Create a Sand-filled Environment in Blender

[@James_Films]

Thanks so much for stopping by! Be sure to share what you made with me either on Instagram @james_films or by linking it here! Can't wait to see what you come up with :)

[@rahulrajsarma4580]

you know using the primitive cube is a holy sin

[@juutuub0]

I think that's a misunderstanding of old scriptures. Recent empirical studies indicate a small increase in good karma if you don't delete the cube.

[@nineh9739]

@@juutuub0 the default cube is full of sin, it's deletion and recreation is done in absolution.

[@benfromvt]

Im going to proceed to only use cubes from now on maybe ill make a multi-million dollar game :o

[@c3kkos]

No default cubes can be deleted, nor created. They just are within us.

[@luizvictor9258]

Well, half of my projects i started with the default cube

[@szeartur4813]

Behold the tame impala covers!

[@brianao.316]

Damn you beat me to it

[@ibarbitrary]

For the random light streaks in the volumetric, one can also use a noise texture with the density and volumetric shadows enabled; this is more accurate to the natural random fog. Great tutorial btw!

[@whereverimayroar]

Came for the sand tutorial, stayed for tips for improved lighting! Thank you for sharing :)

[@capones4296]

hey could you turn on the overlay that lets us see what you are pressing because rn its really confusing to see what you are doing

[@wbgraphics9894]

yeah boi

[@en2336]

Your blender environment videos are unmatched. The dreamy liminial atmosphere of each one is incredible...please don't stop making these tutorials

[@blakeduddles9290]

This is amazing. I can't believe how effectively you've taught all these concepts in such a short video

[@patrickputz574]

Hello James, not so easy to follow for a beginner, but by working passionately we find a lot of tips that make progress, thank you and have a great evening

[@andrewp4455]

Agreed. I have to keep pausing and rewinding in order to follow suite. But I like the style of it.

[@arknark]

Dude, had no idea about blenderkit. Thank you so much for this tutorial, blenderkit just changed my game

[@shelsioamaral1604]

The gobo trick is really useful Use ctrl+b to limit the render area alt+ctrl+b to disable

[@o5m67]

This tut comes quiet handy as I‘m currently setting up a scene for my 25pdr WW2 field gun in the NA desert. Thx and well done !

[@FlickerJab]

Great stuff, just subbed! Quick note, for the gobo you can use a plane with a single face and apply a noise texture to the alpha of the material instead. This gives you a more optimized scene and you can procedurally adjust the density of the gobo on the fly.

[@Meteotrance]

You can apply that gobo effect directly as a texture with light node modifier instead of modeling a cuculoris shape that let you using more noise generator.

[@marcd7332]

One of the best blender tutorials I’ve seen, great work

[@HolmanphotographicCoUk]

awesome please do more! The only thing i got such on was the volumetrics part at the end i could not get the rays to show, then watching closly i saw you cranked the sun light to 45 and that did the trick!

[@James_Films]

Awesome!! Glad that trick worked for you!

[@HolmanphotographicCoUk]

@@James_Films keep up the great work!

[@The_NSeven]

This was actually really enjoyable to just watch, and not follow. Your calm voice and the optimistic mood is really quite soothing :)

[@James_Films]

Aww thank you!! Means a lot :)

[@danbanate]

I've been following your posts on r/Blender and been waiting for this! Thank you sir!

[@tomaspepepelallo]

Does anyone know why when i use the inflate brush with the displacement deactivated ( on 5:35 ) everything looks fine, but as soon as i activate the displacement again everything looks like a mess? pls help i can't find my error.

[@arccv]

I’m having the same issue. Did you solve it?

[@P.r.o_F.o.o.l]

youll need to turn down strength on the displace

[@edwardhurley4941]

For zeroing out values (like when resetting the camera's location) you can press backspace while hovering over the value

[@gokiburi-chan4255]

these are some incredible lighting damn!

[@pietrospina6303]

@james tralie At 3:02, how do you snap the bottom of the object to the center (0,0,0)?

[@uno789]

you can add noise shader to the light instead using gobo effect

[@justaspectatorpassingthrou6108]

Thanks, helped a lot!

[@kondwanispeaks7528]

Awesome tutorial, watching all the way from Namibia..

[@afrosymphony8207]

this is an incredible tutorial bro!...i kinda like it better without volumetrics cause that beautiful sunset background was more visible, with volumetrics it looked a lil bit too perfect and kinda heavily edited. idk great stuff learned alot.

[@James_Films]

Thanks! Yeah I figured I'd show how to add volumetrics in case you'd like to apply it to this or other creations

[@ReyeOh]

Nice finally got my scene looking the way i imagined it, thank you!!!

[@James_Films]

That's awesome to hear! Link it here - I'd love to see the result!

