Space VFX Elements – The Ultimate Guide to Creating the Galaxy in Blender

166

    Gleb Alexandrov

    • This is really cool, a most anticipated and must have tuts on the Blender CG planet !

      • Let’s go further. In the Blenderverse! The multi-blender-verse even. Oh… that was too far almost.

        • NoviceInDisguise

          The hype train is real with this one 🙂

          • As in Queen’s song: “Too much hype will kill you, just as sure as none at all” :0 Or was it love?

    • MArtur

      Looks awesome and I almost bought it but in some courtiers VAT has to be added to the price what you will don’t be informed until the last step of buy. That always makes me frustrated and I resign of purchase. I will look if any information appear on web and after that I will buy and learn this qool stuff.

      • dnvdk

        i don’t get what you are saying… what is VAT ? thanks

        • MArtur

          VAT is a tax that you have to pay for example in Europe Union countries and it is there around extra 20% so the price for me is not 60$ but more than 72$ and nobody will give me back the difference.

      • Martur, I can totally understand you 🙂 Indeed, that VAT thing is such a headache, but unfortunately it’s how digital purchases work on Gumroad. No other way around, because of the recent european laws. I’m sorry that it was frustrating for you.

        • MArtur

          Hi Gleb. I understand that I have to pay it but is it possible just to add a note?
          I’ve spoke to one of my friend that works for big company and he said that they know the situation but they makes that in purpose because it just looks better. I don’t think is fair.

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/36feaadf3aedca8f1a05b6eb01e4ad8885445a61dac7ea6cbd60d9aa81e9146e.png

          • Thanks, that’s a fair point. We’ve updated our Gumroad page with this info: (NOTE : Price does not include any VAT that Gumroad will automatically calculate based on country of purchase).

            • MArtur

              Thank you. I very much appreciate it.

            • We’ll think about the other ways to make this message clear, too. Like the one you suggested.

      • Pete Robie

        That’s an awesome kudos. His work is pretty top notch too. Congrats guys.

    • The first comments on Youtube are spectacular. We couldn’t even hope for such a warm feedback. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9e2805c6437a0d7b8ea5774dd658fc79cf3121931273eaed83311266b8f3cd3d.jpg

    • novak miler

      Keep it up and I will eventually be broke. Shut up and take my money

      • Novak, think positive. It’ll give you a creative punch to make an awesome space art, so the clients will throw cash at you :)) It will be alright.

        • novak miler

          Love your work. Thank you for this. Looking forward to the next project 😀

    • Aidy and me, we are humbled by your kind words.

      • novak miler

        Just one thought…..perhaps add a ‘Download All’ button on the dl page:)

        • Hi Novak! Aidy here, Gumroad doesn’t like filesizes over 16GB and so we’ve broken things into 3, so all 22 videos can be downloaded in just 3 zip files. 🙂 Also for dropbox people I think they can get it one click. 🙂 Aidy.

    • Abraham Enoch

      Woo hoo! This looks awesome! Since christmas is coming up, is there anyway to buy this for someone else as a gift?

    • KHAIRIL ANUAR BIN MUHAMAD

      how much the VAT will cost me? im buying from malaysia. please help me

      • You will see it, before making purchase – basically Gumroad will show you the breakdown of the price. 🙂

      • Hi!

        Apologies for the delay, it’s probably you wouldn’t pay any VAT from Malaysia, we believe it’s just for European countries that it is added. Hope that helps. 🙂

        Aidy.

    • Caetano Veyssières

      Very exciting
      One thing bothers me though. That’s not a black hole but a wormhole.
      Interstellar is indeed a great reference, as it depicts both objects very accurately because the guy who worked on their depiction (Kip Thorne) is a real astrophysicist specialized in gravitational physics. But it seems you took the wormhole from Interstellar for a black hole.

      However someone (BlackRainbow) actually reproduced Interstellar’s black hole with Blender very accurately (here : https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?360261) and provided his blend file on Blendswap : http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/77107

      I wonder if you used a different approach for your gravitational lensing.
      Although the price seems low for this quality, it would be nice to have a special formula to have only the parts we want (kind of like for Andrew’s rock essentials)

      • Agree 100%, the black hole by BlackRainbow is brilliant! And I also love the making-of that he posted on Blendernation. I used slightly different approach to gravitational lensing, I guess a more straightforward one.
        Thanks for your interest!

