How to Make a Cave with Blender - Tutorial

[@josiah4335]

Hey Andrew. I know you probably won't see this but I wanted to say thank you for your contributions to the Blender community. This was my first Blender tutorial I ever watched about 7 years ago. I remember showing my sister the cave that I made and she didn't believe it was fake. That set me on a path to study animation in college. I graduate one month from now with a professional animation job already lined up. Hope you and your wife are doing okay. Keep doing great things and making free quality tutorials. You never know whose life you're going to change by doing so. Blessings!

[@Caspian.]

so wholesome

[@dasheden9976]

i guess im asking randomly but does someone know a tool to get back into an instagram account?? I stupidly lost my login password. I would love any tips you can offer me

[@zwatchxd]

@@dasheden9976 if you only lost your password, you can use the forgot password button when logging in? but if thats not the case idk

[@lawrenceleones2326]

very wholesome

[@esra98ms78]

@@Caspian. ى ل مم ض

[@sammynater4996]

just using a tutorial from 5 years ago. why... because blender guru is just the best Edit: if anybody is still using the texture and there is a 404 error on the link just go to cgtextures then make an account and type in the search bar "cliffs0149". then get the small texture. After that download crazybump and follow the instruction from there and then save all of the texture the that's it. you're welcome.

[@vinny5638]

Thanks a lot man im just learning how to use blender now and your comment was a helpful workaround for the expiry of the textures used in video. Appreciate ya

[@sammynater4996]

@@vinny5638 No problem. Good luck learning blender. If you want some other good KZbin blender tutorials look up ducky 3d and CGcookie and CGgeek.

[@jackbrasesco2949]

anything for the texutre for the crystal?

[@sammynater4996]

@@jackbrasesco2949 If you go to textures.com and go to search bar and type ice0039 you will find the texture he uses.

[@GoVocaloider]

Just a personal timestamp comment for myself. Cave - 3:33 Gem - 30:25 Mushrooms - 49:33 Stalagmites - 1:05:39 Camera - 1:10:36 Compositor - 1:13:15

[@PanVladyslav]

thanks

[@dan339dan]

I love Andrew's video, his voice's friendly unlike some monotoned KZbinrs and he actually has a humour

[@XIIILegend]

This was surprisingly very informative. I was stuck on a node problem in my project for about a week and just when I decide to take a break and watch some random blender videos I find a fix in your video. Thanks so much!

[@eliasguevara1550]

Today i am going to show you how to make a cafe... Gudday and welcome... Little things that make Andrew tutorials so marvelous.

[@aayushrath6420]

Le me who couldn't believe that I had a computer much faster in rendering than Blender Guru until I realized I have been working on Eevee the whole time.

[@mr_kerem]

lol

[@MrSquishedsquashed]

Columns are made when a Stalactite (hanging from the top of a cave) meets its opposing Stalagmite (growing from the bottom of the cave), this means the columns are curved like in the render you posted to Twitter!

[@monster860]

If only the video was 12 seconds longer..... it would have been 1:23:45

[@xtear0]

which would have been awesome.

[@GrimBirthday]

12 to the 3rd section = 1 2 3 4 5

[@blizzerd2094]

he should increase his animation lenght to 12 sec ...

[@JuvilleBeats]

This is probably the most useful channel on KZbin. Not joking I love those 1hr tutorials because of the details. Most channels do tutorials in 5min without explaining any shit. Salute Andrew!

[@kesmeby]

Nice demo of the compositor. I don't use Blender, but demonstrations like this make it look like a very compelling tool to add to the toolbox.

[@123railgun]

Hello. Just here to help with the Decimate Modifier. It is a tool used for decreasing the topology of the mesh. Normally used to save memory when rendering a scene/game. So yes it is used for game development. Though it has its other uses as well. though you can see that it does not do much good when removing faces due to the "snapping" aspect of it. It does do well with larger meshes with more topology. Good tutorial, very helpful. Personally like the part with the crystal. Hope this post is helpful to all.

