Summary: Step 1. Get a free sky image from Unsplash Step 2. Plug the image into both the Base color and the Emission of the Principled BSDF Step 3. copy the rotation of the image plane to the camera (it's better to use the copy rotation constraint IMO) Step 4. Match the horizon line in the image to the horizon in your 3D scene Step 5. Use a sky texture (Nishita) for your environment Step 5. Turn off shadow visibility for the plane so it doesn't cast a massive shadow over your scene Step 6. Make sure the lighting in you scene roughly matches the lighting direction of the cloud image (or flip the cloud image horizontally to match your scene lights better)
I literally just spend the last 2 days trying and researching this. Thanks youtube but a bit late. Something I learned is that getting the mist pass to combine mountains with mountains from a photo can look really good! Edit: if you use this in an animation. Animating the top edge of the image a bit to the left or right using a shape key creates a cool parralalex effect. Gives the idea the clouds are moving.
Back when I was new to Blender I couldn't figure how to make HDRi's look good so I tried this and thought "huh, this seems like a pretty dumb fix but it works, I bet a professional would look at this and think it's a crappy trick". Thank you for confirming that sometimes the simplest solution is the best.
Don't forget to set the roughness to 1 so the image doesn't look washed out. Also you can put a hue/saturarion node to make tweak the colors a little bit.
The addon "Import Images as Planes" would make it even easier since it automatically sizes the plane to the image aspect ratio, no UV stretching... Also you could still mix this with HDRi s to get realistic environment lighting. Although "free" HDRi are more difficult to find.
Cube unwrap squad unite! Nice work. I know how to do this stuff but never put it all together like this. You could also add the image as a background on the camera but you can't control the brightness of it. Thanks!
I often do this now with more realistic renders like the one I posted two weeks ago on my twitter and Instagram accounts, if I had watched this sooner I could have applied it when I made the final renders instead of shuffling the plane around. Next time I try it out when I make a more realist render, Thanks for the tips in this video.
Love your tuts…simple and to the point explaining the how/why. One question, do these work in animated scenes just as well or just reserved for stills?
I always ask around when I see people post of a render with beautiful sky yet for some reason they never care to answer. Thank you, I think the sky is very important.
nice tutorial. would you please also give some recommendations where we can get urban building facade images to use then as windows background in interior renders? thanks
One downaide with using it as a plane in the backgrt and as an emitfer is that the image looks much flatter in terms of contrast. I boticed the image looks much better when it was open in the uv editor. Why not add it comp later to keep the contrast? You can always render thr image transparent and use the backdrop plane only as visual reference
Hi, is it possible to put the image in a sphere or semi-sphere to create some kind of a dome so when i move the camera the sky is always visible on final render ?
That's amazing, but now I have an issue where it's one of my objects that is casting a shadow onto the sky plane! Is there a way in the object settings/material settings to have it not receive shadows?
Hey In my Principled BSDF I don´t have the circle in emission to connect it, only have emission with a dropdown with color and strength, How do I change it?
and .... what if you move the camera? So in feature film VFX we often do this in Nuke, but instead of sticking it on a plane, we project onto Spheres, ideally you have a spherical stitches texture as well. That way the camera can pan freely.
Summary:
Step 1. Get a free sky image from Unsplash
Step 2. Plug the image into both the Base color and the Emission of the Principled BSDF
Step 3. copy the rotation of the image plane to the camera (it's better to use the copy rotation constraint IMO)
Step 4. Match the horizon line in the image to the horizon in your 3D scene
Step 5. Use a sky texture (Nishita) for your environment
Step 5. Turn off shadow visibility for the plane so it doesn't cast a massive shadow over your scene
Step 6. Make sure the lighting in you scene roughly matches the lighting direction of the cloud image (or flip the cloud image horizontally to match your scene lights better)
Thanks mate will be saving that to the desktop
Neat!
Could you please do that for all the tutorials I watch and forget? Lol…maybe chat gbt can do it?