[@ReyeOh]

@@James_Films instagram.com/p/CEUiRJGDcie/?igshid=wr4lpyputdkq I used the volumetric lighting technique thank you

[@ldfurlan]

Finally, this is what I was looking for

[@andymihaja818]

Your channel is underrated, awesome!

[@James_Films]

Cheers! Slowing growing on here :)

[@babelsindex]

the first displacement voronoi is way larger than yours, I am not sure what I did wrong I followed the steps please help

[@FinnyPlartz]

I think I figured it out, make sure if you scale the plane up in object mode that you apply the scale in edit mode. Ctrl + A in edit mode. Or you can just scale inside of the edit mode :)

[@hawkeyy924]

@@FinnyPlartz Thanks! I was struggling trying to find out where did I go wrong lol

[@rushhours5254]

@@FinnyPlartz you saved my time love you .

[@divyanshsingh5585]

2:15 The righmost bottom corner image is the windows 10 wallapper

[@mbugs_]

I love it when I come across a random video that answers %90 of my thoughts in Blender. You sir are amazing! Well "digestive" content. Subbed.

[@bloodywanker231]

Lots of good stuff in here! Appreciate it!

[@FrostysChannel]

6:22, this has nothing to do with the reason I clicked on the video. But I've been trying to find what resolution to use. Ty ty ty!

[@aqeel77za]

Love Sossusvlei. Absolute Gem

[@Yabbo06]

you are a genius

[@beurredemisell]

thanks dude, i gonna create my own

[@luisalbertoramirezcastillo2201]

omg this is gold

[@cchristophrr]

When I choose voronoi, the displacement is much larger and when I try to sculpt it distorts it entirely. Is there a method to scale it down a bit, other than altering its intensity?

[@cchristophrr]

@Sebastian Gonzales thank you so much!

[@XCOWMEATX]

@Sebastian Gonzales thanks bro

[@cman9730]

@Sebastian Gonzales you hero!!!!!!!!

[@elesonish]

@@XCOWMEATX i cannot see the answer of Sebastian and I'm havig the same issue, can you help me out?

[@XCOWMEATX]

@@elesonish sorry I dont 100% remember but I think he said to apply the scale, so do Ctrl A on the keyboard and then press scale before choosing voronoi

[@zs4760]

Awesome tutorial !! Had a lot of fun making my own sandy render and learnt a lot along the way =D

[@James_Films]

Would love to see the result! Glad you enjoyed this :)

[@zs4760]

@@James_Films imgur.com/a/zAjJaDJ I don't have any socials so I hope the imgur link will suffice!

[@anushreedas7952]

can someone plz tell me what happened there 12:18 what mode did he go to

[@momo_bobo]

He's in material preview mode

[@jerrystokes7080]

Are you able to weight paint the sand so the foot prints only exist from the door through the center of the scene creating a path? I wouldn't think that anyone would be walking along the walls, etc.

[@qkrtkaud999]

It’s what i really wanted to know. Thanks!!

[@tntblender8470]

Man! You are Awesome!

[@philshelly8056]

I can’t get the footprint displacement? When I click on the link it doesn’t appear. Is it an old link or can you send it to me? Many thanks. Great tutorial

[@infinitygohan]

You can sign up to the site it's on for free which will then give you access to it. It's an old link

[@Epinardscaramel]

16:30 perfect pronunciation of Mont Saint-Michel! 🤩

[@kabi19]

ikr was looking for someone who noticed it

[@CarlosMontelara]

Amazing, thanks for sharing. I've had the same problem others have commented on, when applying the Voronoi displacement texture it looks crazy, not similar to your tutorial, wondering what went wrong.

[@davidrivas4758]

hey did you ever figure out the solution? I'm trying to do this now and I am having the same issue :(

[@hoorains1333]

@@davidrivas4758 you have to rescale the plane to 1 before adding modifier

[@sundayblues]

@@hoorains1333 how?

[@hying-lt8kx]

@@sundayblues to scale it: ctrl A > click on scale should do the trick ;)

[@ih4269]

Apply scale control A before adding displacement!

[@3d初心者]

Nice to meet you. I'm watching the video and practicing! My question is, the chair I selected in blenderkit from 17:00 is transparent. Please let me know if you know how to fix it.

[@demianlapii4663]

3:54 scared me to death, but I really enjoyed the video, very informative. Thank you!

[@James_Films]

Hoping to save you from the horrors of searching through hundreds of layers named "PLANE.001, PLANE.002, PLANE.003........" to find the one you're looking for haha!

[@4ryav33r8]

wow! thanks so much dude!

[@binyaminbass]

excellent tutorial.

[@supremebeme]

GREAT tutorial

[@chuffs5286]

Thank you so much, it looks beautiful

[@MohamedNisham]

great one. You deserve more subs man!!!

