator]

Amazing, nice job!

[@Viewsofthecosmos]

Amazing video! Thank you for all your hard work.

[@figastrophoto]

wow it's amazing, i'm infinitely grateful to you!

[@manuelimboden1582]

So cool, thanks for making this!

[@DaviSilveira]

Amazing, thank you for all your work in making this available. :)

[@SorcererStudios]

Well done! This is awesome!!!

[@mariorossi4148]

Thank you for this helpful tutorial. I was able to follow it without any problems despite being new to Blender. Very nice final result!!!

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

I'm glad my tutorial was helpful! Good luck with your Blender journey :)

[@enegort2228]

Nice! Since I've improved, I can follow this tutorial more easily

[@stoverfilms453]

Wow amazing shader!!

[@waterdragonstudios7167]

Really cool, great shader.

[@jakevanrooyen283]

This is amazing thank you!!!

[@gutozardy5568]

This helped me a lot! Thanks!

[@user-kc9vc8km5d]

Thaks for the great stuff & tutorial! Good luck!

[@anicapalini]

Thanks a lot for the tuto and sharing the planet shader, it works really fine with Blender 3.0. Very good work :-)

[@robertop.g.9929]

Thanks for the shader..Very good tutorial, Great

[@ahmetc.b.809]

Phenomenal!

[@geoffhodgson2492]

Hi Chris, many thanks. Exactly what I was looking for

[@Joyvelfilmmaker]

Thank you so much for this tutorial and the assets.

[@EmadSamy]

Amazing, Thank you.

[@JoostinTheEpic]

This such a good tutorial, thank you!

[@flashyyy]

rly nice tutorial, thx a lot

[@idaeus_ad_astra]

Realy awesome. Can't wait to blow the earth with this shader. Thanks for the hard work.

[@aripatel3790]

Wow. Great tutorial, and the shaders are free too? Thanks so much for not charging anything, really nice of you to give away hard work for free, keep up the good work!!

[@legitbeans]

after browsing and browsing, and what felt like years of searching, i finally found this video that actually helped make a planet. this was incredibly helpful

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

I'm happy to hear that it helped!!

[@hunt3rdh104]

Super awesome job. Thanks man you rule!!! 🤜🦾

[@karenedwards1297]

You are a rock star x thank you so much

[@thesweetestjp]

Very nice tool, love it!

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

Happy to hear!

[@Hubwood]

Thank you :)

[@christophwoloszyn4264]

Hey great video! I'm trying it out and I find that the planet shader works great. I am currently designing alien planets for myself. super cool. Thank you very much.👍👌

[@mottiwenger6450]

DUDE!! This was sooo good!!! Best tutorial out there!!! Thanks so much for this! Keep it up!! Was just wondering if you can say when the AE tutorial will come out? Thanks so much!!!! Ur awesome!! 🙏🙏🙏

[@talat2k4]

Awesome! Subscribed.

[@lovve996]

Very useful!

[@Mister333]

You should sponsor this video because It's really well done, the intro got me, I really thought It was a video from Video copilot. You nailed it.

[@DarkSpaceStudios]

Fantastic work man. Unreal! I wish I knew how to come up with shaders like this

[@YunethAlwis]

Hey Dark space, Kinda weird seeing you here ngl

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

Gotta love this

[@AnkitVerma-us3di]

it's so good. 👌👍

[@leekolb2027]

This is great, thanks!

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

Any time!

[@voluntarioshispanicministr8500]

I admit…my expectations for this video were really low. Not because of you, but because so many of the Blender tutorials I've seen have been absolutely useless for people who are just getting started. Man, this blew my mind! It was actually comprehensible. This was, by far, one of the best tutorials I've seen. And I'm saying this as a professional trainer. Most of these tutorials are done by people who are good technicians. You're not only a good technician, you're a good TEACHER!!! Thank you so much for this. I'm officially a fan. Liked and subbed.

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

Thank you so much!! I do my best

[@urvashiwaghela]

amaing shader!!!

[@judeackland-patel6646]

Would love to know how you did the cinematic shots in the intro with the fast moving background and everything. A whole tutorial on that kind of shot with lighting and and camera movement and stuff would be AWSOME!

