Creating an Epic Kingdom - Blender Tutorial

In this tutorial, I'll teach how to create an Epic Kingdom Environment utilizing custom skies, atmosphere, mountains, foliage scattering, and more.
Download the scene here: / covingsworth
Instagram: / covingsworth
Special thanks to Jacek Pilarski for the inspiration, and Aaron Westwood for the guidance during this project!
Intro music by Scott Buckley

[@noelhutz]

Polyfjord and Covingsworth uploading on the same day??? What a day

[@fishydoesart]

And Southern Shotty too.

[@sirdiff1]

As usual, very nice work. One side note I would like to add for people getting into environments: do not underestimate compositing. While doing everything in render is nice and easy to grasp, there is a reason why most professionals output different layers to be manipulated in compositing later. Not only it gives you more control even after you are done rendering, but for stuff like the atmospheric fog it's often preferred to just render without it (which can drastically reduce render times) and then apply it in comp from a depth pass that costs nothing to render. You could be wasting hours of machine time and electricity. With that said, I understand that for a beginners tutorial its already enough information to absorb, so its probably best to leave it for more advanced ones.

[@angelillomadness844]

Thanks to render in layers and compositor work after I was able to render scenes with huge count of polygons and textures up to 4k. Take less time and as you said more efficient and less time and power consuming.

[@legit5918]

I've found that, painfully, Volumetrics often do give better results than depth or mist passes, but I do agree. Split the scene into three layers, and then composite in Nuke, AE, Fusion or even Blender, whatever you prefer. Especially if you are struggling for VRAM or viewport performance, it helps so, so much and gives you better control over the scene in post.

[@sirdiff1]

@@legit5918 yes, just a single depth pass in a color correct usually doesn't cut it, but you also layer in some extra fog/cloud passes in 2.5D comp and 90% of the times it comes out better than just a cube with a volume in render. I have seen shit renders turn into beautiful scenes just thanks to a couple comp tricks and a bit of matte painting

[@MustafaSE]

ARE THERE ANY VIDEOS OR ARTICLES YOU CAN SUGGEST ABOUT THESE?

[@sirdiff1]

@@MustafaSE if you want to learn more about the possibilities of high level pro compositing i would recommend Hugo's desk on youtube, you can grab a free Nuke non commercial license and get started with his beginners series. With that said, for a comprehensive course on professional tools for making environments from start to finish I would recommend Rebelway's Houdini Environment course where they also go over nuke/da vinci fusion, but it uses completely different tools and is is a paid course. You can obviously find it through "less than legal" ways though, even though I wont recommend it here it for obvious reasons. If you want more beginner friendly and Blender oriented stuff, there is a nice video from Robin Squares on youtube who goes over render layers and how they are used in comp withouth any external software, I would start from there.

[@zed2929]

Cannot somehow underappreciate your job in helping others with their struggles in 3d. I guess most of os sometimes get frustrated and feel like we don't do enough or we do not good enough, and you are the best example of just keep working until it gets better. Cannot express all my joy of watching your videos, Thank you very much!

[@Covingsworth]

Thank you so much!

[@simeon_vkv]

HE IS BACK! This dude is a legend

[@robertdouble559]

Looks GREAT. Anyone who knows me knows I don't throw around compliments unless they're warranted. Top work.

[@3DWiz]

Judging my work too early and scraping it is one of my worst traits - glad to hear there's more people suffering from this. Haha Excelent video and visualisation! Love the result too

[@tylerdobson7868]

Lighting huge scenes like this has always been the part I struggled on the most, gonna try your method tonight!

[@Covingsworth]

Good luck!

[@XavierAlbertStudio]

You not only master creating a beautiful, mesmerising scene, you also master breaking it down in a convenient, interesting tutorial. Thanks for your efforts please never stop pushing limits!❤

[@Covingsworth]

That’s really kind thank you

[@D.F.G]

13:06 seeing georgian monastary made my day thx for using this assets

[@begalooloo]

WWWWooooooooowwwwww you nailed it....mindblowing

[@ButterDragon]

I really struggled with realistic sky lighting/background, gonna try this method. Thanks for the tips 👍

[@Covingsworth]

so glad it helps!

