WEBVTT 00:00:00.066 --> 00:00:02.456 >> Hello and welcome, everyone, to another video. 00:00:02.626 --> 00:00:06.886 Recently, I have created this Dragon Ball Z aura type effect in Blender. 00:00:06.886 --> 00:00:08.996 And today, I'm going to show you how you can make it yourself. 00:00:09.136 --> 00:00:12.316 Of course, as most of my videos, this effect is fully procedural. 00:00:12.316 --> 00:00:15.656 So, if you don't like something about it or you just have your own vision, 00:00:15.726 --> 00:00:19.826 then chances are you can just adjust the values that I will show you later and make it your own. 00:00:20.136 --> 00:00:23.876 So, again, as in every video, if you managed to make something out of it or use it 00:00:23.876 --> 00:00:26.246 in some scene, I would really love to see your creation, 00:00:26.246 --> 00:00:28.466 so make sure to share with me on Twitter. 00:00:28.466 --> 00:00:29.766 Link for that is in the description. 00:00:29.766 --> 00:00:31.926 And now, let's just jump right into Blender. 00:00:32.096 --> 00:00:36.016 So, first of all, we will delete everything and we will start with a mesh sphere. 00:00:36.016 --> 00:00:40.156 And for those of you that watched my recent tutorial about the fire effect, 00:00:40.156 --> 00:00:42.506 the beginning is going to be very, very similar. 00:00:42.506 --> 00:00:44.816 So, you may just skip to the shader creation part. 00:00:44.816 --> 00:00:48.106 And for those of you that are new, we will start by going into modifiers 00:00:48.106 --> 00:00:53.386 and add a subdivision surface modifier as first one, then a normal edit modifier, 00:00:53.386 --> 00:00:55.766 and as last we will add a displace modifier. 00:00:55.846 --> 00:00:57.976 So, your stack should look something like this. 00:00:58.006 --> 00:01:02.026 The next step, we will create an empty and put it below ours here. 00:01:02.136 --> 00:01:05.386 Let's also name it "normal controller" because we will use it 00:01:05.386 --> 00:01:07.746 to control the normals of our sphere. 00:01:07.846 --> 00:01:11.156 It may not make a lot of sense right now, but just bear with me 00:01:11.156 --> 00:01:14.106 and you should soon see visually what I'm talking about. 00:01:14.166 --> 00:01:18.346 So, now, let's go into the displace modifier and click "new" to get a new texture. 00:01:18.346 --> 00:01:21.656 And go down to the texture tab and change the type to clouds. 00:01:21.766 --> 00:01:25.536 Now, back in the modifier stack in the normal edit, the target is going 00:01:25.536 --> 00:01:28.466 to be the normal controller, so the empty we created. 00:01:28.466 --> 00:01:32.196 And then, open up mix and change the mix mode from copy to add. 00:01:32.196 --> 00:01:35.966 You may also notice that we have this warning that tells us to enable auto smooth 00:01:35.966 --> 00:01:38.416 for this modifier to work, so we'll do just that. 00:01:38.416 --> 00:01:42.076 Go to the object data properties, normals, and enable auto smooth. 00:01:42.076 --> 00:01:43.566 Now, as you can see, not much happened. 00:01:43.726 --> 00:01:47.386 But as you move this empty around, it may look like we are moving a light source, 00:01:47.386 --> 00:01:50.866 and that is because we are actually editing the normals of our mesh, 00:01:50.936 --> 00:01:54.776 which also means we can use these custom normals in our displace modifier 00:01:54.776 --> 00:01:56.496 to displace it only where we want to. 00:01:56.496 --> 00:01:59.686 So, in the displace modifier, change the direction from normal 00:01:59.686 --> 00:02:01.766 to custom normal, so the one we edit. 00:02:01.766 --> 00:02:05.566 And now as you move the empty, you can see that the mesh is being displaced according 00:02:05.566 --> 00:02:08.266 to the custom normal that we are editing in real time. 00:02:08.356 --> 00:02:09.376 So, let's keep it under. 00:02:09.376 --> 00:02:11.446 And now, in order to have further control 00:02:11.446 --> 00:02:14.156 over the displacement itself, we will create another empty. 00:02:14.206 --> 00:02:15.306 So, again, empty. 00:02:15.306 --> 00:02:18.496 Plain access is fine or any other will do just fine. 00:02:18.496 --> 00:02:21.626 And this one we will call a displace controller. 00:02:21.626 --> 00:02:24.226 Now, back in our sphere in the displace modifier, 00:02:24.256 --> 00:02:26.426 change coordinates from local to object. 00:02:26.426 --> 00:02:29.756 And the object is going to be the displace controller that we created. 00:02:29.756 --> 00:02:34.436 This way, we can easily control the displace texture by simply scaling our empty. 00:02:34.436 --> 00:02:38.416 Also, moving it around is going to phase through the three-dimensional texture. 00:02:38.516 --> 00:02:43.976 Now, with this basic setup, let's make our aura look like an aura, so sort of an egg shape. 00:02:44.096 --> 00:02:46.046 We can just pick the top vertex. 00:02:46.046 --> 00:02:50.706 And with the proportional editing enabled, we can see simply move it up and just adjust it. 00:02:50.706 --> 00:02:54.226 Just make it look like a sort of egg or a droplet of water. 00:02:54.226 --> 00:02:56.086 And then when you get out of the edit mode, 00:02:56.086 --> 00:02:58.546 you can see that it resembles aura a little bit more. 00:02:58.686 --> 00:03:02.006 Now, one thing to pay attention to is when you go back into the edit mode, 00:03:02.006 --> 00:03:06.476 you can see that the density of the vertices is much higher down here than it is up here, 00:03:06.476 --> 00:03:09.226 so it is a good practice to sort of even it out. 00:03:09.226 --> 00:03:14.406 So, feel free to just add some loop cuts in the middle to sort of have a uniform or at least 00:03:14.406 --> 00:03:17.116 around a uniform across the whole surface. 00:03:17.196 --> 00:03:21.806 So, with that done, right-click shade smooth so we have a nice smooth sort 00:03:21.806 --> 00:03:24.616 of bush looking mesh, which is perfectly fine. 00:03:24.796 --> 00:03:27.796 Don't worry too much about the displacement and the values so far 00:03:27.796 --> 00:03:30.256 yet because we can always adjust it later down the road. 00:03:30.256 --> 00:03:32.496 And now, let's just focus on the material itself. 00:03:32.496 --> 00:03:35.396 So, let's get a new window, change it to shader editor, 00:03:35.396 --> 00:03:37.246 and click "new" to create a new material. 00:03:37.246 --> 00:03:42.936 We can delete the principled BDSF and get an emission shader node as well as transparent BDSF 00:03:42.936 --> 00:03:45.536 and also a mix shader connected like so, 00:03:45.536 --> 00:03:47.846 the transparent on top and the emission on the bottom. 00:03:47.846 --> 00:03:52.736 And now, let's add a Fresnel node as well as layer weight node. 00:03:52.736 --> 00:03:55.686 Now, let's also go into the render preview so we see what we're doing. 00:03:55.746 --> 00:04:00.306 And as we preview the Fresnel node, the preview is control-shift left mouse button, 00:04:00.306 --> 00:04:02.386 but you have to have a node wrangler enabled. 00:04:02.386 --> 00:04:05.566 For those of you wondering, it's under edit, preferences, add-ons. 00:04:05.626 --> 00:04:09.186 And by default, it should be in Blender already, so just make sure it's enabled. 00:04:09.266 --> 00:04:14.486 So, the Fresnel node as you see gives us this really, really nice effect where only the edges 00:04:14.486 --> 00:04:18.946 of the mesh is highlighted, which is going to play perfectly into what we are trying to do. 00:04:18.946 --> 00:04:21.816 So, right after Fresnel node, let's add a color ramp. 00:04:22.016 --> 00:04:24.306 And here, we can already start laying in some colors. 00:04:24.406 --> 00:04:27.306 First of all, let's change the interpolation from linear to constant 00:04:27.306 --> 00:04:31.476 so that we don't have any gradient, but rather sharp contrasty look between the colors. 00:04:31.476 --> 00:04:36.506 And now, let's start with the darkest being sort of reddish, maybe something like this. 00:04:36.596 --> 00:04:41.726 Then, the next one, we will go through orange then to yellow and the last one sort 00:04:41.726 --> 00:04:43.976 of washed out yellow going into the white. 00:04:44.276 --> 00:04:46.916 Now, we can adjust it as it is right now or you can do it later. 00:04:46.916 --> 00:04:52.076 Just make sure it looks something like that, it gradually goes from darkest to the lightest 00:04:52.076 --> 00:04:55.636 in the edges poking out of the mesh, but don't worry about it too much. 00:04:55.636 --> 00:04:56.936 We can always come back to it later. 00:04:57.066 --> 00:05:00.016 And this color ramp is going straight into the emission node. 00:05:00.016 --> 00:05:03.046 Now, as we preview the mix shader, you can see that we have just that 00:05:03.046 --> 00:05:06.846 and we don't have any transparency yet, and that is because first of all we need to go 00:05:06.846 --> 00:05:11.226 into the material properties and in blend mode enable alpha blend instead of opaque. 