Aurora: A Northern Light Generator

by Nicolas in Surfacing

Installation Instructions

How to import the northern lights in your project:

  1. In your project, go to "File".
  2. Click on "Append".
  3. Select this file (Aurora.blend).
  4. Go to "NodeTree" and select "Aurora".
Its that simple! The node group is now in your project and you can now access it in the shader editor when pressing Shift+A, in the "Group" category.

How to setup the northern lights in your scene:

  1. Create a cube with a length and width of about 5km and a height of about 2km (you can always change its dimensions later).
  2. Apply its scale*.
  3. Change the View "Clip Start" to 0.1 and "End" to 100 000
  4. Create a material that contains the node group.
  5. I recommend putting the dicing scale of the volume in the render settings between 0.1 and 0.2 for better results

*Reminder: Remember to always apply the scale of your object after changing its scale

That's it, your northern lights are now in your scene, enjoy!

WARNING: Never apply the location or rotation of the object that contains the northern lights. Doing so might break them for this object.

The function of each inputs

General Settings
  • Seed: Control the random shape of the northern lights.
  • Scale: Control the scale of the northern lights.
  • Rotation: Control the rotation of the northern lights.
  • Random Mask: Apply a ramdom mask that hide certain parts of the northern Lights.
  • Time: Useful for animation, the Time parameter simulate the northern lights moving in real time.
Shape
  • Waviness: Control the "Waviness" of the northern Lights.
  • Thickness: Control the Thickness of the northern Lights.
Streaks
  • Streak Density: Control the amount of streaks on the northern Lights.
  • Streak Visibility: Control the visibility of the streaks on the northern Lights.
Color
  • Bottom: the Color at the bottom of the northen Lights.
  • Top: the Color at the top of the northen Lights.

If you have any questions about the installation or the setup of the northern lights, feel free to reach out to me using the button on the side panel.

Nicolas

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Sales 30+
Dev Fund Contributor
Published over 1 year ago
Blender Version 4.1, 4.0, 3.6, 3.5, 3.4
Render Engine Used Cycles
License Royalty Free
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Tags: winter, northern-lights, colorful, Midinight, night, Aurora Borialis, midnight, sky, light, night sky