    • Andreas

      Warning! If you look at this site… Glebs black hole start to swallow up your money…. 🙂
      I fear I can´t resist…
      But could you tell me the size of the files of the downloads? Because my connection isn´t the fastest and I´m not the youngest 😉
      So I have to check first if I still experience the download 🙂

      • Hey Andreas, there is 25 GB of tutorials and assets, in total. Hope that helps =) https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/667cebe5b4b4a7c2db3a1ba80e1e54ee9d22b3e77472d32bb9f0ad9b351a9cc5.jpg

        • Andreas

          Wow – heavy…
          But just bought. (Now you can order coffee till next year 🙂
          Looking forward to see the tutorial. I´m sure I will not be disappointed. I learned so much with the lighting hack-tutorial.

          Greeting from Austria

          • Andreas, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed. 🙂 We’ve been working hard to make sure it’s a high quality stuff. Imagine the high quality hand-picked coffee beans, freshly roasted. This is it, but in Blender.

    • SonnySee

      Purchased the course yesterday and have been enjoying the tutorials and looking forward to what I can create with it!
      One quick question. Regarding faking the Rayleigh scattering – Do you know some way to create a driver to force the normal ‘trackball’ to follow the light rig rather than having to manually do it whenever the lights change?

      • Hi, thank you so much. Means a lot to us 🙂 I’ll ask Aidy about the drivers to control the rayleigh scattering angle.

      • Hi! Yes it is possible, though it’s not entirely pleasing since the viewport doesn’t give immediate feedback. I think using the new depsgraph stuff could help though but that goes one more level of complexity we’d rather avoid teaching at the level we are aiming at. In any case, check this cool tutorial out by Jonathan Lampel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvx4pYGK0a0 He shows setting up drivers in case you weren’t familiar with the process, however, instead of using mapping nodes, add a driver as you say to the normal dot node instead. I haven’t tested this completely but it appears to work anyway. 😀 Aidy.

      • I think you can instead combine two techniques that are shown in the tutorials on the course (I still have to try it, though, so it is an untested idea). Gleb uses the volumetric fake rayleigh scattering based on the normal node to drive the factor – this does not have an input other than manual tweak. Aidy uses the gradient texture driven by an object copy rotation (but with an emission / transparent shader). If you create an empty that is tracking its rotation to the keylights in Gleb’s rig, you could use that empty’s rotation as the object for the gradient texture input that is driving the raleigh, this could work. Should be easier than trying to calculate the normals (and be more flexible, hopefully). Shortcut: use gradient texture directly driven by the lighting rig circle empty – here you have the limitation that you cannot move the lights _within the rig_ anymore like Gleb is doing all the time, but if you only use the rig, the gradient and hence the rayleigh should follow automatically. Hope makes sense.

    • Thomas Zettelmayr

      Question regarding VAT – I have a regular VAT-ID as a company in Austria and there should not be VAT for this purchase. Will there be a step in the shopping process where I can enter my VAT-ID?

      • Hi Thomas, here’s what Gumroad f.a.q. forum tells us: “…if you have been charged VAT, but are a business with a valid VAT Number issued by any Member State of the EU, please buy the product, then wait for your email receipt to arrive.

        On your email receipt is a button that says GENERATE INVOICE.

        When you click this button, you’ll be sent to an invoice field. There, you can enter your VAT registration number and automatically process a refund for the VAT you paid. This refund will take 2-3 days to arrive at your credit card or PayPal account. ”

        I took it from here: http://help.gumroad.com/11167-buyer-faq/i-need-a-vat-refund

        Hope it helps!

        • Thomas Zettelmayr

          Hi Gleb,

          I ordered and followed the steps above. There was only a field to enter a VAT, but no explicit indication that it would now process the order differently. However, the invoice showed the right amount and after a few days my card was also billed correctly. It is a bit unusual, but it works fine.
          Thank you for these tutorials and the georgeous imagery.