[@TheAngelArrow]

man, you're a crazy good artist, i just keep being amazed by your tutorials man i swear, i admire you so much

[@A-D-S-P]

thanks Andrew price to you in 6 years I have progressed a lot blender frankly it's the best software for me with people like you who give your time for your internet tutorial is really a good invention blender too and you have a real talent hi guy

[@jacquelineF8C8DC]

Wonderful tutorial!! Thank you so much!! Great explanations and commentary -- I see so many "tutorials" these days that are just sped-up timelapses so it's cool to have an actual explanation of concepts and what you're doing

[@joaotrocado3755]

Hi man, just a note stalactites grow on the roof and stalagmites grow on the floor! Love your work, whatch every video, keep great work thanks for teaching us. All the best

[@lookierebuddy2]

Absolutely wonderful tutorial. I'm blown away at all the features in Blender you were showing. I'm a noob and must try it. I figure if I get through this I'll be a long way to learning to do this stuff. Fantastic! Thanks!

[@TeaDoogun]

INSTANTLY had to go play with the 'extra objects' addon...And as a British man, i was very impressed that one of the extra objects was a teapot.

[@scottcourtney8581]

Awesome tutorial. I'll have to watch it with a lot of pauses to actually follow along, but that's the nice thing about digital video. Thanks for making this!

[@off-grideverything533]

On a Column, it's how fast the flow of water is, that contributes to which end grows larger. Usually they would intersect in the middle with that being the thinnest part. But if the flow is too fast, it's not able to deposit any of the calcite on the stalactite(from the ceiling) So it all gathers where it lands, building up a Stalagmite(up from the ground). This would make the bottom the larger end. Whereas if the flow is slower, it deposits more of the calcium carbonate(calcite) on the upper stalactite, causing the water to have less minerals when it hits the ground. This would make the top stalactite the larger end. When a Stalactite and stalagmite meet, is when you get a column. Hope this helps in the future, knowing this will definitely help with my render, which I plan to use in a channel intro animation.

[@off-grideverything533]

StalaGmites hang out on the Ground, where you "Mite" (might) trip over them. StalaCtites hold "Tite" (tight) to the Ceiling. Easier way to remember which is which.

[@marioCazares]

Bob is Not my Uncle!!! Great tutorial! Love every single one of them!

[@Forsaaaan]

lol what a small world. I clicked your profile after watching this vid. I'm from gila ridge hs haha

[@marioCazares]

DPirateKing Really!? thats really cool! Another visual effects artist in this city!

[@TheClassyArchitect]

Smart Alec comment 7 years later: StalaGmites form from the Ground StalaCtites form from the Ceiling Columns occur when stalactites meet stalagmites. Anyway, still a sweet tutorial even 7 years later. Thanks!

[@MegaAbhipatel]

Hey andrew you aren't blender guru.... You are blender god and blender maha guru

[@TimeoutMegagameplays]

37:22 The decimate modifier is used for fast retopology of objects in order to put it in a game or render it LOTS faster. With it you can easily bring a 1 million tris mesh to 1000 tris and have almost the same shape.

[@OmriDaxia]

The decimate tool is handy for a quick way to reduce poly count for game assets. I find it helpful for making LoD versions of models that will only be seen from afar.

[@MrGnarKillsTTV]

Hey Andrew your channel was the reason I started using blender. It's amazing what stuff can be created on here and thanks for all the ideas your channel has given me. Keep up the good work man.

[@Kengumedia]

Hey Andrew! :) You can apply your Pass Index = 1 to multiple Objects like so: 1. Select all your objects that should have the same value 2. Set your desired value 3. Right click on your value --> Copy To Selected

[@christianschmidts8073]

This was exactly what I was searching for. Though spying on your tuts for quite some time now. This one directly hits the "subscribe"-spot. Thanks for sharing your knowledge & your time!

[@StarlasAiko]

Columns are a joining of stalagmites (grown from bottom up by deposits of droplets) and stalactites (grown from top down by droplets drying as they run down). Columns are thick at the top and bottom and thin in the middle where it is joined.

[@deqdweoifjiow]

That is how you roll. Having a bunch of fun and learn a bunch of things in the process.

[@simplementla-vie5543]

by the way they are called stalagtites when they go from ceiling to floor, and stalagmites when they go from floor to ceiling. Just so you know.