[@nxdgna]

Amazing work bro

[@hunteriadkins]

Always look forward to your posts covingsworth! Another great tutorial!

[@Covingsworth]

Thank you 😁

[@HamzaARTi]

as amways amazing envirenmennts i am a character artist but your videos are just something i enjoy watching and wanna try from time to time

[@Covingsworth]

Thanks I’m glad you like the videos

[@yeahokben]

wow! fantastic work and thank you for sharing + making it so easy to follow along

[@Covingsworth]

Thank you

[@SART-bn8lb]

wonderful explanation thanks alot

[@Covingsworth]

Thank you

[@etienneman]

you keep raising the bar!

[@Covingsworth]

thank you bro!

[@coldway]

This is next level my man. So far you've done amazing video tutorials that felt more like AAA games, but this one...wow...It's movie level. Chapeau. I can say that this is better than the CGI of House of the Dragon. Hands down. If you keep on this level of quality I must subscribe to your patreon lol

[@sandeepsingh-xg1rk]

Bro ,your work on making environments is very high level . Just a little critque - Sky in shot is little too perfect it steals all the attention from the main guy "castle" .

[@ethanotterson5719]

Covingsworth is a legend

[@bUildYT]

bro found his upload button again :)

[@savagesauron4147]

Many thanks for sharing your workflow!!

[@mylittle3dworlds]

Tks so much for sharing your process!

[@KalasaniKeshav]

wooooowwwwwwwww amazing work bro please continue

[@Covingsworth]

thank you!

[@thomasaseymour1165]

This a photo right? This looks so real and beautiful!!!

[@stfVFX]

Nice content man! I just subscribed!😊

[@BenMartinBox]

Very nice. Can you share your computer specifications? Memory, CPU, GPU? Thanks for sharing.

[@Covingsworth]

I have a 3080TI and some random cpu :)

[@khalid-sz8gl]

king .

[@scarit.]

Hell yeah!

[@relativCharlie]

[@jkartz92]

marvelous!

[@narensoni3705]

Brilliant Bro!!

[@nix7r]

bro is back!!!

[@ngkgamingtamil4858]

Thanks for the amazing work ❣

[@stings7]

lol i was literalliy thinking of how to make a castle scene

[@arhamsulman4704]

oh my god its amazingggggg

[@agyab_cg]

i love this whole video ❤.. thanks for the great tips

[@Covingsworth]

so glad you found it helpful!

[@mohsinali03]

Dude amazing Tutorial!! Ive also got a suggestion for that hdri situation where instead of using the sky texture you can use another copy of the same environment texture and connect them both to the same vector mapping then use the light path node so one of your hdri will work as backplate and you can use the other one to control the exposure. I think Ducky3D did this method on one of his tutorial for making screens. Cheers Mate!

[@Covingsworth]

Ah yeah that’s a great idea actually

[@dyn-01-h5n]

awesome 🔥

[@flonkplonk1649]

There's a landscape generator in Blender as well! Btw what a hell of a computer are you using? Seems an absolutely overkill of a polygon amount.

[@Covingsworth]

It’s actually not too high poly. Everything with detail is instanced 👍

[@BhaveshKoul]

Great tutorial, how to get the plants waving in the wind like you did

[@Steve.philip]

and another masterpiece

[@Covingsworth]

thank you steve!

[@H4SEEB六]

simply goat

[@KarenSedrakyan-KS]

Nice Work Buildings with a cross are Armenian churches in (the far right corner).

[@Covingsworth]

Oh cool thanks for the info!

[@Alen20649]

OMG looks real

[@darwinbarwin]

goat is back 🙏 😭

[@ENORMOUS26]

this is just the tutorial i was looking for still i have a problem while creating scene like this if you want it to be perfect from all side of view like a video game map

[@JuanGonzalez-nn6dw]

instead of manually 3d scanning google Earth data you can import it directly into blender with the GIS addon, it works wonders.