    • Harvister

      Great release Gleb I purchased it last night very good tutorial

    • Loudog49

      Bought my copy too! Looks real great with a wonderful presentation and quality. The extra materials are just icing on the cake. Can’t wait to Blender up some space scenes! Keep up the good work 🙂

      • Aaaaaaaawesome, I’m the most happy nerd in the universe. Glad that you like the extra materials, too!

    • Michael Yoseph

      This looks incredible!! I will be purchasing this ASAP. Question, is there a monthly payment plan? Or does it all need to be the $60 right up front?
      Thanks so much!!

      • Michael, we decided to choose the most simple way, just an upfront $60 🙂 Hope it will work for you.

        • Michael Yoseph

          Thanks so much! I will be purchasing this beauty soon! Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us so we too can become incredible nerds 🙂 lol

    • Ethan Merrill

      Looks amazing! I’m definitely getting it for Christmas. One question, will Photoshop work in place of Gimp? I already own photoshop and know how to use it, but if it only works with Gimp, I’ll just download Gimp.

      • Sure thing! Ethan, you can use any image editing software you like 🙂 Photoshop will work too, of course. That said, a few functions may demand a different approach in Photoshop, but the differences should be minimal.

    • Greg P

      Stupid question.
      I have this, but is there supposed to be planet images/textures included? I don’t see them in the files, but the tutorial #1 loads up these images in to Blender. It’s just not clear if they are included or not.

      • Hey Greg, thanks for your question. We have reuploaded the ‘resources’ .zip on Gumroad, now it has an additional folder with textures. Can you please download it one more time?

        • Greg P

          Yes, downloading now.
          Thanks Gleb!

          • If you have any other questions, just let me know 🙂

            • Greg P

              Im really looking forward to this, it all looks amazing.

    • Christoph Struber

      Hi! I am a professional Autodesk Maya user but don’t know much about Blender. Do you think I’d be able to follow along?

      • Christoph, first of all, your vimeo showreel and your renders are very impressive! 🙂 If you know the basics of Blender, I think you’ll be able to follow through. That said, the course includes some advanced stuff as well. So it will most certainly require some additional effort on your side, to translate the Maya experience to Blender. You can try and if it’s too complex, we’ll be happy to refund 🙂

        • Christoph Struber

          Thanks for the kind words, I think I’ll give it a try! As I have quite some experience with space art I hope I’ll hope i find some new ideas and maybe I can even adopt those ideas for my Maya/Nuke/Photoshop workflow.

          • Awesome! Checking your stuff I agree, I think you’ll have very little problem here and you’re entirely right, I think some of these principals are easily transferable. 🙂 Aidy.

    • Felipe Richter

      OMG!!! THis is amazing!!!! Very Very good job!! Congratulations!!

    • Hey, Great product, but are you are you able to provide a zip with all the textures used, rather then us having to go into each blend file and export them all. Cheers

      • Hey Markom, today we updated the resources .zip archive with the new textures folder. 🙂 If you have already downloaded it, can you download it again please?

        • Brilliant. Cheers for that. Just something that I noticed before I went to bed. Thank you

    • Jonathan Wright

      Hey there, I just purchased this (as it looks super super awesome!) but I am having some trouble viewing 02-Texture Coordinates (Primer) in Quicktime on my Mac. So far 01-Simple Planet and 03-Advanced Planet have worked fine but 02-Texture Coordinates (Primer) is not playable. I tried re-downloading it in case it got corrupted but have the same problem 🙁 Any advice? I haven’t managed to download all of the files yet but hope this is the only one I have the issue with.

      • One Odd Sheep

        I had the same issue. I downloaded VLC Media Player and it works perfectly. I think Windows Media player is missing something.

        • Jonathan Wright

          That worked! 🙂
          Thank you. Very odd, I do a fair amount of video production work and have never had that problem with files that were ultimately still openable.

          • Hi just a quick note, all the files as of yesterday should now work for
            pretty much any media player. It was a ‘container’ issue I believe but
            all sorted now! 🙂 Aidy.