[@scottcourtney8581]

Christian st-pierre Close. :-) The ones hanging from the ceiling are "stalactites", and the ones from the floor are "stalagmites".

[@simplementla-vie5543]

***** Then again not bad for a french speaking dude. Thanks i will never forget the one from the ceiling is written with a «C».

[@scottcourtney8581]

Christian st-pierre I was taught to remember it because "stalactite" sounds a little like "sticks tight". It's incorrect grammar, but it does serve as a mnemonic. :-) Just out of curiosity, if you happen to be aware of an equivalent French mnemonic, please let me know, because in my spare time I'm trying to improve my French skills.

[@simplementla-vie5543]

In french it goes. Stalactites = tombe. And Stalagmites = monte.

[@npsit1]

Stalactites = ceiling (both have C), stalagmites = ground (both have G).

[@flufluf4404]

hi andrew i just wanted to say that your humor is amazing, the thing about the stalagmites.

[@gigakoresh]

Decimate modifier is used in very high density meshes that do not use subdivisions (e.g. hard surface sculpting with dyntopo) for easier navigation, since it doesn't destroy your original detail until it's applied. It is useful for scene and object optimizations too. For instance there are parts of the floor in your cave that are never seen in the render. You could select the verts in these areas, add them to vertex group and then decimate that vertex group in order to save render time, since I am pretty sure a few less light bounces off those out of frame areas won't affect much. When scenes are very large and complex this is a very useful tool for making your life easier in Blender. Python isn't exactly known for being a very good language for large polycounts, so the modifier helps you though this issue.

[@TheAngelArrow]

funny how that is used to make caves, when you cna use it to make amazing things other than caves, good stuff dude

[@dwarakeshthegreat4689]

The decimate modifier is used to reduce poly count on a high poly mesh when you have done something large

[@medhue]

The Decimate tool is used alot for game models and quickly reduces polygons if you have too many for the the game to run smoothly. Games also use LODs(Level of Detail) where each object in a game has 3 LODs, so that when the object is far away, the game doesn't need to render all of the polygons. There is no reason to see all the polygons as the object is too far away to see the detail. Decimate is an easy way to make LODs and not affect the UV map. The other day, I was developing a new character for a video I'm thinking of making, and the shoes, I was using, were more polygons than the whole character and all his clothing. I didn't make all the parts of the character, just morphed him, to look unique, and used clothing from many different characters. For the shoe, I just decimated it and it lost no visible detail. Then I didn't get anymore lag from the scene, for when I animate him.

[@MaciekJutrzenka]

people who use decimate to make their low poly stuff are pretty bad. God low poly is made manualy poly by poly.

[@medhue]

That really depends on what you are decimating. For the most part, most things, if originally modeled well, will decimate very evenly. Why would any1 spend the time to get the same or similar results by doing it poly by poly? It doesn't make any sense. Now, if the model has cutouts or has strange geometry, you aren't going to get a good low poly model with the decimate tool. If you are talking about an avatar, then you probably do want to create the low poly option poly by poly. In the end, it is a decision based on time, and the results. If I'm a game designer on a deadline, and my modeling guy is obsessing over objects that are only viewed 100 meters from the players, he is likely going to get an earful from me, if I'm waiting on his work.

[@MaciekJutrzenka]

Medhue Shit models are done with decimating. In good game every object has to be perfect so u do poly by poly to get the best optymalization. This is how u do good graphics game.

[@medhue]

Well, this is a common attitude from game modelers, which is good. Obviously, I'm not 1. I mostly create animations, but occasionally I need to make models for the virtual products that I sell animations in. Dynamic virtual environments do work a bit differently that most other games, but the concepts are still the same. As an animator, the last thing I want to spend my time doing is making LODs poly by poly. Plus it makes little difference to the product nor to the customers that buy them. These aren't items they place all around the game, but something only they wear, like a cane, a hat, or a bicycle. That said, there are game modelers that sell in these virtual worlds too, and If I want really nice models that is super efficient, I'll definitely buy their stuff before any other. If I was making a game, I'd hire them, not make models myself, as I don't enjoy making LODs, at all.