00:05:11.226 --> 00:05:13.756 And the second thing, let's also enable backface culling. 00:05:13.756 --> 00:05:18.046 Now, as you see, everything is sort of half transparent because this mix shader is now set 00:05:18.046 --> 00:05:21.206 to being half transparent BDSF and half emission. 00:05:21.266 --> 00:05:23.986 So, what we need to do is we need to get an alpha mask. 00:05:23.986 --> 00:05:25.906 And for this, we will use this layer weight node. 00:05:25.906 --> 00:05:30.136 So, let's get another color ramp and connect facing into the color ramp. 00:05:30.136 --> 00:05:30.936 And let's preview this. 00:05:31.046 --> 00:05:33.836 Here, we can change the interpolation from linear to B-spline 00:05:33.836 --> 00:05:36.626 to get a much softer gradient than with linear. 00:05:36.626 --> 00:05:39.626 And also, let's bring in the black value quite high. 00:05:39.746 --> 00:05:44.366 And the white one, just slightly move it from the edge to like 0.9. 00:05:44.436 --> 00:05:49.266 Now, let's duplicate this color ramp and this time connect it with Fresnel from layer weight. 00:05:49.266 --> 00:05:52.296 And as you preview this one, it has slightly different result. 00:05:52.696 --> 00:05:57.506 You can see that the facing has more of that gradient going into our aura 00:05:57.506 --> 00:06:00.666 and Fresnel only really highlights the very edges. 00:06:00.716 --> 00:06:04.116 So, here, we can actually dial back this black value a little bit 00:06:04.176 --> 00:06:05.636 to have that gradient as well. 00:06:05.636 --> 00:06:08.046 And now, we just need to combine these two color ramps. 00:06:08.136 --> 00:06:11.826 So, let's get a math node, connect both of them together, leave it at add. 00:06:11.826 --> 00:06:12.666 Let's preview that. 00:06:12.926 --> 00:06:16.456 And the only thing you need to do is enable clamp just to make sure 00:06:16.456 --> 00:06:20.046 that the white values do not exceed one because this will go directly 00:06:20.046 --> 00:06:24.806 into the mix shader factor, and so everything of value one is going to be fully opaque 00:06:24.806 --> 00:06:26.866 and the black values are going to be transparent. 00:06:26.866 --> 00:06:31.056 So, as we preview this, we can see that we already have something going on in here. 00:06:31.156 --> 00:06:34.086 Now, make sure that the backface culling is on because if you turn it off, 00:06:34.086 --> 00:06:36.016 then you see that we have some sort of artifact. 00:06:36.486 --> 00:06:38.296 Not sure why it happens, but it does. 00:06:38.376 --> 00:06:40.136 So, just make sure it's checked in. 00:06:40.476 --> 00:06:44.866 And here, we can adjust the color ramp values just to make sure that our colors are popping 00:06:44.866 --> 00:06:48.826 in nicely and they are not too faded, but also that we still have this nice gradient. 00:06:48.956 --> 00:06:51.226 Also, if this mesh is pretty spiky, 00:06:51.226 --> 00:06:55.386 remember that in the modifier stack we added a subdivision modifier at the beginning, 00:06:55.466 --> 00:07:00.226 so we can up the levels of subdivision and this should give you a lot more geometry 00:07:00.366 --> 00:07:03.316 to work with, which should also make the gradient a little bit smooth. 00:07:03.316 --> 00:07:07.596 And then as you see in my case, I have very noisy displacement going on right now 00:07:07.666 --> 00:07:11.636 and that is why we have this displace controller in here so we can easily just scale it 00:07:11.636 --> 00:07:14.706 up a little bit in order to get much softer results. 00:07:14.766 --> 00:07:19.376 Now, because it's an aura and it's supposed to be glowing, we can up the emission strength 00:07:19.376 --> 00:07:21.236 in here to something like maybe 10. 00:07:21.786 --> 00:07:26.096 And if you don't have this glow going around your mesh, just make sure that you go 00:07:26.096 --> 00:07:28.486 into the render settings and you have a bloom enabled 00:07:28.486 --> 00:07:31.786 because that's the setting that's allowing your emissive areas to glow. 00:07:31.956 --> 00:07:35.616 Now, as you can see, we have very cell shaded sort of stylized look of the aura. 00:07:35.616 --> 00:07:39.036 And if you want to have it more gradual, I would say blurry or smooth, 00:07:39.156 --> 00:07:42.526 you can go into this color ramp that is dealing with the color of your aura 00:07:42.776 --> 00:07:45.886 and just change the interpolation from constant to whatever you like. 00:07:46.116 --> 00:07:48.226 I would recommend B-spline because it gives this really, 00:07:48.226 --> 00:07:51.966 really nice soft gradient between the values that we have. 00:07:53.686 --> 00:07:56.136 So, as I said, just an artistic choice for you to make. 00:07:56.366 --> 00:07:59.176 And now, to put a little bit more life into this whole effect, 00:07:59.236 --> 00:08:03.586 we can take the displace controller and just animate it going up because as you see 00:08:03.586 --> 00:08:07.526 with the displace controller, the texture that is displacing the mesh is going up as well. 00:08:07.646 --> 00:08:11.676 So, on the frame one in his base position, I'll just click "I" 00:08:11.876 --> 00:08:14.546 and add a location keyframe to the first frame. 00:08:14.546 --> 00:08:19.406 And then on let's say frame 20th, I will move it upwards and then click "I" again 00:08:19.406 --> 00:08:21.126 and add another keyframe location. 00:08:21.126 --> 00:08:24.806 And now, if we play this, you can see that it's moving from 1 to 20, 00:08:24.806 --> 00:08:29.366 but what we can also do is change the interpolation to linear by clicking "T" 00:08:29.366 --> 00:08:34.266 on the keyboard and choosing linear and then shift-E and choose linear extrapolation. 00:08:34.386 --> 00:08:36.836 And this will take these two keyframes and based 00:08:36.836 --> 00:08:40.536 on them it will extrapolate this animation further so that we don't need 00:08:40.536 --> 00:08:45.126 to have the keyframe all the way up there in order to have this animation going infinitely. 00:08:45.126 --> 00:08:47.176 And then if you want this to go faster or slower, 00:08:47.256 --> 00:08:51.816 you just move this second keyframe further or crunch it in closer to the first keyframe 00:08:51.816 --> 00:08:53.886 to have it really, really frantic. 00:08:53.886 --> 00:08:56.316 I like the slower one, so I'll put it somewhere around here. 00:08:56.446 --> 00:09:00.776 So, with this flamy color done, the next step is to add those bluish sparks 00:09:00.776 --> 00:09:02.746 that are moving through the whole aura. 00:09:02.806 --> 00:09:06.516 I'm talking about those blue sparks that you can see appearing and disappearing. 00:09:06.516 --> 00:09:10.026 So, for that first of all we will duplicate this color ramp with the colors 00:09:10.026 --> 00:09:12.236 and connect the Fresnel node to it as well. 00:09:12.236 --> 00:09:13.236 And let's preview it up. 00:09:13.236 --> 00:09:18.256 And here, we want to change the color scheme from this orangey yellowy flamy looking one 00:09:18.256 --> 00:09:20.736 into the bluish sort of sparky colors. 00:09:20.766 --> 00:09:25.196 So, we will just go through all those color stops and just move it into the blue areas. 00:09:25.396 --> 00:09:29.746 So, this one here, this one maybe a little bit like this, this one much, much brighter, 00:09:29.876 --> 00:09:33.596 and then the last one going into almost whitish just to have 00:09:33.596 --> 00:09:36.206 that little oomph at the at the very edge. 00:09:36.236 --> 00:09:39.646 Now, if we preview this blue spark color by plugging it into the emission, 00:09:39.646 --> 00:09:44.816 you can see that it looks nice, but looks much better if its interpolation is changed 00:09:44.816 --> 00:09:48.606 to constant because electricity usually is quite harsh and jagged. 00:09:48.756 --> 00:09:50.056 So, I would recommend this. 00:09:50.056 --> 00:09:51.306 But again, your choice. 00:09:51.356 --> 00:09:55.136 So, let's move back the flamy boy into emission as a default. 00:09:55.136 --> 00:09:58.306 And then, we want this blue one only to appear in waves. 00:09:58.306 --> 00:10:00.736 So, let's start by adding a wave texture. 00:10:00.776 --> 00:10:05.286 And then again, if you have the node wrangler enabled with the node selected, click control-T. 00:10:05.436 --> 00:10:09.636 To get a mapping and texture coordinates node, change it from generated to object. 00:10:09.636 --> 00:10:13.096 And then as you preview this, you can see that now the waves are going vertically. 00:10:13.226 --> 00:10:18.386 So, we will need to rotate it on the y-axis by 90 degrees and also change the scale all the way 00:10:18.386 --> 00:10:21.976 down to something like 0.7 so we have those waves quite big. 00:10:22.086 --> 00:10:24.786 The next step is to animate the phase offset. 00:10:24.786 --> 00:10:28.266 As you can see, we have the single value that can control the waves going up. 00:10:28.456 --> 00:10:33.116 So, we will simply type in here hashtag frame, which is going to change it into a driver. 