[@blockthechainer]

well the tut is amazing but in my case i cant pass from the 1st displace, when i tro to sculpt the plane breaks, then tired of that i dotn sculp use the plane wieth the displace apply and try to use the new displacement with the height map, broken worst, is the blender version 2.90 is what im using right now, cuz i dont do anything else floow the steps till everthing going wrong

[@apxllo2685]

try control A apply scale

[@bathbombthief]

@@apxllo2685 Was having the same problem and this worked! Still not sure how to avoid the distortions when sculpting the plane, but I'm content with this fix for now haha

[@alf3071]

man I wish there were mesh modeling tools similar to this for CAD programs like solidworks, that way you could mix exact models with organic models for scenes

[@fatihoktay9450]

@Alex Alfons Use Rhino and mix up a bit

[@AndreasAgus]

Thanks for the tutorial really helpful 👍👍

[@James_Films]

Glad you enjoyed it! Be sure to share what you created!

[@zapfsaeule2]

Super - easy to follow - and so good! Thanks so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@Bram_Duin]

"Easy to follow" I have to rewind every 5 seconds

[@DannyHudetz]

This is awesome

[@Knszr]

realy great work man!!!

[@nmathew1987]

Hi james, I'm not sure if anyone's mentioned this yet, but the HDRI you've linked on your webpage, is different from the one you're actually using in the video. You've linked an evening road HDRI as opposed to the beach sunset one you're using and both have a different lighting impact on the scene.

[@James_Films]

Oh I’m well aware. The one I talk about in this video is no longer free, so I found a free alternative for you to use. I try to use only free assets for tutorials like these and wanted to make sure this one stays free

[@nmathew1987]

​@@James_Films Ohh got it! Just checking :) This one seems to be working just as well. I haven't gotten through the volumetric section yet but I put up an intermediate result here. Would love to know what you think! I was struggling a bit with getting the sunlight to be sharp while also lifting the light levels inside the room. instagram.com/p/CaSM0BKrJ3k/

[@James_Films]

@@nmathew1987 looks awesome so far!!

[@kuschelirmel]

thank you so much for this tutorial! You are great at explaining and I just love the artistic angle you bring to it and that you are willing to share your "secrets" is really kind of you. I know a lot of artists who think if they explain how they do things it will make them somehow less (worth less, less interesting, less magic,... I don't know how exactly to explain, I'm sure you've met the type though). Fun fact: I've been admiring your work on instagram for months and since I'm only now starting on 3D and I come from the Photoshop side of things it never crossed my mind before that this could actually be 3D - I always thought it was "just" a clever edit with stock images and Photoshop. I tried to find stock photos that would work to create something like this but just couldn't figure it out. Since it was never on my top priorities list or anything, it was much less dramatic than it might sound here, just something kinda nagging at me. Then when I started with blender around Christmas I started to view your images in that new light and realized you were using blender (first time actually looking through the tags... yeah, I know ^^). But it took me searching on youtube for "sand scene in blender" to find this tutorial -- imagine my surprise when it was you teaching and sharing your tricks :D Thank you again, so cool!

[@dallos8946]

This is amazing. Good job!

[@smitmachhi1111]

You Sir, have made my day. Thank you soooooo much.

[@jecosci]

Keep up the good work

[@Temac000]

Hey, your tutorial is amazing, but what I recommend you are buying a windshield or a pop filter or even better - both. It is possible to watch your video like that, but it affects whole tutorial quality

[@James_Films]

Haha yeah thanks I just got a new mic so this shouldn't be an issue anymore. Cheers

[@YEMAADA]

When I add the displace modifier to the plane, the entire mesh moves. Is there a way to keep this from happening? I noticed it didn't happen to you. and i try and grab to move it back but when i do this and then enter edit mode it moves to a different location usually to the starting position of where it was before i added the texture and modifier.

[@YEMAADA]

so i watched it again and i think it might be because you scaled in edit mode instead of object mode.. will return with an update

[@YEMAADA]

also shift + z when scaling the room to keep it from going beneath the bottom of the access. This only scales along the y and x axis

[@YEMAADA]

was able to insert the doorway with the boolean object.. moved, scaled and placed the object in edit mode. Went back into object mode and added the modifier, used the eyedropper tool to select the cutter object and then .. boom doorway created

[@YEMAADA]

tried to add another cutter object to the room using the same method, and it didnt work......

[@bowwwh3509]

I love this! To the point any beyond :)

[@ethoslogos9480]

I think the audio is desynced from the actions. It feels like you say what you've already just done. Like really cool stuff you're doing but it's really hard to keep up with it since I hear you say something and then have to rewind video each time to actually see you do it haha.

[@ankurranjankakoty8382]

I couldn't scale/apply the UV thingy at 9:00 !! Do you have any fix for that?

[@smfknj6010]

So much good info in this. Thank you!!!