Idk why but my Sky texture is way to bright
You should definitely do a breakdown of the mountain sunset scene example you showed, the lighting is amazing. It'd be cool to see how you did it!
Thank you so much . As a beginner i've seen a lot of tutorial on how to model , render etc but nobody talks about the sky , so thats really helped me!
Great to see Max sharing his techniques. Top class digital artist.
Thank you for not gatekeeping and sharing all of this AMAZING material with us.
I really like your 10 minute tutorials, they're incredibly useful. Keep going!
Scaling to flip the image seems so simple, but I never even considered that! Genius, my dude! Thanks a ton!
This channel has became one of my favorite so quickly. Thanks for the great content.
it's my favorite too 🔥
I'm excited for the future of this channel mate, I'm glad I was early.
Thanks for your valuable content, no bullshit, only solid and practical advice.
These are great man! I'm a c4d user but all these techniques and practices still apply!
Awesome ! This channel is an open window to a world of possibilities. Thank you again for sharing this
Instantly subscribed yesterday. This is now the best channel for blender content. Thanks for sharing with us.
I knew about using images as backgrounds, but parenting it to camera trick is just great, I will definitely use that from now on.
I'm finding these tutorials incredibly useful. Thank you
I literally just spend the last 2 days trying and researching this. Thanks youtube but a bit late. Something I learned is that getting the mist pass to combine mountains with mountains from a photo can look really good!
Edit: if you use this in an animation. Animating the top edge of the image a bit to the left or right using a shape key creates a cool parralalex effect. Gives the idea the clouds are moving.
dude, you are a GOAT for uploading all these vids recently. thanks for sharing!
Exactly what I have been searching for!! Thank you for the amazing tutorial, Max!
Back when I was new to Blender I couldn't figure how to make HDRi's look good so I tried this and thought "huh, this seems like a pretty dumb fix but it works, I bet a professional would look at this and think it's a crappy trick". Thank you for confirming that sometimes the simplest solution is the best.
I’m so glad your channel was in my recommended! Your walkthroughs are great!
You got my sub. Thanks for the info. Straight to the point and ain't confusing. Looking forward
wow channel has been only posting 1 month and already very high quality tutorials and absolutely necessary ones
Don't forget to set the roughness to 1 so the image doesn't look washed out. Also you can put a hue/saturarion node to make tweak the colors a little bit.
so simple yet so genius, thanks!
holy ur channel is growing fast. good job man, really fun to watch these
Damn, Max's getting consistent. Excited for your future content bro!👀
thanks for teaching this to me, what a great technique.
i am actually doing this from so long, this saves a lot of time
Such a detailed tutorial 🥹 thank you so much for this tutorial
If you want to copy another object rotation, you can add an object constraint and click on copy rotation. Great video!
Love your content bro, keep up the good work!
Thank you so much Max! Keep up the great work. 😎
Thanks for this video man. Solved my most of the problems.
i searching whole yt for this tutorial , i learned a lot
thanks for the tutorial sir
Great tutorial. I'm liking the content you're providing....glad I subscribed.
Very useful for me whos blender knowledge is only 2 months. Subscribed for sure 🙏
Great video Max! Thanks for the tips 🔥
The addon "Import Images as Planes" would make it even easier since it automatically sizes the plane to the image aspect ratio, no UV stretching... Also you could still mix this with HDRi s to get realistic environment lighting. Although "free" HDRi are more difficult to find.
AmbientCG has an awesome collection of free HDRi and textures check them out :)
polyhaven
free 8k images
Neat little tutorial, Max. I wanna teach like you when I grow up :-)
This is what i need, thanks man. Keep it up 👍👍
This guy is going places! Mark my words!
Thank you! Exactly what I was looking for!
mate your tutorial are awesome!!!
Thank you so much! I love it :) I watched this video and just clicked subscribe
Awesome content! I already see I'll be spending a lot of time on your channel :)
Thank you for sharing!
