This Blender course will lead you step-by-step to certain doom through creating a spooky fantasy scene.

Create:  Rocks, Grass, Trees, useful for any outdoor scene.

Practice:  Modeling, Texturing, Surfacing, Lighting, Rendering.

Explore:  Asset Library, Geometry Nodes.

What will you learn?

Chapter 1: Pre-Production & Proxy Build

At first glance, you see a painting by Nathan Proffitt (the course author's brother). Look closer...and find assets for your 3d world.  

Call out those assets and build proxies for a spooky 3d environment.

Chapter 2: Creating Foliage

In this chapter you will create rocks, trees, and grass.  These are essentials for any outdoor scene you will make in the future.

We'll model, texture and sculpt our way to an entire library of outdoor assets, ready to drop into our scene.

Chapter 3: Building The Scary Hut

In the midst of what might otherwise be a walk in the dreamy woods is a ram-shackled hut.  It'll be a walk in the park to build it together.  

Seriously, though.  We'll dig into the planks and door, the deck, windows, roof, porch and canopy to build the centerpiece of our story.

Chapter 4: Look Dev

Here we go into all the details of our hut, the lantern and the landscape to bring our environment to life...or, more fittingly, to death.

Chapter 5: Scatter & Set Dressing

It's time to populate our environment and set the scene.  We'll be working on scattering and utilizing raycast node to randomize the elements and assets within the environment.  In a very intentional way, of course.

Chapter 6: Rendering & Compositing

Lighting can make or break your scene - and in this chapter, we'll light our scene for theatrical quality. 

We'll tackle to world and key lights as well as the background and accent lights.  The challenge: create a dark environment that shines.

Want more CG Cookie Courses?

If you get inspired and would like to become a CG Cookie member after purchasing this course, send a message to [email protected] and we will be happy to help you set up an annual membership while discounting the amount you paid for this course on Blender Market.  A membership will give you access to our instructors, our community and 100+ CG Cookie Blender courses.  Be sure to mention your Blender Market Order ID and we will take it from there.

For more information, visit cgcookie.com or head over to our Creator Profile here on Blender Market.

About the course author

Kenan is a guest instructor with CG Cookie and we are delighted he shared some of his time and his story with us.

I’ve been a blender enthusiast for over a decade now, and I’m constantly amazed at how this powerful software has evolved. Blender was my first love in computer graphics. As I developed my 3D skills in Blender, I pursued knowledge in other areas of computer graphics and filmmaking, eventually getting a degree in computer animation. I have been fortunate to establish a professional career in the film industry, working at an animation studio as an Environment Supervisor. It seems no matter the project, I always come back to Blender! Blender is among the pieces of software I use every day on animated features films, and I absolutely love it!

Some years ago I found a niche on YouTube using Blender for VFX. This introduced me to the wonderful community that surrounds our beloved software. I continually seek to learn from others and share my experience and knowledge, as we all help each other grow in our digital creativity.