00:10:33.116 --> 00:10:35.256 And then, we can divide it by let's say two. 00:10:35.256 --> 00:10:38.966 And as we play the animation, you can see that these waves are moving downwards. 00:10:39.016 --> 00:10:42.896 So, in order to change the direction, we just need to put a minus sign before. 00:10:43.006 --> 00:10:44.016 Now, it's moving upwards. 00:10:44.016 --> 00:10:47.946 And if it's moving too slow, you can just change the frame divided by 2 00:10:47.946 --> 00:10:51.226 to like frame divided by 0.5, whatever you like. 00:10:51.226 --> 00:10:55.326 I will have it at 0.8 because I found this value to work great for me. 00:10:55.326 --> 00:10:57.406 And then in order to refine this gradient, 00:10:57.406 --> 00:11:00.686 we will get another color ramp right after the wave texture. 00:11:00.766 --> 00:11:05.226 And this time, we will change it to B-spline again so we have much, much softer gradient 00:11:05.226 --> 00:11:09.016 and move the black value all the way in and the white value just a little bit 00:11:09.016 --> 00:11:13.516 so that we have this really, really white value in here, then the gradient, 00:11:13.516 --> 00:11:16.606 and then the black values in here, which is exactly what we're looking for. 00:11:16.686 --> 00:11:19.206 Now, in order to give a little bit more variation to this, 00:11:19.206 --> 00:11:22.186 we can increase the distortion, the detail scale in order 00:11:22.186 --> 00:11:24.626 to just give it a little bit of irregularities. 00:11:24.776 --> 00:11:30.086 Now that we have this wave texture already done, we will need a mix RGB in order to change 00:11:30.086 --> 00:11:33.146 between the yellow and the blue based on this mask. 00:11:33.246 --> 00:11:38.646 So, this mask goes into the factor, and then the yellow one goes into the color one input 00:11:38.646 --> 00:11:40.516 and the blue into the color two input, 00:11:40.516 --> 00:11:43.696 and the output of the mix RGB goes straight into the emission. 00:11:43.786 --> 00:11:46.796 Now, as we preview the mix shader, so our finer material, 00:11:46.796 --> 00:11:50.786 you can see that we have this nice sort of sparky wave going 00:11:50.786 --> 00:11:52.986 from the bottom to the top of the whole effect. 00:11:52.986 --> 00:11:55.976 But right now, it's visible all the time and I just feel 00:11:55.976 --> 00:11:57.726 like it's much better when it's blinking. 00:11:57.726 --> 00:12:00.596 So, we will need a couple more nodes in order to achieve that. 00:12:00.656 --> 00:12:05.046 The first one will be a math node changed from add to ping-pong. 00:12:05.366 --> 00:12:11.056 So, in order for us to have a blinking mask, we need to type in hashtag frame, again a driver. 00:12:11.056 --> 00:12:15.126 And then depending on how fast we want it to blink, we can divide it by some number. 00:12:15.296 --> 00:12:18.766 I will leave it at divided by 2 because I want it to blink quite fast. 00:12:18.766 --> 00:12:23.216 And now, a disclaimer for those of you that may have problem with fast blinking images 00:12:23.216 --> 00:12:27.866 or epilepsy, just maybe skip this part because I'm going to preview it and it's just going 00:12:27.866 --> 00:12:29.976 to blink black and white, so be prepared. 00:12:30.086 --> 00:12:32.136 So, as you can see, it's blinking right now. 00:12:32.416 --> 00:12:35.466 And if it's too fast, too slow, again, you can adjust the driver. 00:12:35.466 --> 00:12:39.476 And one more thing we can do is right now as you can see as we scroll through the animation, 00:12:39.476 --> 00:12:44.176 it goes from black to gray and only then through white, and we want to skip the gray values. 00:12:44.176 --> 00:12:47.716 We only want zero and one, so like invisible and visible. 00:12:47.716 --> 00:12:51.216 And for that, we will need another math node connected right after ping-pong 00:12:51.216 --> 00:12:56.286 and this time change the add to snap, and this will snap to whatever value we have in here. 00:12:56.286 --> 00:13:01.666 So, I will put in one so it snaps to every round number without anything after comma. 00:13:01.756 --> 00:13:03.646 Again, disclaimer, flashing images. 00:13:03.696 --> 00:13:08.386 As you preview this, you have a clear zero to one mask flashing. 00:13:08.386 --> 00:13:11.466 So, we move this a little bit further, get another math node. 00:13:11.626 --> 00:13:16.616 And this time, it's going to be a multiply, and we want to multiply the result of the snap 00:13:16.796 --> 00:13:19.156 with the color ramp going from our wave texture. 00:13:19.306 --> 00:13:22.046 So, if we preview that, we have the same blinking thing, 00:13:22.156 --> 00:13:25.366 but this time it's the waves that are blinking upwards. 00:13:25.416 --> 00:13:27.846 And this goes into the mix RGB factor. 00:13:28.026 --> 00:13:32.786 Now, as we preview everything, you should have these really blue sparks only visible every now 00:13:32.786 --> 00:13:34.726 and then depending on how fast it's blinking. 00:13:34.726 --> 00:13:37.946 And I just feel like it looks so much better than when it's always visible. 00:13:38.076 --> 00:13:41.666 You can of course adjust the size of the waves and the scale of it all, 00:13:41.666 --> 00:13:44.726 so like the scale of the wave texture, in order to have less 00:13:44.846 --> 00:13:47.356 or more of the sparks going at the same time. 00:13:47.446 --> 00:13:48.576 Again, all up to you. 00:13:48.856 --> 00:13:50.736 I'll maybe change it to like 0.4. 00:13:50.826 --> 00:13:54.676 And yeah, now is the time to sort of adjust all the values that you want. 00:13:54.676 --> 00:13:55.776 And just small tip. 00:13:55.906 --> 00:13:59.966 It's better if your background is much, much darker than this grayish value. 00:14:00.166 --> 00:14:02.716 Then, everything that's happening is just more visible. 00:14:02.716 --> 00:14:06.656 So, I would recommend just go into the world settings, change the color to something -- 00:14:06.656 --> 00:14:09.536 I don't know -- maybe bluish and then get the value all the way 00:14:09.536 --> 00:14:12.196 down to almost like black, but not quite. 00:14:12.196 --> 00:14:14.006 And then, you see what's really going on. 00:14:14.066 --> 00:14:16.816 So, again, all the values that we went through, all the color ramps, 00:14:16.876 --> 00:14:18.896 just feel free to adjust them as you wish. 00:14:18.896 --> 00:14:20.386 I think I will leave it as it is. 00:14:20.426 --> 00:14:23.846 Now, as you can see, the difference is that my frame rate here is much, 00:14:23.846 --> 00:14:26.086 much higher than in the presentation video. 00:14:26.086 --> 00:14:32.136 And that is because I just like this 12 FPS sort of look that I have had in this scene, 00:14:32.136 --> 00:14:36.176 and you can easily have that as well just going into the render settings 00:14:36.176 --> 00:14:40.176 and change the frame rate from 24 to custom and then just type in 12. 00:14:40.236 --> 00:14:45.286 But then again, the whole speed of your animation, speed of your displace controller, 00:14:45.506 --> 00:14:48.776 everything has to be adjusted based on the frame rate that you choose to have. 00:14:48.876 --> 00:14:52.246 So, for this tutorial, I will just use 30 to have smooth-looking thing, 00:14:52.366 --> 00:14:54.686 but just know that it's a possibility in order 00:14:54.686 --> 00:14:57.026 to achieve a totally different look to the whole thing. 00:14:57.026 --> 00:15:00.086 So, now, the last thing to do is the stones, the particles, 00:15:00.126 --> 00:15:01.806 and that is done with the particle system. 00:15:01.896 --> 00:15:04.446 So, we can just shift a mesh plane 00:15:04.446 --> 00:15:08.026 to have a particle emitter on the bottom of the whole aura. 00:15:08.106 --> 00:15:09.906 And we can also name it "emitter." 00:15:09.906 --> 00:15:11.886 And then, we need just a couple of stones. 00:15:11.886 --> 00:15:14.976 And I just simply took mesh rock generator. 00:15:14.976 --> 00:15:18.116 I believe you need to have an add-on enabled for that as well, 00:15:18.116 --> 00:15:21.556 which is I think extra object, add mesh extra object. 00:15:21.616 --> 00:15:24.546 So, make sure it's enabled or you can just create any rock that you want. 00:15:24.546 --> 00:15:27.116 I just found that this method is so much faster. 00:15:27.116 --> 00:15:30.956 You just generate a rock, you go into the modifier stack, apply all of them, 00:15:30.956 --> 00:15:34.106 and then add a decimate modifier and just go all the way 00:15:34.106 --> 00:15:36.286 down until you have like a low poly version. 00:15:36.286 --> 00:15:39.396 In order to see the faces better, you just right-click shade flat 00:15:39.396 --> 00:15:42.226 and then bring it all the way down and then apply the decimate. 