    • Hi Gleb, hi Andrew, awesome tutorials (I am currently wading through them). Is this the place for the in-depth questions or do you plan to have a separate forum for going into discussions or anwering questions for people who purchased (rather than cluttering this thread for all the others who go: “what is he talking about?”) … and, of course, some of the tipps and tricks reapplied might be things you wanna keep to people who actually bought it. LOL

      On general: thanks, this fixed some things that I wondered about for a long time. For those who consider:
      – gives fantastic insight into some procedural textures (such as gradient) which remained to be a myth to me – as they never did what I thought they should after reading documentation
      – very nice tweaks to render settings to not fall asleep for viewport updates 😉
      – very structured and very good references to what coffee to drink alon (Gleb’s) courses

      • Hi, thanks so much for your quick review! Sure, you can ask the questions here in this thread, or alternatively you can email them to me or to Aidy (you can use the contact form on this website if you wish). Cheers.

      • Aidy here! 😀 That’s a great write up for sure! Thanks so much, really glad we’ve made some things clearer for you! That makes us very proud. 🙂

        Gleb is a huge endorser of coffee fueled antics, I must also push forward hmm, now let me see, let me just go with very dark chocolate as an excellent fueling source too! 😀

        • I mailed my questions & comments to Gleb directly (as referring to details in the tutorials that would confuse audience). But the more I watch, the better it gets. I had a chocolate moment as I was thinking during the atroid field tutorial “why is he not changing the orientation of the shadow streaks” until at the last moment you off-handedly changed the colour ramp; that made me smile a lot. ;-)))
          I can only repeat – very great course, more than worth the money!

    • Jason

      I am totally new to Blender, with a basic understanding of C4D… I’m coming from this with an After Effects background – so my question is, what are the skillsets recommended to get up and running with this? Thanks!

      • Jason, a basic knowledge of Blender would help. Say, navigating in the viewport, moving stuff around and using hotkeys. That said, we tried our best to make it accessible even for a complete beginner. For example, all hotkeys that we use are being displayed in the corner. And we approach every tutorial step-by-step, while explaining every bit of it. 🙂
        p.s. Moreover, the project files are included. You’ll be fine! 🙂

    • PM

      Can this be ordered on dvd for those that dont have internet access but are still willing to buy, Therefore not having to worry about player issues.?

      • Hey PM, sorry there is only a digital version available for now. In the future we may run the limited round of physical copies, if the demand will be high enough. Thanks!

    • Rob

      Aidy, Gleb, what an awesome set of tutorials, thank you!

      I also have a question: I get the weirdest thing when following the procedural planets tutorial: it seems that the cloud layer is ‘eating’ most of the light from the sun lamp in the scene.

      I dutifully copied Aidy’s instructions, both planet and cloud layer look nice. When I render or preview-render just the planet, all is fine. When I turn on a cloud layer, most of the light from the sun lamp is gone and I get an unexpected glossy effect. If I turn on a second cloud layer, the planet itself becomes a black hole as far as visibility is concerned. With one cloud layer on, when I move the camera inside it, the planet is visible as expected. If turn both cloud layers on and move the camera inside, things go haywire again.

      Did I not understand something about the cloud layers in the tutorial? (Could it be Blender 2.78a on MacOS?)

      **Edit**
      (Looking slightly flushed) Ehm, it seems I did indeed not understand something about the cloud layers… Turns out that if you use transparency, it actually works (much!) better if you do not set your transparent bounces to 1…

      I reset the bounces to default, and it brightened up my (and my planet’s) day considerably 🙂

      • aha! Glad you’re enjoying the tutorials! Sounds like you’ve navigated through it with greatness! It isn’t easy finding those sorts of settings sometimes, it’s an awesome but sometimes frustrating learning experince when that happens, nicely done sorting it out! 🙂 Aidy.

    • Gleb, Aidy – Awesome job! I just got gifted this for Christmas and I am blown away by how fantastic it is! I know I will spend all of Boxing Day making some crazy planets, and I can’t wait to see what others create with this incredible resource. Cheers, Oli.

      • Hey Oliver, if you get any w.i.p renders, we’ll be super happy to take a look at it! I’m always curious to see what others create, as well. Just send it to me or Aidy 🙂

    • Иван Кириленко

      That’s great! I’ve joined to the spaceship team!

      • Welcome on board then! We’re heading to… where? Mars, or maybe even farther?