[@Hubwood]

Push :D

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

Ooh, good call! I'll need to get to work when i have time.

[@authenticmuffin]

That beginning was hilarious hahaha, subbed instantly

[@bigjpeg8411]

Thanks, Christopher Kramer

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

Thanks! Glad you liked my very, exciting, tutorial. ;)

[@robertsontirado4478]

Thank you, this is fun.

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

I agree.

[@matheeson]

Thank You...Bless

[@ChromaStudio_]

i just like for the intro, u are a legend lmao, good tuto btw !

[@RandomNoise]

Amazing tutorial. thank you. subbed :-)

[@bagonzasamuel6991]

love the video and planning to blow up the world!!!! with visual effects of coarse

[@drahrekot683]

thanks this tutorial helped me a lot

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

I’m glad!

[@hyper1930]

Really in love with your in depth tutorial!❤

[@hyper1930]

Also I couldnt find your Instagram, did you make a new account , if you did please let me know !❤

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

Oh, the description might be outdated😅 you can find me @real.christopherf!

[@hyper1930]

@@ChristopherFraserVFX gotcha!

[@sachinchapagain8559]

I was shocked to heard andrew type intro voice and have a good laugh after you talked. good job man! hope you reach 1k soon.

[@santi9038]

the intro got me

[@Saluan]

Thank you! That's an amazing tutorial, you've done a great work! I subscribed to you for this :)

[@Saluan]

Also that shader is utterly beautiful!

[@idi_poesh]

я давно мечтала сделать Землю в блендере, спасибо огромное за туториал!!!!

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

Well i'm glad my tutorial was helpful! Happy I could make the dream come true😁

[@robestey5628]

I found you through a vid from Rescan. Very good tutorial with excellent directions. Thank you so so much. I have subscribed.

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

That's so cool to hear! Thanks for subscribing:)

[@Drakonadrgoragonis]

love this tutorial, it was easy to follow. Wish you would make ones about the other planets in the solar system.

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

😂😂oh totally! Maybe someday i'll do something about Saturn's rings, though..

[@LERS_ZENIT]

Спасибо! Очень круто!

[@HrPedrosak]

Nice intro, dude!

[@kolex023]

God bless you!

[@ronmarelli9267]

Fantastic tutorial! And a fantastic shader! I'm curious to know if there is a way to output the "atmospheric glow" as a separate AOV? Would love to be able to tweak the glow in Nuke separate from the rest of the globe.

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

Yes, good question!! The only way really to do that would be to have a separate render with the planet's color set to black, the roughness to 1, no emission or clouds, and atmospheric haze set to 0 (so the rest of the planet it pitch black) and set all other objects to holdout. Also, make sure the world background renders transparent. I haven't worked with holdouts much, so I can't really give an easy way to set all but ONE object to holdout, sadly. That's about how I'd do it! Glad you liked the tutorial!

[@techboy2863]

u deserve my sub and thumbs bro:) many thanks. and keep it up :)

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

Thanks my dude, i do my best :D

[@weepingsleet9350]

Bro I don't even know how to thank you, I was trying to find a earth shader for SO long. Thx So Much!

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

Just make something cool with it! Oh, and tag me if you do so i can see😄

[@weepingsleet9350]

​@@ChristopherFraserVFX Seriously, you deserve so much more then 73 Subscribers!!! I'm subbing for sure!

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

Oh, you deserve the shader. Thanks!!

[@FUFUWO]

Can you make a video on how to get the shots from the demo would be AMAZING!!❤️

[@chris5058]

this node tree is great, i have achieved similar by watching other tutorials but way more complex and this makes it easy and better results - one thing however, in 3.3 i am not getting the yellow tint (sunset look) in eevee, ive rewatched multiple times to see if i have missed anything, any thoughts?