00:15:42.226 --> 00:15:47.526 And you can just generate a few rocks like that, decimate all the way down shade flat and done. 00:15:47.606 --> 00:15:51.596 So, when you have your rock collection, I don't know how many different variations you want, 00:15:51.596 --> 00:15:54.846 just select both of them, click "M" and choose "new collection." 00:15:54.926 --> 00:15:58.816 Name them "rocks" or something like that and this should create a new collection for you. 00:15:58.816 --> 00:16:03.156 And now in our particle emitter in this plane, we can create a particle system 00:16:03.156 --> 00:16:06.876 and under render change the render as from halo to collection 00:16:06.956 --> 00:16:09.206 and the collection being rocks that we just created. 00:16:09.276 --> 00:16:12.576 We can change the scale also to one so we see what's going on. 00:16:12.576 --> 00:16:14.976 And as you click "play," you can see we have our rocks. 00:16:15.216 --> 00:16:18.506 Now, first of all, of course, let's increase the scale randomness 00:16:18.616 --> 00:16:20.816 so we have a variation with the scale. 00:16:20.896 --> 00:16:24.956 Let's choose the frame start to be like minus 50 so we have a little bit 00:16:24.956 --> 00:16:27.436 of pre-warn before the whole animation starts. 00:16:27.496 --> 00:16:32.446 The end also 250 so it encompasses the whole animation frame that we have right here. 00:16:32.446 --> 00:16:34.836 And now, first of all, obviously, the rocks are falling. 00:16:34.836 --> 00:16:35.936 We don't want them to fall. 00:16:35.936 --> 00:16:39.986 All the way down into field weights and turn down the gravity all the way to zero. 00:16:40.036 --> 00:16:44.356 This will make our particles go up, but in very uniform and not pleasing way. 00:16:44.356 --> 00:16:48.896 So, first of all, let's decrease the number to like something more sensible, maybe 100. 00:16:48.896 --> 00:16:55.116 And then under the velocity tab, let's add an object aligned z velocity 1 meter per second. 00:16:55.116 --> 00:16:59.646 And then under randomize, let's increase it to something like one so we can see 00:16:59.646 --> 00:17:04.306 that the rocks are not going straight up, but have a little bit of random velocity. 00:17:04.376 --> 00:17:08.446 We can also increase the lifetime randomness to like 0.5 so not all 00:17:08.446 --> 00:17:10.516 of them will disappear at the same height. 00:17:10.516 --> 00:17:13.266 Next thing, as you can see, they are all rotated the same way. 00:17:13.486 --> 00:17:15.326 So, under rotation, let's enable it. 00:17:15.326 --> 00:17:19.926 Crank the randomize all the way up, randomize space all the way up, enable dynamic. 00:17:19.926 --> 00:17:25.236 And under angular velocity, we can increase the amount so that they will rotate as they fly 00:17:25.236 --> 00:17:28.976 up as well, which I think gives a little bit more dynamism to the whole scene. 00:17:29.136 --> 00:17:33.856 Now, if they are a little bit too big, you can either scale your models down or scale them 00:17:33.856 --> 00:17:37.796 under the render tab to scale a little bit lower so they are not as big. 00:17:37.886 --> 00:17:41.186 And now, I think the last thing to do is as you can see they just fly 00:17:41.186 --> 00:17:43.096 up and disappear sort of abruptly. 00:17:43.176 --> 00:17:46.596 In order to make this transition much smoother, we scroll all the way 00:17:46.596 --> 00:17:51.566 down until we find the textures tab, then open it up, click "new" to create new texture, 00:17:51.566 --> 00:17:55.036 go into the textures tab again, change type from image or movie to blend, 00:17:55.036 --> 00:17:57.046 and we will use this texture in order 00:17:57.046 --> 00:18:01.566 to tell the particle system how big the particles should be at given moment of life. 00:18:01.686 --> 00:18:04.536 So, first of all, open influence and we want this texture only 00:18:04.576 --> 00:18:07.466 to influence the size of our particle. 00:18:07.466 --> 00:18:12.766 And then under mapping, the coordinates we want to be not generated, but per strand and particle 00:18:12.856 --> 00:18:17.436 so each of these particles will be affected by this texture as its own entity basically. 00:18:17.436 --> 00:18:20.696 Now, let's open colors, enable color ramp and open it up. 00:18:20.696 --> 00:18:24.856 And here, first of all, let's increase the alpha of this to like one so we see what we're doing. 00:18:24.976 --> 00:18:28.386 This basically represents the scale of our object throughout its life. 00:18:28.386 --> 00:18:30.646 So, black is zero obviously, white is one. 00:18:30.736 --> 00:18:32.816 So, we want it to start with the size one. 00:18:33.206 --> 00:18:37.206 And then as it grows old, we want it to be zero by the time it disappears. 00:18:37.246 --> 00:18:41.476 We can also change the interpolation to B-spline to have much smoother transition 00:18:41.476 --> 00:18:43.106 and just bring it a little bit closer. 00:18:43.206 --> 00:18:46.856 So, as you can see, the particles now start with their normal size 00:18:46.856 --> 00:18:49.976 and then they just gradually scale down until they disappear. 00:18:50.046 --> 00:18:53.406 We can increase the render scale now because they are a little bit too small. 00:18:53.516 --> 00:18:57.566 And when you're happy with your particles going up, the last thing to do is take them 00:18:57.726 --> 00:19:00.636 and create the material for them because right now in the render preview 00:19:00.636 --> 00:19:03.856 as you can see we have this emissive color and then we have those stones. 00:19:03.946 --> 00:19:05.786 And then, it depends what you want to go for. 00:19:05.906 --> 00:19:10.016 I in my previous scene had a simple setup of area light shining 00:19:10.196 --> 00:19:12.856 from the top quite big and quite strong. 00:19:12.946 --> 00:19:18.246 And based on this light information, I had the stones cell shaded, and I will show you how. 00:19:18.346 --> 00:19:20.346 So, first of all, let's select the stone. 00:19:20.346 --> 00:19:23.886 And in the material editor, click "new" to create new material. 00:19:23.886 --> 00:19:27.696 And we can delete the principled BDSF and instead have a diffuse. 00:19:27.696 --> 00:19:32.026 And now right after the diffuse, we want a shader to RGB node, 00:19:32.076 --> 00:19:35.946 which is going to take the shader information and turn it into an RGB color, 00:19:36.006 --> 00:19:38.386 which we can further connect to a color ramp. 00:19:38.386 --> 00:19:39.666 And let me show you what it does. 00:19:39.786 --> 00:19:44.576 So, it takes this information of how this object looks like being lit by the light. 00:19:44.576 --> 00:19:47.166 And based on that, we can just give it some different color. 00:19:47.276 --> 00:19:50.636 So, because it's stone, I went with like the basic brown setup. 00:19:50.636 --> 00:19:51.846 Let's do it again as well. 00:19:51.956 --> 00:19:55.436 Change the interpolation to constant again to have the cell shaded look. 00:19:55.436 --> 00:19:58.626 Now, the second one's going to be much brighter, but not too bright. 00:19:58.626 --> 00:20:00.286 And a highlight on top. 00:20:00.596 --> 00:20:02.856 So, you can spend much more time adjusting it. 00:20:02.856 --> 00:20:04.506 I'm just hungry, so I'm going to wrap it up. 00:20:04.506 --> 00:20:08.136 So, simply select the second rock, go in here and choose the material 00:20:08.136 --> 00:20:09.756 that we just created for our rocks. 00:20:09.826 --> 00:20:14.726 And now, as you see, as they fly upwards as the light changes, the material reflects 00:20:14.806 --> 00:20:16.616 that as well and changes with it. 00:20:16.616 --> 00:20:18.866 If the lighting is too strong for you, 00:20:18.866 --> 00:20:22.086 then you can always just decrease the strength of the light. 00:20:22.086 --> 00:20:24.176 And as you can see, it affects the color 00:20:24.406 --> 00:20:28.496 because again it's taking the diffuse shader and then turning it into color. 00:20:28.606 --> 00:20:31.736 So, depending on how the diffuse shader looks in the first place, 00:20:31.906 --> 00:20:33.566 that's how the result is going to look like. 00:20:33.566 --> 00:20:35.856 And yeah, because it's aura, one last thing. 00:20:36.256 --> 00:20:37.056 You can select it. 00:20:37.106 --> 00:20:38.666 You can see we have a shadow right now. 00:20:38.756 --> 00:20:40.086 Go into the material properties. 00:20:40.256 --> 00:20:44.126 And under the shadow mode, just click "none" so that it doesn't cast any shadow 00:20:44.126 --> 00:20:45.986 because I just believe it shouldn't. 00:20:45.986 --> 00:20:48.096 And this would be it for the tutorial. 00:20:48.136 --> 00:20:52.536 I hope that you learned something, that you enjoyed it and you will be able to use it 00:20:52.536 --> 00:20:55.436 in your personal project, which I would love to see if you do so. 00:20:55.436 --> 00:20:57.036 Please share with me on Twitter. 00:20:57.036 --> 00:20:58.346 Link for that in the description. 