Cube unwrap squad unite! Nice work. I know how to do this stuff but never put it all together like this. You could also add the image as a background on the camera but you can't control the brightness of it. Thanks!
I often do this now with more realistic renders like the one I posted two weeks ago on my twitter and Instagram accounts, if I had watched this sooner I could have applied it when I made the final renders instead of shuffling the plane around. Next time I try it out when I make a more realist render, Thanks for the tips in this video.
Love your tuts…simple and to the point explaining the how/why. One question, do these work in animated scenes just as well or just reserved for stills?
i discovered your channel 5 mins. ago, instantly subscribed
Even it requires the image for sky but the most realistic I've ever seen.
Ah really lovely tutorial ✨
You are awesome bro in everything 😘❤️🔥🙂
I always ask around when I see people post of a render with beautiful sky yet for some reason they never care to answer. Thank you, I think the sky is very important.
MAN!!!!1 KEEP THESE COMING
sssshhhhhhhhh! You are giving away all the secrets ... No really brilliant stuff you have here. Subscribed!
amazing job, thx dude
nice tutorial. would you please also give some recommendations where we can get urban building facade images to use then as windows background in interior renders? thanks
This video saved the day 👏
Thanks for sharing this man
really usefull
Very good ! Thanks !
Great video 👍
incredible
Could you do a tutorial on the second example you put up please? This is incredible!
One downaide with using it as a plane in the backgrt and as an emitfer is that the image looks much flatter in terms of contrast. I boticed the image looks much better when it was open in the uv editor. Why not add it comp later to keep the contrast? You can always render thr image transparent and use the backdrop plane only as visual reference
Been using blender for 3+ years and after watching countless blender videos, I consider this channel to be second only to Ian Hubert imo
I love your tutorial so much!Can you make a video about how to make fog or clouds to your senses？
Aah...yes finally I can finish my render 🔥
Hi, is it possible to put the image in a sphere or semi-sphere to create some kind of a dome so when i move the camera the sky is always visible on final render ?
can you make a quick tutorial for output render settings and best optimization. My renders are always pixelated when i zoom in
genius idea
These tips are amazing. I have no excuse to not be making stuff now haha
What about when you animate your camera to rotate on z axis in an animation?
How did you make the ground , the reflection is majestic ,
How do you see the preview of the render while working on other things?
U can jus use copy loc constraint if ur camera shakes
That's amazing, but now I have an issue where it's one of my objects that is casting a shadow onto the sky plane! Is there a way in the object settings/material settings to have it not receive shadows?
pls never stop making videos.
Ayo thanks sensei
Thank you 🙂
Hi, I'm a beginner. How do you get the render view that's on the bottom right of your screen that updates every time you make a change in the scene?
Question where do you get the water texture?
I would like to ask , for your art work do you use kit bash or created everything from scratch?
does anyone know how to get that mini render viewer in the bottom right corner
do you have tutorial for such a great water?
AWESOME
For photorealistic resoults just use photos, easy
How do i make a night scene with sky texture?
Might God bless you !🙏🏼🙏🏼🔥🔥👍🏼👍🏼
Doesn't the plane still be able to block the light of the sun, or does unchecking the shadow box fix that?
Lol i just asked this yesterday. Thankyou.
Good tip.
Try Add ons -> Images as Planes
That saves a lot of hassle with UVs etc
THANK YOU
how do we make a sky with actual cloud for moving animations
make a video on how u have managed everything , textures scenes etc
How I can available sun dis in sky texture
Hey In my Principled BSDF I don´t have the circle in emission to connect it, only have emission with a dropdown with color and strength, How do I change it?
and .... what if you move the camera? So in feature film VFX we often do this in Nuke, but instead of sticking it on a plane, we project onto Spheres, ideally you have a spherical stitches texture as well. That way the camera can pan freely.
underated
thank youuuuuuu thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
what if the light in the sky picture is coming from like behind the clouds and not from the left or right