    • Greg P

      Can someone point me to “follow active quads” uv unwrap guide, i just cannot get this to work, and this is on tutorial #1, make a simple planet.
      Thanks. I cant seem to find why it does not work.
      (Ha, just after i posted, i tried “reset” option in uv menu, that fixed it). Lucky guess!

      • Haha, I just wanted to say about the UV reset. 🙂 I’m glad that you managed to solve it on your own.

    • Shastro

      Something I made fairly quickly with these tutorials, to be part of a larger scene. I made an icy planet with a custom texture and all 😀

      I’ve also attached a render of my WIP image involving the planet. Will take ages to fully model and texture. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/61210aa2b696e1326760802f95de6ac06082ee5191c399ceb3c57461b0f141da.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ff62d01eeac83ead218a6efde686f055d1d30bc6f014aaa85a9d99b1ad162a9d.png

      • Woah Shastro, the composition looks super promising (though I would play a bit more with the composition to add some kind of depth and perspective). The planet itself feels chilling and looks ace!

    • Иван Кириленко

      Gleb and Aidy you are aliens )))) How did you get it? That is alchemy mixed with aliens’ magic drill !!! I love this awesome stuff ! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/42aa63c45f547795f14bfb250ab7b33c1d9ee105677fed4d1cfb2729e579e4e2.png

      • I look awfully like a xenomorph in the morning (before taking shower at least). I’m sure Aidy has a similar alien experience on some occasions. Worth asking!

    • skaldys

      Congratulations
      for the Tutorials, it was my Christmas gift and since then I have learned a
      lot about shaders, planets and recreate all elements, I sincerely find
      it sensational. And at a very good price. and whith updates!
      The
      way yours explain and develop the materials is very interesting,
      technical and creative and leaves open many possibilities to recreate
      other types of space objects.
      My prefer videos are the planets in close up for Gleb and the Sun video for Andy is Great !.
      I hope to include all what I learning in my next projects this year.
      Best Regards.

      • A good choice, Skaldys. I also like the Sun video and the Planet close-up tutorial!
        Have you already checked the update that we released? It contains about 1.5 hours of training on the micropolygon displacement. It should complement the other tutorials nicely. Especially the asteroid stuff.

    • Raphael Beguin

      Hi does anyone already considering using volumetric node, instead of the diffuse node for the cloud shader ?

      i know it’s memory and time consuming, and the diffuse node is already a hack of this method, but how about the feeling, just thought about it while playing with this node library https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGhN4g2YjN4

    • BlackNiboLion

      There is nothing better than to learn from the Best. VFX is one of the back bone of CGI and thanks to Gleb alexandrov and aidy for sharing with us the wonders of blender Technology. Blender is a galaxy on its own with different stars, And we are lucky to be part of the blender galaxy.

      • Blender is just a little galaxy embedded in a larger constellation of galaxies, with a super massive black hole right in the center.

        • BlackNiboLion

          hmm yeah

    • Pablo Carlos

      Congratulations on the excellent work. This material has to be translated and disseminated throughout the world!!!

      • Actually this is a good idea. Maybe it could be realized in form of subtitles. Something to think about.

    • Lukas Hohl

      The mars texture is not seamless(?), there is a black stripe on the right! I know it is easy to fix…
      I am just mentioning it.
      P.S.: Extremely awesome tutorials!

    • ChiaraM

      • Oh damn, that’s lovely! The fact that it’s stylized makes it even more awesome. My I share it on Twitter?

        • ChiaraM

          it would be awesome! thank you again!

    • Иван Кириленко

      Hi, guys! Can you help me with baking process? That smth strange occured when I tried to cook normal map. It looks like pink liquid steel! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6f37324fd3402b7374971987cca30e33ce1eb393eb50e9c68b81740bfb46e680.png

      • Seb Roméo

        You may have put the subdivision surface in second position…put it always first 🙂

    • Eraiasu

      • Eraiasu, holy moly you should be proud (and perhaps, we too :)). The results speak for itself. The topmost planet even has some kind of a volume light?