[@shockvavedrums]

very helpful tutorial, thanku so much, just one problem, when i render the image it doesn't render with any textures on it when the shader is connected to the material output but it does when the surface is connected to it but the o/p is not as expected :')

[@wisdomwhyte3301]

When I plug the emit to the emmision I get this weird yellow glow around on the whole planet It's like the emit is affect everything not just city light I put of the sun to see what was going on and the part that where to be black is not Pls any fix

[@weclipstudio]

😀😀😀😀😀 hey man you reminded me of 10 years ago, cg god, dear Andrey

[@sea9205]

Great video! I'm currently working on a project to render and hopefully animate a toroidal planet and it'd moons, and though this shader is really excellent for working on the moons, I've found trouble mapping textures to the torus itself as they are meant to connect to a sphere. Do you have any ideas on how I might texture the torus itself?

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

Not off the top of my head, unfortunately! It feels like it should be simple but i just dunno how to do it

[@Oldman_F]

I can't believe I got all of this for free...I would give you money, but I have no bank account... I wish you all best of luck in life, my guardian angel!

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

I'm happy to help. Enjoy, and make good art with it!

[@vashthestampede18381]

Excellent video but i've got a problem with the shader, when I'll export the object, i won't got textures with the file. Blender use the "Principled BSDF" for export the textures, will you upgrade your shader module ?

[@lilmizh3635]

thanks for the tutorial!, but when i put the shader node into Material output: Surface it becomes pink and doesnt read anything? thank you

[@gottagowork]

I have a few comments: 1. Instead of actual geometry, try using geonodes to create a single point (not vertex) with radius. This can be mapped using environment mapping with -1 as the x scale. Since the point looks weird, can also add a UV sphere in same geonodes where you delete geometry/only faces for a wire representation to have on screen. The point has infinite resolution which I use for surface, clouds, and borealis object, but I haven't been able to make it work for volumetric atmosphere shader yet. My Eevee is completely broken so I don't know if this works there, but it works for Cycles. 2. Instead of drivers, parent the sun to an empty located in the center and move the sun out on x and point in negative x. Using texture coordinate node, simply select the empty from the dropdown and utilize it's x location to drive the night map. 3. Think outside the box, as Blender Bob says. In Cycles doing real volumetric scatter is a chore. Instead think of what the actual thing does to the image. The #2 trick (but in reverse, you want the lit side) in combination with layer weight/facing and some spline color ramp, you can use Transparency shader added to an Emission shader to simulate the effect of the atmosphere without actually having one.

[@TheSpacePlaceYT]

I think you should impliment those ideas.

[@matthillier6879]

Followed the tutorial, looks great. I'm completely new to blender, this helped me alot, the only issue I have is with the lights, mine don't turn off, even when I don't add the sun mask as yours does in the video, can't quite work it out. But thanks and keep up the videos, love it!

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it. If the lights aren't turning off even withiut the sun mask, you might make sure there's nothing in the "Emission" input, and that it's set to black! That will turn them off everywhere.

[@matthillier6879]

@@ChristopherFraserVFX Thanks, I tried it, still didn't work but it looks really good anyway, I'll keep playing about with it, let you know if I find anything.

[@manavchaudhary4940]

It's a great video man but I wanted to know of its in 3d and if there is a rotating planet with a day and night cycle?

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

That's absolutely something you can do with this shader :)

[@mejitesh3907]

Press Shift + T change the direction of light insted of rotating

[@sunkinsound]

Heyg great turotial, how are you getting the empty to track on the earth?

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

If you're asking about the "sun position" empty, it's actually patented to the sun light! I just moved it a bit, so it's sitting right over the planet. You could easily move it closer or farther, though.

[@akeel_1701]

Yeah looks absolutely amazing in your tutorial, sadly my Blender program kept crashing.... wonder if there's an issue with the version, I'm on 3.3 at the moment

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

Thanks! That's weird though, the shader uses some pretty simple shading techniques, so I'd be a little surprised if that was it. When would it crash?

[@Shura86]

the andrew kramer parody was such a throwback 😭

[@City__Walker]

I was move this model in three.js but i not understanding where add night lights and clouds textures

[@harshecka7189]

Hey Awesome Shader... Will you be updating your shader for blender 2.93 and above.

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

It should work in later versions of Blender, past the 2.80s!

[@hasindukumara5358]

Nice.with videocopilot intro.