[@mersadkeikha677]

wonderfull keep going

[@ollied2025]

oh man, I feel bad to be so picky with such an amazing render. there is one little thing that caught my eye which is that the leaves on the bushes don't move with the grass. Otherwise i would have thought this a photo or a shot from house of the dragon

[@janbarsk3077]

I really love it that so many different aspect of landscape creation is concisely packed into one single video, but I also have a question: On the mountain where the buildings are, you added a lot of shrubs and some trees. AFTER that you added heroic cliffs and the building meshes. Does this mean that that the shrubs and the trees give way to the heroic hills and the building meshes? Or is it that they all coexist in a strange way?

[@Covingsworth]

Thanks! And yeah they all kinda coexist, this is possible because the camera is far away. Although once I added the cliffs and buildings I did edit the scatter a bit to give way to certain things

[@janbarsk3077]

@@Covingsworth Thanks for the answer. I understand that some pragmatism can be a good thing, going back and forth with some trial and error. 🙂

[@samsayegh5155]

Thanks for this amazing video ! Can you just write the website you're mentioning at 5:11 to download plants ? I'm earing grass wall but can't find the website..

[@Covingsworth]

Thanks! It’s called graswald

[@samsayegh5155]

@@Covingsworth thanks !

[@ihatedajews]

Shoulda put flying flags on he castle towers to have motion in both fg and bg. Very cool regardless tho.

[@Covingsworth]

That woulda been cool ueah

[@mkfantasy-t8g]

Bro 🙌

[@robertdouble559]

Is there away to stop the various species of plants interpenetrating each other? Beyond adjusting the scenes.

[@RawfunRahman]

Insane work but how did u mix the water level with the terrain? Like the sand and the terrain are mixed seamlessly

[@Covingsworth]

Just a plane with water, then anywhere the terrain touches the water I painted sand :)

[@Loubardeur]

It would be great to add a chapiter on rendering and compositing

[@GuoNuoMinGGG]

love you

[@Covingsworth]

[@PixelRealmCG]

great tutorial ! did you work with different view layers in the on the same file (and then recomposed) or everything on the same layer?

[@Covingsworth]

Thanks! And no not for this scene, everything is on the same layer.

[@rahidmahbub]

Amazing render,my man. I just have one question, how did you have the grass in the foreground sway like that?

[@Covingsworth]

Geometry node based wind system - I have a tutorial on my patreon about it!

[@-instructions4549]

bonsoir monsieu vous deservez mon abonnement , merci pour le contenu

[@Covingsworth]

Merci beaucoup 🙏

[@danyarfan5384]

Let's goooooooooooooo

[@arhamsulman4704]

How do you manage Vram with such a huge scene ? do you render in separate layers ? or use cloud render farm or have more than 1 gpu ? Edit : or do you optimize your scene really well ? What resolution of assets and textures you are using ?

[@Covingsworth]

I try to use 2k textures where I can, and try to use as low poly meshes as possible. I have just have gpu

[@MrSami-tv6vl]

Will you ever make a castle course? Just as Impressive like your urban environment course.

[@Covingsworth]

Possibly 👀

[@MrSami-tv6vl]

@@Covingsworth Hopefully soon.

[@Абобус-г9д]

More videoooosss

[@freddymazenge1462]

Niceee

[@Gireshahid33]

How you edit your voiceover? I mean it's good. Your editing process for audio

[@Covingsworth]

Thank you! I use Davinci

[@nosirve9458]

Its super good! But I feel that the animation of the grass isn't very realistic, like too wavy

[@nosirve9458]

Btw, there will be more parts of the cg boost course? with more nature involved=?? first part was awesome!

[@Loubardeur]

why not use the mist node instead of the principled volume ?

[@Covingsworth]

Mist is great but it doesn’t provide the same level of realism in certain scenes

[@Zetornator]

babe wake up, new Covingsworth video just dropped.