        • Eraiasu

          Hi Gleb, thanks! I had lot’s of problems getting the volumes to work the way I wanted. Also render times were so slow with the volume shaders, so I dropped them. The glowy bits on my planets are just glare nodes in the compositer. Quick and easy fix 😉

    • Loyson Bryan

      Just bought the course, only watched the first video so far but damn this is great.

      my first 3 simple planets, can’t wait to see what’s next.
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/13b07483e943c918c0d6e86f5e09bb199b364592eb005ee1b4b34e8e4757e904.png

    • Luis Mencos

      Hi guys, I got my first images… thanks a lot Gleb

    • Luis Mencos
    • Luis Mencos

      • Woah Luis, this lava planet blew my socks off! Can I share it on Twitter?

        • Luis Mencos

          Thanks for your coment Gleb, of course you can, it would be great.

        • Luis Mencos

          Of course you can, please do it.

    • Luis Mencos
    • Joshua Brendemuhl

      Do you get DVDs, or do you have to download it?

      • Hey Joshua, you receive the download link after you buy the product, basically. Please correct me if I misinterpreted your question.

        • Joshua Brendemuhl

          No, that was my question. Thanks(:

    • James

      Thanks for making these tutorials. Really opened my eyes to the power of cycles and blender. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/42402ecc532e279a9ad6d5328cda9e48dd2b9f7b21581fb1c07ed59c656d0f42.jpg

    • Luis Mencos
    • Luis Mencos

      I would like to know what happens inside a black hole…. thanks for this amazing tutorial Aidy and Gleb.

    • A.nimated

      Made this HD dual monitor wallpaper with what I have learned from you and Aidy. Thankyou very much for the knowledge! It was worth every cent! I broke the laws of physics in several ways in the making of this image. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9e0285afc0916e79c61160fb6b9df203ccb51c91d338cec571908dd93c47803e.jpg

      • Wow that’s monumental, and the color scheme looks intriguing. I would love to see the photo of these 2 monitors with this wallpaper, and you sitting in front of it 🙂 Thanks for sharing.

    • Michael Yoseph

      Hey guys, I’m loving the course so far! Thank you so much.
      I’m currently doing the Asteroid course, and for some reason when I change the image texture to “box” instead of “flat, the image still has stretching on the rock, resulting in some poor looking results. My asteroid is looking more like a Croissant at this point. Thank you!
      Thank you! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ff281564f289959f89dbe7c6d1274615b0a089b5705a983d0cb1854b788f9079.png

    • Aled Lewis

      Will this still be available in July? Thinking of my birthday so I can justify having it. 😉

    • Steve Amphaijit

      Hi everyone.. is this only available for Blender or will this also work in Cinema 4D soon?

    • Paweł

      1. I’m not sure if this is the right place for a review of Space VFX Element, but the product is really good, so I’ll leave a couple of comments.
      2. You get the chance to practice a lot with the Node Editor – which is a powerful tool – but also a real pain in the… head, at least for me. After dozens of combinations of MixRBG, RGB Curves, Color Ramps, Add/Mix Shades and such I think I have at least a general idea what those things can do.
      3. There are both parts of the course that you do in Blender only, and parts that involve 2D Software and some pictures you modify a lot, to get something new and then import it to Blender. It was fun painting that 3D sky, switching from Blender to Krita.
      4. I agree that the course is rather fast, but I think that both Gleb and Aidy put a lot of effort to explain the most difficult parts slowly and clearly.
      5. Most of the lessons are stand alone and I think you can actually choose which one you take first.
      6. My stupid, previous generation GPU didn’t fry during the course. And there is a lot of changes to the render setting along the course, so I think that a bad-ass computer isn’t necessary to finish most of the tutorials.
      7. A thing worth mentioning – you might want to switch off “Filmic” (if you’re using it) and return to default Color Management setting to render HDR 360 panoramas properly.
      8. If you can afford to buy the course and I think it is affordable, don’t hesitate. I’ve had a lot of fun with it.
      9. I’m just a Blender hobbist and a greenhorn and I don’t think my pictures are so impressive, but I’ll just leave some of them 😉 https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a2000b85214b4d716e4a9eddf6737014ecdfc858324c77c8219779e610da75fa.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c9683c147512d023cbcfad22fe82c77d4b7fedcc2fe2c4611aea4be24303d4b1.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/30a21b1267290132641615e3de8a441eae09e925115ff2fa9ef2bcf89decd27f.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e01b65d7e92fa14acd77c6dda42007f48fd23debc4e834a6746bb789c3409f9c.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f3f2baaeb78e1da31a36a114951272d2331dc1a89161a383f7474040bab8277e.jpg

      • Thanks for the review, Pawel, I’m very happy to hear that it wasn’t TOO fast to follow along. That said, we’ll try even harder to explain all things in-depth in the next tutorials 😉
        Regarding the standalone nature of the tutorials, we wanted to make sure that the meaningful chunks of the course can be watched in any order (want asteroids? watch just asteroids, etc :).
        Pawel, may I post your review on Facebook, with a proper credit?
        p.s. delicious renders!!