[@EXPstreams]

please excuse my language, but your sir, are a F*CKING LEGEND, thank you for making this, you just saved me about 12 hours in render time and 6 hours in workflow, I am supremely appreciative.

[@biohazardindustrieswr697]

What about aurorae?

[@sivakumarsubramanian4343]

Hi im Siva from Malaysia. Do u hv any link that i can view ur space images. Im going to start my youtube channel and planing to start my first program about space, aeronautics, aerospace n engineering. Im looking for stock photos to buy for my projects

[@t0mhann3n]

Hi - what's the right way to add a (visible) sun object to this scene? When I add a large sphere as an emitter, the light on the earth doesn't behave correctly. If I place a point light inside my sun sphere and increase the size of the point radius to be larger than the sun sphere, it still doesn't light my earth. What's the right way to do this? Many thanks for a useful tutorial

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

You can use an emissive sphere! Just make sure to turn off "shadow" in the ray visibility panel. You can also use an experimental build of Blender 3.0, where sun lights are actually visible in the world!

[@neuvatn]

How did you convert the B&W height map from blue marble into the normal map? Attempting to do it myself.

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

The bump node! I'd recommend playing with the "distance" value especially when using this node. If your normals look really noisy, try changing the distance to around .01-.05, and adjust it from there.

[@neuvatn]

@@ChristopherFraserVFX Thank You :) Appreciate the keeping up with your community.

[@amoghagrawal1]

Great tutorial! I needed a little help, the download links in the description are not working and I am unable to download the shader or the 6k textures. Please help.

[@davidmistoffelees8459]

Click the link and scroll all the way down and there will be a button that reads "Download the Shader" it is a shop format that has a discount applied to effectively make the cost 0.

[@amoghagrawal1]

Ah found it! Earlier I tried one of the links with it showed "This site can’t be reached". Now I found the textures thanks

[@yoily_weinberger22]

Where can I get the Andrew Kramer intro music?

[@blackswan6386]

i think there is also a Bumb map on this Nasa website ? is it recomend to use with this polanet setup ? i would like to have more realistic with some mouintains and stuff, hope you can help me. thank you so much sir

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

You can use NASA bump maps, but I recommend not using displacement. If you want to try out displacement for planets, check out this video I just released! kzbin.info/www/bejne/bJu4nYaddsqposk

[@blackswan6386]

@@ChristopherFraserVFX Mr Kremer from Video Co Pilot you made my Day today, thanks Sir *laughing* this intro sound is so special, really nice pick my 3D friend, see you thanks

[@sauceatnightx3108]

so when i add the .png to my sphere the map wraps incorrectly like the continents are incorrect

[@ishworpathak3632]

Sir, one more question, how can I change the color of the glow?

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

Change the "sky color" value. ;)

[@sautantanzanialimited7021]

hahahahahahahaha i like the intro you tried to sound like andrew from video copilot hahahaha

[@sauceatnightx3108]

Hey how can i add texture or roughness to my planet using the shader?

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

I'm guessing I'm too late at this point to answer... but, plugging in textures.

[@cgfreak5359]

Can you use any cloud texture

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

Yes! If you'd like to check out some other cool options, I have some alien planet/cloud textures available on my Gumroad here: gumroad.com/christopherfraser#VosMC

[@crypt0sFX]

Hey man awesome video, but I got a problem. I want to render out passes for the planet to after effects, but it won't let me because the material for the planet is set to "alpha blend." If I turn it off, I can get the passes but the haze/glow of the planet also turns off. The only workaround I found was to make my own volumetric haze which is fine but of course inconvenient. Do you know of anyway to fix this? I would really appreciate it.

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

Hmm it sounds like you're rendering in eevee.. try switching to cycles instead and see if that works any better.

[@crypt0sFX]

@@ChristopherFraserVFX Yeah cycles works fine but I wanted to see if you knew any way to fix it in eevee. Thank you for the quick response and happy 4th!

[@ChristopherFraserVFX]

I can't think of any fixes for eevee! When I've worked with different passes it's usually in cycles, which I'm more familiar with. But good luck, and happy 4th!