00:20:58.346 --> 00:21:01.776 And if you have any requests for the future tutorials, comment section is for you, 00:21:01.776 --> 00:21:03.136 and I will see you in the next one. 00:21:03.346 --> 00:21:03.646 Bye-bye. 00:00:00.066 --> 00:00:02.456 >> Hello and welcome everyone to another video. 00:00:02.626 --> 00:00:07.546 Recently I have created this Dragon Ball Z aura type effect in Blender, and today I'm going 00:00:07.546 --> 00:00:08.996 to show you how you can make it yourself. 00:00:09.136 --> 00:00:12.316 Of course as most of my videos this effect is fully procedural. 00:00:12.316 --> 00:00:15.656 So if you don't like something about it or you just have your own vision, 00:00:15.726 --> 00:00:19.826 then chances are you can just adjust the values that I will show you later and make it your own. 00:00:20.136 --> 00:00:23.876 So again, as in every video, if you manage to make something out of it or use it 00:00:23.876 --> 00:00:26.246 in some scene, I would really love to see your creation. 00:00:26.246 --> 00:00:29.766 So make sure to share with me on Twitter, link for that is in the description. 00:00:29.766 --> 00:00:31.926 And now let's just jump right into Blender. 00:00:32.096 --> 00:00:36.016 So first of all, we will delete everything and we'll start with a mesh sphere. 00:00:36.016 --> 00:00:40.156 And for those of you that watched my recent tutorial about the fire effect, 00:00:40.156 --> 00:00:42.506 the beginning is going to be very, very similar. 00:00:42.506 --> 00:00:44.816 So you may just skip to the shader creation part. 00:00:44.816 --> 00:00:48.106 And for those of you that are new, we will start by going into modifiers 00:00:48.106 --> 00:00:53.386 and add a subdivision surface modifier as first one, then a normal edit modifier, 00:00:53.386 --> 00:00:55.766 and as last, we will add a displace modifier. 00:00:55.846 --> 00:00:57.976 So your stack should look something like this. 00:00:58.006 --> 00:01:02.026 The next step, we'll create an empty and put it below our sphere. 00:01:02.136 --> 00:01:05.386 Let's also name it normal controller because we will use it 00:01:05.386 --> 00:01:07.746 to control the normals of our sphere. 00:01:07.836 --> 00:01:11.156 It may not make a lot of sense right now but just bear with me 00:01:11.156 --> 00:01:14.106 and you should soon see visually what I'm talking about. 00:01:14.166 --> 00:01:18.346 So now let's go into the displace modifier and click new to get a new texture 00:01:18.346 --> 00:01:21.656 and go down to the texture tab and change the type to clouds. 00:01:21.766 --> 00:01:25.536 Now back in the modifier stack in the normal edit, the target is going 00:01:25.536 --> 00:01:28.466 to be the normal controller, so the empty we created. 00:01:28.466 --> 00:01:32.196 And then open up mix and change the mix mode from copy to add. 00:01:32.196 --> 00:01:35.966 You may also notice that we have this warning that tells us to enable auto smooth 00:01:35.966 --> 00:01:38.416 for this modifier to work, so we'll do just that. 00:01:38.416 --> 00:01:42.076 Go to the object data properties, normals, and enable auto smooth. 00:01:42.076 --> 00:01:45.246 Now as you can see not much happened, but as you move this empty around, 00:01:45.246 --> 00:01:47.806 it may look like we are moving a light source and that is 00:01:47.806 --> 00:01:50.866 because we are actually editing the normals of our mesh, 00:01:50.936 --> 00:01:54.776 which also means we can use this custom normals in our displace modifier 00:01:54.776 --> 00:01:56.496 to displace it only where we want to. 00:01:56.496 --> 00:01:59.686 So in the displace modifier, change the direction from normal 00:01:59.686 --> 00:02:01.766 to custom normal, so the one we edit. 00:02:01.766 --> 00:02:05.566 And now as you move the empty, you can see that the mesh is being displaced according 00:02:05.566 --> 00:02:08.266 to the custom normal that we are editing in the real time. 00:02:08.356 --> 00:02:09.376 So let's keep it under. 00:02:09.376 --> 00:02:11.446 And now in order to have further control 00:02:11.446 --> 00:02:14.156 over the displacement itself, we will create another empty. 00:02:14.206 --> 00:02:18.496 So again, empty plane axis is fine or any other will do just fine. 00:02:18.496 --> 00:02:21.626 And this one we will call a displace controller. 00:02:21.626 --> 00:02:25.916 Now back in our sphere, in the displace modifier, change coordinates from local 00:02:25.916 --> 00:02:29.756 to object, and the object is going to be the displace controller that we created. 00:02:29.756 --> 00:02:34.356 This way we can easily control the displace texture by simply scaling our empty. 00:02:34.436 --> 00:02:38.416 Also moving it around is going to phase through the three-dimensional texture. 00:02:38.516 --> 00:02:43.976 Now with this basic set up, let's make our aura look like an aura, so sort of an egg shape. 00:02:44.096 --> 00:02:49.296 We can just pick the top vertice, and with the proportional editing enabled we can simply move 00:02:49.296 --> 00:02:50.706 it up and just adjust it. 00:02:50.706 --> 00:02:55.086 Just make it look like a sort of egg or a droplet of water, and then when you get 00:02:55.086 --> 00:02:58.546 out of the edit mode you can see that it resembles aura a little bit more. 00:02:58.696 --> 00:03:02.006 Now one thing to pay attention to is when you go back into the edit mode, 00:03:02.006 --> 00:03:06.476 you can see that the density of the vertices is much higher down here than it is up here. 00:03:06.476 --> 00:03:09.226 So it is a good practice to sort of even it out. 00:03:09.226 --> 00:03:13.776 So feel free to just add some loop cuts in the middle to sort of have a uniform -- 00:03:13.926 --> 00:03:17.116 or at least around a uniform across the whole surface. 00:03:17.196 --> 00:03:21.806 So with that done, right click shade smooth so we have a nice smooth sort 00:03:21.806 --> 00:03:24.616 of bush-looking mesh which is perfectly fine. 00:03:24.796 --> 00:03:27.796 Don't worry too much about displacement and the value so far 00:03:27.796 --> 00:03:30.256 yet because we can always adjust it later down the road. 00:03:30.256 --> 00:03:32.516 And now let's just focus on the material itself. 00:03:32.516 --> 00:03:37.246 So let's get a new window, change it to shader editor, and click new to create a new material. 00:03:37.246 --> 00:03:41.026 We can delete the principled BDSF and get a emission shader node as well 00:03:41.026 --> 00:03:46.636 as transparent BSDF, and also a mix shader connected like so, the transparent on top 00:03:46.636 --> 00:03:52.736 and emission on the bottom, and now let's add a fernel node as well as layer weight node. 00:03:52.736 --> 00:03:55.686 Now let's also go into the render preview so we see what we're doing. 00:03:55.746 --> 00:04:00.296 And as we preview the fernel node -- the preview is ctrl shift left mouse button, 00:04:00.336 --> 00:04:02.386 but you have to have a node wrangler enabled. 00:04:02.386 --> 00:04:05.566 For those of you wondering it's under edit, preferences, add-ons. 00:04:05.626 --> 00:04:09.186 And by default it should be in Blender already, so just make sure it's enabled. 00:04:09.266 --> 00:04:14.486 So the fernel node as you see gives us this really, really nice effect where only the edges 00:04:14.486 --> 00:04:18.946 of the mesh is highlighted which is going to play perfectly into what we are trying to do. 00:04:18.946 --> 00:04:21.816 So right after fernel node let's add a color ramp, 00:04:22.016 --> 00:04:24.306 and here we can already start laying in some colors. 00:04:24.406 --> 00:04:27.306 First of all, let's change the interpolation from linear to constant 00:04:27.306 --> 00:04:31.476 so that we don't have any gradient but rather sharp, contrasty look between the colors. 00:04:31.476 --> 00:04:36.506 And now let's start with the darkest being sort of reddish, maybe something like this. 00:04:36.596 --> 00:04:41.726 Then the next one it will go through orange, then to yellow, and the last one sort 00:04:41.726 --> 00:04:44.316 of washed out yellow going into the white. 00:04:44.316 --> 00:04:46.916 Now we can adjust it as it is right now or you can do it later. 00:04:46.916 --> 00:04:49.136 Just make sure it looks something like that. 00:04:49.136 --> 00:04:54.436 It gradually goes from darkest to the lightest in the edges poking out of the mesh. 00:04:54.436 --> 00:04:56.936 But don't worry about it too much, we can always come back to it later. 00:04:57.066 --> 00:05:00.016 And this color ramp is going straight into the emission node. 00:05:00.016 --> 00:05:03.046 Now as we preview the mix shader, you can see that we have just that 00:05:03.046 --> 00:05:06.846 and we don't have any transparency yet, and that is because first of all we need to go 00:05:06.846 --> 00:05:11.226 into the material properties and in blend mode enable alpha blend instead of opaque. 00:05:11.226 --> 00:05:13.756 And the second thing, let's also enable back face culling. 