        • Paweł

          Sure. I don’t have Facebooks, Twitters and such, so if my name’s needed, it’s Paweł Czerwiński.
          PS. Keep up the good work! I’ll definitely be interested in the next courses.

    • Having an absolute blast following this training course! Here are a couple of my favourite renders so far:
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/08bd375f0eccf44fd71be4939fc0cb42afef946f45f9700c8b0f5f6991305d92.png
      Ice Planet on the brink of destruction… No idea why, it just looks cool. 🙂
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c49ce8b536b5113f359612477832536a342ee2d0982a00a4aa02838f83d8ffa6.png
      I swapped out one of the two fog glare nodes for a glare ghosting one… I almost like it better than the above one. 🙂
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/47fb99b29496e4d5542b5b115ad9f74eefdffac0dd11727981fcd325920b7864.png

      Thank you very much for creating this amazing course, I have been after good training in this genre for a long time. 🙂

      • Jordan, how long did it took you to create the ice planet & the lava planet? Just curious 🙂 They look remarkable, I think Aidy will agree with me here! btw, with some kind of a spacey background they would look even fancier.
        And also, would you mind if we show it on our Facebook and Twitter?

    • Abdullah Saif

      this is very awesome and very huge… i have one question though, since this is alot of reading i just wanna know, will we get the textures in this, like for example, the rock textures on asteroids, the planet stuff etc. and the space HDRIs etc. or will we have to buy/get them separately from separate websites? Also just one more thing. will we need any other softwares other than blender itself. just wanna know as i may have missed the this thing if it is mentioned in all of that information above. Thanks in advance

      • Abdullah, all textures and .blend files are included into the course, no need to buy any extra things from external websites. As for the software, you’ll need Blender and optionally Krita, free image-editing software.

        • Abdullah Saif

          thank you so much for clearing out my confusions… as for the whole thing itself, ill buy it after my exams end

    • Pingback: Space VFX Elements | CG Masters()

    • Mathieu Hevey

      Very good tutorials, even for a beginner like me.
      -Well explained
      -Good pacing
      -Easy to follow

      Great job guys!

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    • Black Hat

      Hi;
      no have any experience in blender and i would start to learn the blender so can this course very good for me as a beginner level .
      Thanks

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    • Aled Lewis

      Hey guys, I’m going through the course at the moment and enjoying it. I’m just wondering: are there any forums or channels for help that you could recommend we can take if we’re struggling with any of it?

    • Gd

      Hi, it was a great fun learning all these space stuffs. I am an astronomy educator and i was going to make a space documentary, i had no idea where do I start. After i came across this course, now i feel like i got my wings, almost half part of the documentary is finished. I will post the trailer as soon as I finish it in your comment box. And ya i am planning to give you credit at the end of documentary. But no matter how much I tried i couldn’t make real looking lunar surface, i want to zoom from space to lunar surface in seamless way. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE MAKE A TUTORIAL ON HOW TO CREATE REALISTIC LOOKING LUNAR SURFACE, I will post some of my trial photos of lunar surface if you respond. Thanks a lot

    • Gd

      Hi, it was a great fun learning all these space stuffs. I am an astronomy educator and i was going to make a space documentary, i had no idea where do I start. After i came across this course, now i feel like i got my wings, almost half part of the documentary is finished. I will post the trailer as soon as I finish it in your comment box. And ya i am planning to give you credit at the end of documentary. But no matter how much I tried i couldn’t make real looking lunar surface, i want to zoom from space to lunar surface in seamless way. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE MAKE A TUTORIAL ON HOW TO CREATE REALISTIC LOOKING LUNAR SURFACE, I will post some of my trial photos of lunar surface if you respond. Thanks a lot