[@Covingsworth]

👏👏👏

[@BatuhanOzbey]

There is a question that I am very curious about, I have a lot of trouble in my scenes, for the process you did at 7:50, instead of enlarging the mountain according to the man, adjusting it according to the camera, reducing its place, aligning it, does it provide the same process? I am very curious about this, I have a lot of trouble making landscape, I usually proportion everything according to the camera.

[@Covingsworth]

everything should be a real world scale. so if the mountain in your reference is a mild wide, it should be a mile wide in blender

[@BatuhanOzbey]

@@Covingsworth thank you ❤️

[@InfinitycgIN]

@@BatuhanOzbey This also affects the way lighting interacts with your scene, lighting a small sphere will be way different than lighting a big scale sphere, say miles in radius, so a real world scale is preferred

[@BatuhanOzbey]

@@InfinitycgIN In fact, it did not look very wrong in appearance, but it almost did not give the perception of size and depth. When you think about it like you said, the light hitting a small area directly and illuminating everywhere, thus illuminating a realistic area, provides very different shading. I hadn't thought of that thank you

[@aaronwestwood]

@@InfinitycgIN this is actually a common misconception. In a scene with 2 spheres and a daylight rig, a sphere that has a 0.1cm radius vs a sphere that has a 10,000km radius are completely 1:1 identical. The reason to work in real world scale is 1. Standardizing asset size to help build scale theory making it easier to track for the artist, 2. Easier to dial in atmos calculation and depth perception :)

[@piyush11thsecb53]

i used same geometry nodes but nothing happen on my plane

[@samuelmoser]

How did you add the wind to the scene at the end....

[@Covingsworth]

I have a tutorial about this on my patreon :) it’s using a geometry node based wind system

[@Bradley_Pinski]

mom!...MOM!...NEW COVINGSWORTH VIDEO JUST DROPPED!

[@marcomoruzzi9859]

I don't usually comment on youtube video. But damn... really nice video! Even if usually do archviz, this video gave me so much inspiration to try a big epic scene, maybe in conjuction with archviz! Keep up with the great work!

[@Covingsworth]

Thank you Marco!

[@chrissmichaels]

Can you create a forest one for me??

[@Covingsworth]

check some of my other videos 😉

[@chrissmichaels]

@@Covingsworth I checked. I'm doing a zero-budget movie, so I thought of giving it a try.

[@sonunarwade1252]

Step 1:- get Nasa pc 😂❤

[@ElchamBerhaora]

too many polygons 😢

[@cgnovice2969]

Render layers

[@flonkplonk1649]

@@cgnovice2969doesn't help at all in viewport.. and Blender tends to crash pretty often if your memory and system is overloading. Only thing helping would be the Simplify option....

[@flonkplonk1649]

@@cgnovice2969doesn't help at all in viewport performance

[@victor.novorski]

I recommend going with Amd RX graphics card mainly because of their bigger VRam. I bought a 4060........ I sit quietly while I render each single LAYER after another and composite it.

[@victor.novorski]

Yo pc specs?

[@parapoliticos52]

Is this a cinematic scene or an open world?

[@misanthrope_01]

how can you not tell? he's made the world specific to the camera. Uninstall software and go work at McD's

[@CGToonStudio]

Cinematic scene.

[@iochimura]

Cinematic... Blender is not a Game Engine anymore :)

[@BALAKSCHMAN]

sigma mogger rizzler alpha

[@misanthrope_01]

stay in school.

[@BALAKSCHMAN]

@@misanthrope_01 wen ich könnte würde ich deinen fortnite account löschen

[@jeffkirchoff14]

Damn Bro I'd Request You to create a BRAND NEW COURSE on UDEMY or any other platform! I'm ready to make a fair Purchase bruh! You're killing it dude!

[@NekoSamaIru]

3d scans, hdri, volume, multiple terrains from Gaia, multiple particle systems . . . 𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘩 . . . my PC is already crying, and I haven't even started making this! I am a bit sad, because I really wanna try this. It looks so fun!

[@Covingsworth]

Yeahh it does require a good PC unfortunately, but you could probably make a low poly version of the scene just fine 😀