00:05:13.756 --> 00:05:18.046 Now as you see everything is sort of half transparent because this mix shader is now set 00:05:18.046 --> 00:05:21.206 to being half transparent BSDF and half emission. 00:05:21.266 --> 00:05:23.986 So what we need to do is we need to get an alpha mask, 00:05:23.986 --> 00:05:25.906 and for this we will use this layer weight node. 00:05:25.906 --> 00:05:29.086 So let's get another color ramp and connect the facing 00:05:29.146 --> 00:05:30.936 into the color ramp, and let's preview this. 00:05:31.046 --> 00:05:33.836 Here we can change the interpolation from linear to B-spline 00:05:33.836 --> 00:05:36.626 to get a much softer gradient than with linear. 00:05:36.626 --> 00:05:39.626 And also, let's bring in the black value quite high 00:05:39.746 --> 00:05:44.366 and the white one just slightly move it from the edge to like 0.9. 00:05:44.436 --> 00:05:49.266 Now let's duplicate this color ramp, and this time connect it with fernel from layer weight. 00:05:49.266 --> 00:05:52.296 And as you preview this one it has slightly different result. 00:05:52.696 --> 00:05:57.486 You can see that the facing has more of that gradient going into our aura, 00:05:57.486 --> 00:06:00.666 and fernel only really highlights the very edges. 00:06:00.716 --> 00:06:05.226 So here we can actually dial back this black value a little bit to have that gradient 00:06:05.226 --> 00:06:08.046 as well, and now we just need to combine these two color ramps. 00:06:08.136 --> 00:06:12.666 So let's get a math node, connect both of them together; leave it at add; let's preview that. 00:06:12.926 --> 00:06:16.456 And the only thing you need to do is enable clamp just to make sure 00:06:16.456 --> 00:06:20.046 that the white values do not exceed one because this will go directly 00:06:20.046 --> 00:06:24.806 into the mix shader factor, and so everything of value one is going to be fully opaque, 00:06:24.806 --> 00:06:26.866 and the black values are going to be transparent. 00:06:26.866 --> 00:06:31.056 So as we preview this, we can see that we already have something going on in here. 00:06:31.166 --> 00:06:34.486 Now make sure that the back face calling is on because if you turn it off then you see 00:06:34.486 --> 00:06:36.016 that we have some sort of artifact. 00:06:36.486 --> 00:06:40.136 Not sure why it happens, but it does, so just make sure it's checked in. 00:06:40.476 --> 00:06:44.866 And here we can adjust the color ramp values just to make sure that our colors are popping 00:06:44.866 --> 00:06:48.826 in nicely and they are not too faded but also that we still have this nice gradient. 00:06:48.956 --> 00:06:51.636 Also if this mesh is pretty spiky, remember 00:06:51.636 --> 00:06:54.556 that in the modifier stack we added a subdivision modifier, 00:06:54.556 --> 00:06:57.836 at the beginning so you can up the levels of subdivision. 00:06:57.936 --> 00:07:00.696 And this should give you a lot more geometry to work 00:07:00.696 --> 00:07:03.316 with which should also make the gradient a little bit smooth. 00:07:03.316 --> 00:07:07.596 And then as you see in my case, I have very noisy displacement going on right now 00:07:07.666 --> 00:07:11.636 and that is why we have this displace controller in here so we can easily just scale it 00:07:11.636 --> 00:07:14.706 up a little bit in order to get much, much softer results. 00:07:14.766 --> 00:07:19.376 Now because it's an aura and it's supposed to be glowing, we can up the emission strength 00:07:19.376 --> 00:07:21.236 in here to something like maybe ten. 00:07:21.786 --> 00:07:26.096 And if you don't have this glow going around your mesh, just make sure that you go 00:07:26.096 --> 00:07:28.486 into the render settings and you have a bloom enabled 00:07:28.486 --> 00:07:31.786 because that's the setting that's allowing your emissive areas to glow. 00:07:31.956 --> 00:07:35.616 Now as you can see, we have [inaudible] shaded, sort of stylized look of the aura. 00:07:35.616 --> 00:07:39.036 And if you want to have it more gradual, I would say blurry or smooth, 00:07:39.156 --> 00:07:42.526 you can go into this color ramp that is dealing with the color of your aura 00:07:42.776 --> 00:07:45.886 and just change the interpolation from constant to whatever you like. 00:07:46.116 --> 00:07:48.226 I would recommend the B-spline because it gives this really, 00:07:48.226 --> 00:07:51.276 really nice soft gradient between the values that we have. 00:07:51.476 --> 00:07:56.136 So as I said, just a -- So as I said, just an artistic choice for you to make. 00:07:56.366 --> 00:07:59.176 And now to put a little bit more life into this whole effect, 00:07:59.236 --> 00:08:02.876 we can take the displace controller and just animate it going up. 00:08:02.876 --> 00:08:04.866 Because as you see with this displace controller, 00:08:04.866 --> 00:08:07.526 the texture that is displacing the mesh is going up as well. 00:08:07.646 --> 00:08:11.676 So on the frame one, in his base position, I'll just click I 00:08:11.876 --> 00:08:14.546 and add a location keyframe to the first frame. 00:08:14.546 --> 00:08:19.406 And then on, let's say, frame 20th, I will move it upwards, and then click I again 00:08:19.406 --> 00:08:21.126 and add another keyframe location. 00:08:21.126 --> 00:08:24.806 And now if you play this you can see that it's moving from 1 to 20. 00:08:24.806 --> 00:08:29.366 But what we can also do is change the interpolation to linear by clicking T 00:08:29.366 --> 00:08:34.266 on the keyboard and choosing linear, and then shift E and choose linear extrapolation. 00:08:34.386 --> 00:08:37.216 And this will take these two keyframes and based on them, 00:08:37.346 --> 00:08:40.536 it will extrapolate this animation further so that we don't need 00:08:40.536 --> 00:08:45.126 to have the keyframe all the way up there in order to have this animation going infinitely. 00:08:45.126 --> 00:08:47.176 And then if you want this to go faster or slower, 00:08:47.256 --> 00:08:51.816 you just move this second keyframe further or crunch it in closer to the first keyframe 00:08:51.816 --> 00:08:53.886 to have it really, really frantic. 00:08:53.886 --> 00:08:56.316 I like the slower one, so I'll put it somewhere around here. 00:08:56.446 --> 00:09:00.776 So with this flamey color done, the next step is to add those bluish sparks 00:09:00.776 --> 00:09:02.746 that are moving through the whole aura. 00:09:02.806 --> 00:09:06.516 I'm talking about those blue sparks that you can see appearing and disappearing. 00:09:06.516 --> 00:09:10.026 So for that, first of all, we will duplicate this color ramp with the colors 00:09:10.026 --> 00:09:13.236 and connect the fernel node to it as well; and let's preview that. 00:09:13.236 --> 00:09:18.256 And here we want to change the color scheme from this orangey, yellowy, flamey looking one 00:09:18.256 --> 00:09:20.736 into the bluish sort of sparky colors. 00:09:20.766 --> 00:09:25.196 So we will just go through all those color stops and just move it into the blue areas. 00:09:25.396 --> 00:09:29.746 So this one here, this one may be a little bit like this, this one much, much brighter, 00:09:29.876 --> 00:09:36.206 and then the last one going into almost whitish just to have that little oomph at the very edge. 00:09:36.236 --> 00:09:39.646 Now if you preview this blue spark color by plugging it into the emission, 00:09:39.646 --> 00:09:44.816 you can see that it looks nice, but it looks much better if its interpolation is changed 00:09:44.816 --> 00:09:48.606 to constant because electricity usually is quite harsh and jagged. 00:09:48.766 --> 00:09:51.306 So I would recommend this, but again your choice. 00:09:51.356 --> 00:09:55.136 So let's move back the flamey [inaudible] to emission as a default, 00:09:55.136 --> 00:09:57.976 and then we want this blue one only to appear in waves. 00:09:58.236 --> 00:10:00.736 So let's by adding a wave texture. 00:10:00.776 --> 00:10:04.186 And then again if you have the node wrangler enabled with the node selected, 00:10:04.186 --> 00:10:07.456 click CTRL T. To get a mapping and texture coordinates node, 00:10:07.526 --> 00:10:09.636 change it from generated to object. 00:10:09.636 --> 00:10:13.096 And then as you preview this you can see that now the waves are going vertically, 00:10:13.276 --> 00:10:16.606 so we will need to rotate it on the y-axis by 90 degrees, 00:10:16.606 --> 00:10:20.296 and also change the scale all the way down to something like 0.7. 00:10:20.406 --> 00:10:21.996 So we have those waves quite big. 00:10:22.086 --> 00:10:24.786 The next step is to animate the phase offset. 00:10:24.786 --> 00:10:28.266 As you can see we have the single value that can control the waves going up. 00:10:28.456 --> 00:10:33.116 So we'll simply type in here hashtag frame which is going to change it into a driver, 00:10:33.116 --> 00:10:35.256 and then we can divide it by let's say 2. 