[@mildeuph0r1a]

It never occurred to my dumbass that Blender-kit also had materials. Thanks a lot James.

[@InfiniteLightAura]

Thank you so much.

[@pavansampath7201]

can u pls tell me how did u remove shadows of scarttring on wall, while sun rays are scrattring??

[@bongo6_462]

The displacement doesnt work properly in blender 4.0 with the footprints...

[@eye1335]

for 15:50 if u don't find the [image and planes] go to edit-preference and search [image and planes] u should see something and check it if u didn't understand here a video kzbin.info/www/bejne/o5SbiKZvg8ydrpo

[@jesudoss7795]

Thank you sir😊

[@spacesciencelab]

Great tutorial, so much I've learned from this one video. :O

[@tdog3753]

A little fast paced but really nice tutorial!

[@drsticdan]

Wayyy too fast paced

[@conquestor8230]

This really helped me, thank you so much.

[@evanalbert2896]

Thanks man!! Great tutorial

[@treesboi]

This is very helpful thank you!!

[@Maceoneone]

for some reason after adding the displace modifier and then making the first sand texture when going into edit mode the plane moves and is higher then it was before... does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix it?

[@Maceoneone]

@Dak City i found out how to fix it, dont move the plane after adding the displace modifier and adjust the strength until it looks good. Then if you go into edit mode the plane will be in the right place.

[@rushhours5254]

Finny: say it > its worked for me . I think I figured it out, make sure if you scale the plane up in object mode that you apply the scale in edit mode. Ctrl + A in edit mode. Or you can just scale inside of the edit mode :)

[@unknownboi.]

@@Maceoneone Thanks!

[@aashay]

Glad to have found your channel 🙏🙏

[@EJarvenpaa]

Very well done and you have a pleasant way of presenting! I have been looking for a good sand tutorial, so thank you! Only minor criticisim I have is about those audio bumps, not sure if it's you hitting the mic or what but those are quite distracting and not pleasant especially while using headphones, otherwise good work! Thank you for sharing your art and knowledge!

[@SykeFuZi0nS]

my voronoi ends up alot crazier than yours upon applying it and after sculpting with inflate and smooth is affects it drastically making the bumps sharp and glitchy, ive done literally every step the same as u, whats going on?

[@babelsindex]

I have also done the exactly the same and got the same results as you, did you figure it out yet?

[@Jack-gp1ng]

@@babelsindex That happens if you sculpt while viewing the displacement modifier. If you temporarily disable it while sculpting it should work fine

[@suuuperyana]

Thank you for this tutorial

[@Bram_Duin]

Lots of trial and error with the order of applying the modifiers, keeping them around messes up when you insert the height map thingie and same goes for applying them in the wrong order Has to be exactly like you do in the vid else it looks wrong

[@alexjanaqi]

I'm having trouble with the lighting before volumetrics. I built the scene exactly like you did but I am not getting enough light inside my cube. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong? Anyhow great tutorial, learnt so much from this

[@danielvintem8304]

Hey. Try to unlink the Cutter. It worked for me. I was obtaining an underexposed render image before too :)

[@sundayblues]

@@danielvintem8304 how do u unlink it?

[@QuotientX]

8:30 What is the shortcut?

[@krishna-dr4wl]

If you zoom In you can see that there are many many default cubes

[@kokoalmasry]

great work

[@sosiskakiller1047]

Please answer me, I don't have a button on the right "blender", but only 3 "vie", "tool" and "item" on the panel when you added the sand texture. Tell me how to activate it, please

[@the11thhour44]

Dunno if you still need it, but BlenderKit is an addon, it's not there by default. To get it, go to Edit - Preferences - Add-ons, then type "BlenderKit". It should show up now on the right.

[@_khooman_chronicles_]

1:00 could someone tell me the source of that image... I have a hard time finding them online.

[@AhmedSalah-bf3mr]

with so many possibilities. I also tried so called best free DAW programs (if I managed to at least install it h Cakewalk) and I didnt like

[@md0987]

Can you do something like very easy for beginners to understand?

[@SuperIceteapeach]

the sand editing is not working for me... the brushes fuck up my mesh really hard and if i want to do proportional editing, the plane jumps up faIrly high and i cant see what im doing :/ my scene is a little different. anyway great tutorial, learned a lot!

[@bigblackcrocs5158]

whats the difference and uses for the principle volume vs the volume scatter? I looked it up but im too new to understand what the other words theyre referencing really mean. Does the principle just have more you can do with it, since like i saw there is a spot for emission that volume scatter is missing

[@thatoneweirdkid9118]

this is def not for beginners like me because I couldn't even figure out how to pull up subdivide.... hopefully I learn all the basic stuff so I can come back to this video and follow through the tut with ease

[@Userjdk11031sks]

Thank you:)