[@granatengeorg]

***** This really depends on. For my use, it will work perfectly for the leaves of plants, but for other stuff, decimation is too inaccurate.

[@MrBettybologna]

I've never seen so many people so passionate about geology.

[@Raziel_Knight]

Just an FYI the top "icicles" in caves are stalactites ("Hold on TIGHT"), and the ones on the bottoms of caves are the stalagmites. Like ("Kicking them with all your MIGHT.") Also the typical look of columns is to have them thinner in the center, because the mineral build creates stalactite at the top and then drips to create a stalagmite at the bottom and eventually, over time they meet in the middle. Now the thinner part where they meet can be closer to the top or bottom, because it can be affected be a number of variables and not just the drip. Excellent vid though btw.

[@SimFiftyFifty]

In french we have a much better way to remember this: StalacTites with a T "tombent" (= fall in french), stalagmites "montent" (= go up)

[@tadamlog]

Thanks for the tutorial! I learned a lot. Last 10 minutes was very confusing. I have to watch it with a bunch of times:D

[@arrayindex2022]

The decimate modifier is used to decrease the pollycount of a mesh so that is is usable in video games and to speed up animation times. It's like a poor man's retopo that requires next to no work. In games there is usually a limit as to how big your mesh can be, due to memory requirements, render times etc. This modifier comes in useful then, but it often requires you to fix up your mesh afterwards.

[@Sportmaniac23]

You should combine the cave and the cliffs that you made previously, it would look amazing!

[@BloodHoundPL]

First of all, thanks for great tutorial, very inspiring and informative :D Decimate comes REALLY handy, when you import models created from design apps, like Inventor. They are really high poly, even straight bars are being cut like crazy along their edges, however it doesn't visually affect the geometry. Planar version of Decimate cleans up unwanted vertices within flat areas, properly adjusted keeps your bevels safe. The problem is topology, weird n-gons might occur, that occupy more than just one plane. However, it's far easier to edit 10.000 verts rather than 10 million :-P

[@SlyMaelstrom]

Stalactites are on the ceiling. Stalagmites are on the ground. "c" for "ceiling" and "g" for "ground."

[@Crnicelad]

The column is actually formed with a junction of a stalaktite (the one from the top) and a stalagmite (the one from the bottom. As drops of water fall of from stalaktites it forms stalagmites at the bottom ;) so usually the column is wider both at the top and at the bottom. Nice tutorial though!

[@Kram1032]

The hanging ones are Stalagtites. They are shaped like a T which hangs down too. The ones that point up are Stalagmites. An M is made of two of them.

[@AfxCrush]

gracias Andrew, estoy aprendiendo mucho con tus tutoriales. Ya me cambie completamente del 3DsMax a Blender

[@JoeWestcottVFX]

Glad to se you back with another awesome tutorial Andrew!

[@realblender3D]

Looks amazing, waiting for the rendering of the higher quality so i can watch the video in all its glorry.

[@mukha521]

Stalagmites are actually growing upwards from the ground and forming those pillars. The ones that hanging from the ceiling are stalactites ;)

[@DamienRivet]

Andrew, thanks a lot for those wonderful tutorial, quite useful for beginners. Pros may found some nice tips too.

[@blackestmamba]

you prolly know this by now but, as far as i know, the decimate modifier is used to lower the poly count of a mesh, for example, if you sculpt it in blender and then you want to use it later in unity, its mostly to be used videogames.

[@allenwest1986]

"The Decimate modifier allows you to reduce the vertex/face count of a mesh with minimal shape changes." So because your mesh is already minimal it reshapes it.

[@migloje]

"Stalagma" in greek is a "drop" ;) great tutorial, reacently i was working on glowing crystal scene in blender too different aproach but, afterwards found your tutorial and liked your method aswell :)

[@scottcourtney8581]

AnnaLeo: You probably have a very radius in your proportional editing. While you're in that mode, try scrolling your mouse wheel before actually moving the selected vertices. You should see a faint circle around your current pivot point (usually selection midpoint or 3D cursor). You may need to zoom out your viewport in order to see the radius indicator.