00:10:35.256 --> 00:10:38.966 And as we play the animation you can see that these waves are moving downwards. 00:10:39.026 --> 00:10:42.896 So in order to change the direction, we just need to put a minus sign before. 00:10:43.006 --> 00:10:44.016 Now it's moving upwards. 00:10:44.016 --> 00:10:48.126 And if it's moving too slow, you can just change the frame divided by 2 to -- 00:10:48.246 --> 00:10:51.226 like frame divided by 0.5 whatever you like. 00:10:51.226 --> 00:10:55.326 I will have it at 0.8 because I found this value to work great for me. 00:10:55.326 --> 00:10:57.406 And then in order to refine this gradient, 00:10:57.406 --> 00:11:00.686 we will get another color ramp right after the wave texture. 00:11:00.766 --> 00:11:05.226 And this time we will change it to B-spline again so we have much, much softer gradient. 00:11:05.226 --> 00:11:09.016 And move the black value all the way in and the white value just a little bit 00:11:09.016 --> 00:11:13.516 so that we have this really, really white value in here, then the gradient, 00:11:13.516 --> 00:11:16.606 and then the black values in here, which is exactly what we're looking for. 00:11:16.686 --> 00:11:20.826 Now in order to give a little bit more variation to this, we can increase the distortion, 00:11:20.856 --> 00:11:24.626 the detail scale in order to just give it a little bit of irregularities. 00:11:24.776 --> 00:11:30.086 Now that we have this wave texture already done, we will need a mix RGB in order to change 00:11:30.086 --> 00:11:33.146 between the yellow and the blue based on this mask. 00:11:33.246 --> 00:11:38.646 So this mask goes into the factor and then the yellow one goes into the color one input 00:11:38.646 --> 00:11:40.516 and the blue into the color two input. 00:11:40.516 --> 00:11:43.696 And the output of the mix RGB goes straight into the emission. 00:11:43.786 --> 00:11:46.796 Now as we preview the mix shader, so our final material, 00:11:46.796 --> 00:11:50.786 you can see that we have this nice sort of sparky wave going 00:11:50.786 --> 00:11:52.986 from the bottom to the top of the whole effect. 00:11:52.986 --> 00:11:54.636 But right now it's visible all the time, 00:11:54.856 --> 00:11:57.726 and I just feel like it's much better when it's blinking. 00:11:57.726 --> 00:12:00.596 So we will need a couple more nodes in order to achieve that. 00:12:00.656 --> 00:12:05.046 The first one will be a math node changed from add to ping pong. 00:12:05.376 --> 00:12:11.056 So in order for us to have a blinking mask, we need to type in hashtag frame, again, a driver, 00:12:11.056 --> 00:12:15.126 and then depending on how fast we want it to blink we can divide it by some number. 00:12:15.296 --> 00:12:18.766 I will leave it at divided by 2 because I want it to blink quite fast. 00:12:18.766 --> 00:12:23.216 And now a disclaimer, for those of you that may have problem with fast-blinking images 00:12:23.216 --> 00:12:27.866 or epilepsy just maybe skip this part because I'm going to preview it and it's just going 00:12:27.866 --> 00:12:30.156 to blink black and white, so be prepared. 00:12:30.156 --> 00:12:32.136 So as you can see, it's blinking right now. 00:12:32.416 --> 00:12:35.466 And if it's too fast, too slow, again, you can adjust the driver. 00:12:35.466 --> 00:12:39.476 And one more thing we can do is -- right now as you can see as we scroll through the animation, 00:12:39.476 --> 00:12:42.586 it goes from black to gray and only then through white. 00:12:42.586 --> 00:12:45.386 And we want to skip the gray values; we only want zero 00:12:45.386 --> 00:12:47.716 and one, so like invisible and visible. 00:12:47.716 --> 00:12:51.216 And for that we will need another math node, connected right after ping pong, 00:12:51.216 --> 00:12:53.886 and this time change the add to snap. 00:12:53.886 --> 00:12:56.286 And this will snap to whatever value we have in here. 00:12:56.286 --> 00:13:01.666 So I will put in one so it snaps to every round number without anything after comma. 00:13:01.756 --> 00:13:03.646 Again disclaimer, flashing images. 00:13:03.696 --> 00:13:08.386 As you preview this, you have a clear zero to one mask flashing. 00:13:08.386 --> 00:13:12.766 So we move this a little bit further, get another math node, and this time it's going 00:13:12.766 --> 00:13:16.616 to be multiplying, and we want to multiply the result of the snap 00:13:16.796 --> 00:13:19.156 with the color ramp going from our wave texture. 00:13:19.306 --> 00:13:22.046 So if we preview that we have the same blinking thing, 00:13:22.156 --> 00:13:25.366 but this time it's the waves that are blinking upwards. 00:13:25.416 --> 00:13:27.846 And this goes into the mix RGB factor. 00:13:28.026 --> 00:13:32.786 Now as we preview everything, you should have this really blue sparks only visible every now 00:13:32.786 --> 00:13:34.726 and then depending on how fast it's blinking. 00:13:34.726 --> 00:13:37.946 And I just feel like it looks so much better than when it's always visible. 00:13:38.076 --> 00:13:41.666 You can, of course, adjust the size of the waves and the scale of it all, 00:13:41.666 --> 00:13:44.726 so like the scale of the wave texture in order to have less 00:13:44.846 --> 00:13:47.356 or more of the sparks going at the same time. 00:13:47.446 --> 00:13:48.576 Again, all up to you. 00:13:48.856 --> 00:13:50.736 I will maybe change it to like 0.4. 00:13:50.826 --> 00:13:54.676 And here now is the time to sort of adjust all the values that you want. 00:13:54.676 --> 00:13:57.886 And just small tip, it's better if your background is much, 00:13:57.886 --> 00:14:02.136 much darker than this grayish value then everything that's happening is just 00:14:02.136 --> 00:14:02.716 more visible. 00:14:02.716 --> 00:14:06.656 So I would recommend just go into the world settings, change the color to something, 00:14:06.656 --> 00:14:11.256 I don't know maybe bluish, and then get the value all the way down to almost like black 00:14:11.256 --> 00:14:14.006 but not quite, and then you see what's really going on. 00:14:14.066 --> 00:14:16.816 So again, all the values that we went through, all the color ramps, 00:14:16.876 --> 00:14:18.896 just feel free to adjust them as you wish. 00:14:18.896 --> 00:14:20.386 I think I will leave it as it is. 00:14:20.426 --> 00:14:23.846 Now as you can see the difference is that my frame rate here is much, 00:14:23.846 --> 00:14:29.596 much higher than in the presentation video and that is because I just like this 12 FPS sort 00:14:29.596 --> 00:14:34.546 of look that I have had in this scene, and you can easily have that as well just going 00:14:34.546 --> 00:14:40.176 into the render settings, and change the frame rate from 24 to custom and then just type in 12. 00:14:40.236 --> 00:14:45.286 But then again, the whole like speed of your animation, speed of your displace controller, 00:14:45.506 --> 00:14:48.776 everything has to be adjusted based on the frame rate that you choose to have. 00:14:48.876 --> 00:14:52.246 So for this tutorial I will just use 30 to have smooth-looking thing, 00:14:52.366 --> 00:14:54.686 but just know that it's a possibility in order 00:14:54.686 --> 00:14:57.026 to achieve a totally different look to the whole thing. 00:14:57.026 --> 00:14:59.996 So now the last thing to do is the stones, the particles 00:14:59.996 --> 00:15:00.976 and that is done with the particle system. 00:15:01.356 --> 00:15:06.916 So we can just shift a mesh plane to have a particle emitter on the bottom 00:15:06.916 --> 00:15:09.906 of the whole aura, and we can also name it emitter. 00:15:09.906 --> 00:15:11.886 And then we need just couple of stones. 00:15:11.886 --> 00:15:14.976 And I just simply took mesh, rock generator. 00:15:14.976 --> 00:15:19.296 I believe you need to have an add-on enabled for that as well which is, I think, 00:15:19.296 --> 00:15:21.556 extra object add mesh extra object. 00:15:21.616 --> 00:15:22.676 So make sure it's enabled. 00:15:22.676 --> 00:15:24.546 Or you can just create any rock that you want. 00:15:24.546 --> 00:15:27.116 I just found that this method is so much faster. 00:15:27.116 --> 00:15:28.376 You just generate a rock. 00:15:28.376 --> 00:15:32.686 You go into the modifier stack, apply all of them, and then add a decimate modifier, 00:15:32.826 --> 00:15:36.286 and just go all the way down until you have like a low-poly version. 00:15:36.286 --> 00:15:40.596 In order to see the faces better, you just right click, shade flat, and then bring it all the way 00:15:40.596 --> 00:15:42.226 down and then apply the decimate. 00:15:42.226 --> 00:15:44.726 And you can just generate a few rocks like that. 00:15:44.726 --> 00:15:47.526 Decimate all the way down, shade flat, and done. 00:15:47.606 --> 00:15:51.596 So when you have your rock collection, I don't know how many different variations you want, 00:15:51.596 --> 00:15:54.846 just select both of them, click M and choose new collection. 