    • Naoki Hamanaka

      Hi I purchased this product and downloaded blender 2.77 but functions are organized a lot different from the one you are using in the turorial. For example, I’m working on simple planet but there’s no “Size” in lamp area. I’m stuck and can’t finish the first lesson 🙁 Where can I find the one you are using? If I cannot, what can I do to keep going? https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a98c1ae9a5dc869dab3d0e0dbbbc198aa4f93b83cbe3c422ac39d3b0a779b5d9.png

      • Naoki, you have to swtich to the Cycles render engine at the top of the screen (right now you have the Blender Render enabled). Let me know if you have any more questions. 🙂

    • Oh My!
      Getting this RIGHT AWAY!
      Sorry for the delay,
      But today is the day,
      I’ve got some dough,
      To trow at yo!
      Again, a big thank you for everything that you do!

      • Woo!
        I’m happy as hell,
        bro, you’re doing SO WELL!
        Thanks from Aidy and me for supporting our team,
        p.s. much appreciated!

        • You are such a poet!
          I love you, Gleb Alexandrov!
          Well, I love my cat, my girlfriend, but then there’s you!
          And yes in that particular order (love my cat first and foremost).
          A Big thank you for who you are Gleb.
          You not only bringing priceless knowledge into my life,
          you also bring me joy, and especially laughter.
          You are, for REALZ, a Godsend in the Blender Community!
          THANK YOU 🙂
          Kind regards, Stéphane.

          • And a big thank you to Aidy as well 🙂

    • Jacob Perl

      So interested in this. Please tell me there is an option to view the course online rather than downloading it to my system. :-p

    • Jacob Perl

      Hi Gleb, I’m already having trouble (oh boy) with the first video “Simple Planet”. At about 9:00 you scale the extra loop cut down pretty small around the pole, but I cannot seem to scale it that small…when I try (hitting S then moving in) it won’t scale past a certain point (the ring is much larger than what you scaled to) and at that point bubbles up to a plateau (different than the way it distorts in your video)…of course my scaling technique is probably wrong, but I think I’m following what you’re doing…would appreciate any ideas. While you’re at it could you explain how the extra loop cut prevents distortion?

      • Tristan Shah

        I finally figured it out. You scale the second loop cut down. Not the one you created.

        However I am getting a problem with my textures being distorted, even after UV unwrapping the planet.

    • Баха

      Hi there, I bought SPACE VFX one copy at November 8th, can I have my money back? Unfortunately, I did not found solution in this course for my project. I couldn’t find a use of it when I needed.

    • jason young

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eda2064443d0ddbdc694160231f4e2308d60c9cf4eeb0701af4fef4d4aef2dc0.png
      Here is what I made using your Space VFX. Im really liking it so far you gave my sci fi pictures some umph that it needed.Thanks for your course Im learning a lot.

    • florent petitdidier

      Very big thanks for your training on “how to create the galaxy in Blender” I bought a couple of month ago. It took me awhile but I succeeded to do someting not too bad that reflect what I have learned from your fantastic videos ! Thanks again both of you. Here is below what I did recently. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/680f6c785cd881177288df874e6991b71a4c1ea8942f51c3be782c1dede59426.jpg

    • Jim Venner

      I am getting a glitchy result in my test renders of the asteroid field tutorial. The small asteroids created via the particle system seem to revert to a more basic shape periodically. I have tried using my build and the supplied blender file. I am using blender 2.79 and rendering on a amd r9 390x. Results can be viewed here https://youtu.be/BB2T2XHtLS4

    • Mark Oliver

      Hey just a quick question, Im relatively new to blender and I am really interested in your course but I would like to know if you can use the content that is learnt on the course and utilise it in Unity for game production?

      Mark.

      • Hi Mark, this course is mostly aimed at Blender users, because many techniques shown in the course utilize Cycles render engine. I still think that you will learn some useful tips. Baking textures, procedural modeling, drawing the 360 degrees spacescapes and so on. But obviously many techniques won’t be applicable to realtime production. Hope that makes sense 🙂

    • Daniel Krafft

      Will the course teach how to do those nice camera animations too?