[@scottcourtney8581]

***** Err, I meant "very *large* radius".

[@idontcareproductions]

Great tut. Stalactites are on the ceiling stalagmites are on the ground. =)

[@tonyc3d]

Andrew...stalag-mites grow from the floor up and stalac-tites hang down..easy way to remember, tights hang down (from a washing line) and mites (kids) grow up ;)

[@pitched7401]

Wait a minute theres a tutorial for that... Only saw it in the composition video. Crazy to see how different today's approach would be totally different

[@mudkipz3213]

The "icicles" are called stalactites. The best way I remember which is which is by considering a pair of tights, and they would be handing downward as opposed to sticking up

[@lakhyee7781]

i imagined this in my head today and boom here is the tutorial omg

[@weegeetimetravel]

A very nice comeback

[@MinistryOfGamersMOG]

Been to Cheddar Gorge a few times. Had to laugh once as my uncle forgot what it was called and refereed to it as "cheesy canyon" great tutorial as always! :)

[@kennylex]

Thank you for the UV tip about the scale, that is a thing that I has missed, Blender should display notifications more visible for us noobs that try to be Blendies. I use "Dissolve" to create different LOD levels for importing to Second Life and to reduce the geometry of Exported Second Life builds.

[@cvebeats]

Lovely tutorial as always Andrew.

[@seraaron]

greetings from the UK

[@Darknes2DWC]

The decimate modifier could be used to quickly simplify a very high polygon mesh into a lower polygon one for things like video games. For video games in things like cinematics they often use higher polygon meshes so it looks better but ingame while playing you need it to run more interactively at much higher FPS so they use simpler versions of the character models. So the decimate tool would be a very easy way to quickly simplify the whole mesh!

[@derkommentatorhd6722]

Thank you, this is my first Blender Cycles scene and its amazing ;)

[@LVDactillion]

Great that you continue doing tutorials now. Awesome work!

[@rdoetjes]

Glad you're back! In your absence I had actually worked on a similar thing. For a backplate but it took forever to render. So I ended up doing a 2.5D approach using Nuke for a fly through. But those crystals would have been an awesome addition. Perhaps the client wants a new rendition and I will add them if they agree :D Great inspiration.

[@TheSuperNoobProject]

"It is the future, embrace it." That really made me laugh

[@Yaybuttons898]

If anyone else was struggling to make the mushroom top, make sure after you press 'P' and make its own selection, go back to object mode and select it.

[@krazywulf1983]

great video thank you.. will go hunt down some textures and try this out

[@terrybellowes908]

I believe our cheese in Tillamook, OR, could compete with Europe. As far the metric system being the way of the future, you may be right, but when I was in school 40+ years ago they told us the metric system would replace ours in a few years. I am still waiting.

[@natemaia9237]

Decimate is used to bring very high poly meshes down to workable levels after doing your bakeouts and UVs

[@Ramp10er]

It's amazing what Blender can do, it looks like Unreal Engine...

[@eXtremeDarian]

AAAAGH!! This is so awesome I've gone insane!! (Sorry. Andrew's tutorials are always just really good. It's just striking me a little hard right now) Ha HAA!! RRRRAAAGH!!! hurgle blurgle...BLAH!!

[@SteonCZ]

You are a real Blender guru :)

[@queenthoria7483]

15:00 : UV unwrapping (ignore this comment. This is for me so I can come back to this later.)

[@bastprodcompany]

Andrew please do a tutorial on matte painting in blender. we as blender users need this technique. you've made a video on camera mapping but matte painting is more important. I need it in my short movies. Thanks a lot.

[@killerminecraftanimations2019]

Bloody awesome mate!

[@xXLeafEaterXx]

Really great tutorial! Only downside is the compositing part, it was very hard to follow along, had to read the written one and go back and forth between the video and written.

[@KenanProffitt]

You are a genius. Thank you for your hard work!

[@carlpeck6465]

Dear Andrew, You are an inspiration and a brilliant source of Blender knowledge BUT... It's "Without further ADO" as in "Much ADO About Nothing" NOT "Without further ADIEU" as in the French for "GOODBYE" You always say it and I know it's sort of your catchphrase, but it drives me crazy. No hard feelings. Keep up the excellent work!