00:15:54.926 --> 00:15:58.816 Name them rocks or something like that, and this should create a new collection for you. 00:15:58.816 --> 00:16:03.156 And now in our particle emitter, in this plane, we can create a particle system, 00:16:03.156 --> 00:16:06.876 and under render, change the render as from halo to collection, 00:16:06.956 --> 00:16:09.206 and the collection being rocks that we just created. 00:16:09.276 --> 00:16:12.576 We can change the scale also to one, so we see what's going on. 00:16:12.576 --> 00:16:15.116 And as you click play you can see we have our rocks. 00:16:15.216 --> 00:16:18.506 Now first of all, of course let's increase the scale randomness 00:16:18.616 --> 00:16:20.816 so we have a variation with the scale. 00:16:20.896 --> 00:16:24.956 Let's choose the frame, start to be like minus 50, so we have a little bit 00:16:24.956 --> 00:16:27.436 of pre-warm before the whole animation starts. 00:16:27.496 --> 00:16:32.446 The end also 250 so it encompasses the whole animation frame that we have right here. 00:16:32.446 --> 00:16:34.836 And now first of all, obviously the rocks are falling. 00:16:34.836 --> 00:16:37.656 We don't want them to fall -- all the way down into field weights, 00:16:37.736 --> 00:16:39.986 and turn down the gravity all the way to zero. 00:16:40.036 --> 00:16:44.356 This will make our particles go up but in very uniform and not pleasing way. 00:16:44.356 --> 00:16:48.896 So first of all, let's decrease the number to, like, something more sensible maybe 100. 00:16:48.896 --> 00:16:55.116 And then under the velocity tab, let's add a object aligned Z velocity, one meter per second, 00:16:55.116 --> 00:16:58.876 and then under randomize let's increase it to something like one. 00:16:58.986 --> 00:17:01.776 So we can see that the rocks are not going straight up 00:17:01.876 --> 00:17:04.306 but have a little bit of random velocity. 00:17:04.376 --> 00:17:07.576 We can also increase the lifetime randomness to like 0.5. 00:17:07.686 --> 00:17:10.516 So not all of them will disappear at the same height. 00:17:10.516 --> 00:17:13.266 Next thing, as you can see, they're all rotated the same way. 00:17:13.486 --> 00:17:15.326 So under rotation, let's enable it. 00:17:15.326 --> 00:17:19.926 Crank the randomize all the way up, the randomized phase all the way up, enable dynamic. 00:17:19.926 --> 00:17:25.236 And under angular velocity we can increase the amount so that they will rotate as they fly 00:17:25.236 --> 00:17:29.056 up as well, which I think gives a little bit more dynamism to the whole scene. 00:17:29.136 --> 00:17:32.926 Now if they are a little bit too big, you can either scale your models down, 00:17:32.996 --> 00:17:37.796 or scale them under the render tab to scale a little bit lower so they are not as big. 00:17:37.886 --> 00:17:39.756 And now I think the last thing to do is -- 00:17:39.756 --> 00:17:43.096 as you can see they just fly up and disappear sort of abruptly. 00:17:43.176 --> 00:17:46.596 In order to make this transition much, much smoother, we scroll all the way 00:17:46.596 --> 00:17:50.286 down until we find the textures tab, then open it up, click new. 00:17:50.426 --> 00:17:55.036 To create new texture, go into the textures tab again, change type from image or movie to blend, 00:17:55.036 --> 00:17:57.046 and we will use this texture in order 00:17:57.046 --> 00:18:01.566 to tell the particle system how big the particles should be at given moment of life. 00:18:01.686 --> 00:18:04.536 So first of all, open influence, and we want this texture only 00:18:04.576 --> 00:18:07.466 to influence the size of our particle. 00:18:07.466 --> 00:18:09.626 And then under mapping -- the coordinates we want 00:18:09.666 --> 00:18:12.766 to be not generated but per strand and particle. 00:18:12.856 --> 00:18:17.436 So each of this particle will be affected by this texture as its own entity basically. 00:18:17.436 --> 00:18:18.616 Now let's open colors. 00:18:18.706 --> 00:18:20.696 Enable color ramp and open it up. 00:18:20.696 --> 00:18:24.856 And here, first of all, let's increase the alpha of this to like one so we see what we're doing. 00:18:24.976 --> 00:18:28.386 This basically represents the scale of our object throughout its life. 00:18:28.386 --> 00:18:30.646 So black is zero, obviously; white is one. 00:18:30.746 --> 00:18:34.866 So we want it to start with the size one, and then as it grows old, 00:18:34.866 --> 00:18:37.206 we want it to be zero by the time it disappears. 00:18:37.246 --> 00:18:41.476 We can also change the interpolation to B-spline to have much smoother transition 00:18:41.476 --> 00:18:43.146 and just bring it a little bit closer. 00:18:43.146 --> 00:18:46.856 So as you can see the particles now start with their normal size 00:18:46.856 --> 00:18:49.976 and then they just gradually scale down until they disappear. 00:18:50.046 --> 00:18:53.406 We can increase the render scale now because they are a little bit small. 00:18:53.516 --> 00:18:57.566 And when you're happy with your particles going up, the last thing to do is take them 00:18:57.726 --> 00:19:01.096 and create a material for them because right now in the render preview as you can see, 00:19:01.096 --> 00:19:03.856 we have this emissive color, and then we have those stones, 00:19:03.946 --> 00:19:05.786 and then it depends what you want to go for. 00:19:05.906 --> 00:19:11.016 I, in my previous scene, had a simple setup of area light shining from the top, 00:19:11.046 --> 00:19:13.446 quite big and quite strong, and based 00:19:13.446 --> 00:19:18.246 on this light information I had the stones cell shaded, and I will show you how. 00:19:18.366 --> 00:19:20.346 So first of all let's select the stone, 00:19:20.346 --> 00:19:23.886 and in the material editor click new to create new material. 00:19:23.886 --> 00:19:27.696 And we can delete the principled BSDF and instead have a diffuse. 00:19:27.696 --> 00:19:32.026 And now right after the diffuse, we want a shader to RGB node, 00:19:32.076 --> 00:19:35.946 which is going to take the shader information and turn it into an RGB color, 00:19:36.006 --> 00:19:38.216 which we can further connect to a color ramp. 00:19:38.336 --> 00:19:39.666 And let me show you what it does. 00:19:39.786 --> 00:19:44.576 So it takes this information of how this object looks like being lit by the light, 00:19:44.576 --> 00:19:47.166 and based on that we can just give it some different color. 00:19:47.276 --> 00:19:50.566 So because it's stone, I went with like the basic brown set up. 00:19:50.566 --> 00:19:51.846 Oh, let's do it again as well. 00:19:51.956 --> 00:19:55.436 Change the interpolation to constant again to have the cell-shaded look. 00:19:55.436 --> 00:19:57.976 Now the second one's going to be much brighter but not too bright. 00:19:58.046 --> 00:20:00.286 Add a highlight, highlight on top. 00:20:00.596 --> 00:20:02.856 So yeah, you can spend much more time adjusting it. 00:20:02.856 --> 00:20:04.506 I'm just hungry so I'm going to wrap it up. 00:20:04.506 --> 00:20:08.136 So simply select the second rock going in here and choose the material 00:20:08.136 --> 00:20:09.756 that we just created for our rocks. 00:20:09.826 --> 00:20:14.726 And now as you see as they fly upwards, as the light changes, the material reflects 00:20:14.806 --> 00:20:16.616 that as well and changes with it. 00:20:16.616 --> 00:20:21.366 If the lighting is too strong for you, then you can always just decrease the strength 00:20:21.696 --> 00:20:25.236 of the light, and as you can see it affects the color because, again, 00:20:25.356 --> 00:20:28.496 it's taking the diffuse shader and then turning it into color. 00:20:28.606 --> 00:20:31.736 So depending on the how the diffuse shader looks in the first place, 00:20:31.906 --> 00:20:33.566 that's how the result is going to look like. 00:20:33.566 --> 00:20:37.056 And yeah, because it's aura, one last thing, you can select it. 00:20:37.106 --> 00:20:38.666 You can see we have a shadow right now -- 00:20:38.756 --> 00:20:42.376 go into the material properties and under the shadow mode just click none 00:20:42.726 --> 00:20:45.986 so that it doesn't cast any shadow because I just believe it shouldn't. 00:20:45.986 --> 00:20:48.096 And this would be it for the tutorial. 00:20:48.136 --> 00:20:52.536 I hope that you learned something, that you enjoyed it, and you will be able to use it 00:20:52.536 --> 00:20:54.646 in your personal project, which I would love to see. 00:20:54.736 --> 00:20:56.846 If you do so, please share with me on Twitter. 00:20:56.966 --> 00:20:58.346 Link for that in the description. 00:20:58.346 --> 00:21:01.776 And if you have any requests for the future tutorials, comment section is for you. 00:21:01.776 --> 00:21:03.136 And I will see you in the next one. 00:21:03.346 --> 00:21:03.646 Bye bye.