[@Daelmyth]

I got ahold of Blender a little while ago. Glad I found your channel. Sub'd. Thank you soooooo much for these!

[@Starius2]

btw, you gotta remember. EVERY crystal is a light source according to the way you set it up. That's why you were having issues. One main light source from underneath should fix it.

[@KNOTAnime]

you do a lot of really amazing tutorials in fact your the whole reason i started to understand blender but one of the things i still struggle with is how to make good textures since i can't afford crazy bump im 16 so money isn't a very available commodity :( could you maybe do a quick vid on how to make a good texture without crazy bump? im sure there are others that have the same problem

[@FoleysWorld]

i use a photoshop plugin from nvidia, it named "NormalMapFilter". it's free, just google. it's more complicated than crazybump and only for normal and height maps. but anyway, i think for really good looking textures u have to make the reflectionmap and the bump-/normalmap by hand in PS or Gimp. and u must learn some tricks in the node-editor and get feeling about density maps.

[@mutantgenepool]

Use SSBump. It is free and does a very good job.

[@KNOTAnime]

mutantgenepool thanks for telling me about this :D

[@TheArcaneDistrict]

hopefullyunknown I know your question has been properly answered. I just thought I'd throw another free option in there. If you are using GIMP, you can get a plugin called InsaneBump. Which lets you create all sorts of maps, much like CrazyBump. It also has the "preview on 3D-object"-feature. vimeo.com/75277421

[@georgeg9244]

hey, you're probably aware but bump maps in the end of the day are just desaturated copies of your diffuse color texture. Playing with the levels in photoshop / GIMP (never used the latter but I'm pretty sure it's got that functionality), applying the same desaturated image over and over with different blending modes and/or opacity to get the detail you need works pretty well for bump maps. There's the Nvidia plug-in for normals which is pretty decent and for more detailed stuff Sculptris is free as well.

[@jamiehage1839]

I love your videos but just a FYI stalagmites are on the bottom (have to be mighty to hold up the gave). Stalactites are on the top (have to hold on tight or they will fall). Just a little trick I was told to remember the difference.

[@CleggyCool]

I had absolutely no idea that you can do metric in Blender. I just did everything relative. I'm also surprised you don't get cheddar in Australia, too.

[@ExtctnLvlEvnt]

Another Awesome Tutorial Mr Price!

[@yorkipudd1728]

Haha. You should have popped in for a cup of tea mate! Another great vid. Cheers.

[@danielstokes8163]

So who wants to tell Andrew tat what the beady dude was tying to say was stalactite, not stalagmite. sorry Andrew but got the wrong one. ;P Gate tutorial as ever. loads of grate little detail's that really help. Thanks

[@xxilluminatixxxx]

the decimate modifire reduces the polys and subdivisions for a nunber of uses.. like well making shards.. low poly objects and shit.. great video by way :)

[@MXKnight]

Hi andrew, I have a problem with my crystal material. If I set it to underlight the bottom (in edit mode) it will also count the whole crystal. When I render the whole cave lights up too bright even if I adjust the strenth of the emmision. Great tutorial by the way

[@lZY8d70P-sTP]

Decimate is used to minimize vertex count, but it usually just messes up your model.

[@curhob]

37:50 Yep. There is, in game development, you want your meshes to be performant in the game when running, rendering them. The more polygons it has, the more rendering overhead.

[@grimatongueworm]

Fantastic tute. I have a problem. At the point of UV unwrapping, when I set the X,Y,Z scale to 1 for all three axis, my mesh totally deforms.

[@EamonBoyle]

Weird hearing you mention Bristol / Cheddar, I grew up a few miles from Cheddar Gorge, beautiful place!

[@sxyrth]

Really good tutorial like always! one minor error though: if they hang, theyre stalactites, but if they grow upwards, they are stalagmites :)

[@Zephy795]

your original pillar near the entrance look alot more natural , as they are formed from stalagtites and stalagmites connect , not just one big stalagmite

[@topguun10000]

I know I'm late, but the decimate modifier is used for decreasing the number of verts/polys. I learned it in another tutorial

[@LPMarvin99]

I come from Germany and yes our cheese is delicious^^ And your Tutorial is awesome :O