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The Basics of Lighting and Rendering in Blender (Donut Finale) — Transcript

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0:00Welcome to your final serving of donut.
0:04In this part, we are going to be
0:05lighting, rendering, and making our
0:08doughnut actually look good. The final
0:11piece of the puzzle. Um, which is the
0:13most fun, honestly. Um, because
0:15currently it just kind of looks like a
0:17early '90s test render or something.
0:20Very, very bland. So, let's make this
0:22actually look good. Uh, we're going to
0:24be moving around some stuff. And you can
0:26see that if you like move an object, you
0:28always leave behind something, right?
0:31And this is just annoying to deal with.
0:33So to fix this, you parent things to
0:36other things. So for example, if you
0:38want the icing to be connected to the
0:40donut, then you first select the icing,
0:43you shift select the donut, then you hit
0:45controlP
0:47to parent. Um, and there's you can
0:50parent to the object or object keep
0:52transform. I always choose keep
0:53transform otherwise it can like clear
0:55the original location and you kind of
0:57lose its location. So always uh keep
1:00transform and so there you go. So now
1:01when we move the donut um the icing is
1:04going with it. Importantly you'll notice
1:06that in the outliner you can't see the
1:08icing anymore. The icing has gone. Where
1:11is it? And this can be confusing
1:12sometimes. You're like where's that
1:14object? And it's because it's parented
1:16to the donut. So it's now underneath in
1:18this little drop down here. It's in
1:20there. It's also a good idea to use like
1:22what is connected to what as a
1:24hierarchy. So for example, the donut is
1:27connected to the plate. So I'm now going
1:29to select the donut, shift, select the
1:31plate, ctrl P, keep transform. And so
1:35now I can move the donut with the icing
1:37by itself or the plate with the donut.
1:39I'm going to do the same thing for the
1:41foam on top of the mug. Ctrl P. Keep
1:45transform. And then also the plate and
1:48the cup I'm going to parent to the plane
1:50the table. I'm going to say keep
1:52transform. So now all of our objects are
1:55in here, right? They're all parented and
1:57you know they're all found underneath
1:59this. So we got to make sure that it's
2:01actually named correctly. So I'll call
2:02that table. This is going to be called
2:05plate. And
2:07I think we're good. Okay. Excellent. Now
2:11I've actually got two lamps in mine. Um
2:14most of you don't. Uh, you've just got
2:15the one, so I'll just delete that. Um,
2:17but yeah, let's go into lighting. The
2:19fun bit. Actually, making this look
2:22cool. Okay, so we want this to look like
2:24a sunlit cafe. At least I do. You're
2:26welcome to do whatever you want, but if
2:28you want to play along, that's what
2:29we're doing. So, um, with our lamp here
2:32selected, you can see that we've got a
2:34number of different types here. We've
2:36got point, sun, spot, and area. I
2:39generally usually just use between uh
2:41point and sun. Occasionally a spot lamp
2:44if I'm doing I just want to like focus
2:46on one specific thing. But I rarely use
2:48an area lamp because there's not much
2:50difference between that and a point lamp
2:52with a radius essentially like making it
2:54larger. Um but in our case we want to
2:56look like a sun a sun lit. So I'm going
2:59to check sun. And oh boy, we've got a
3:03nuclear blast of sunlight. So, generally
3:06I keep this around uh 10 cuz that's
3:09actually what it like maxes out at when
3:11you just like drag it over. It comes in
3:13at 10. Um so that's yeah that's about
3:15what we'll use. I also changed the
3:17temperature which is I don't think I
3:19think it was 4.5 they introduced this.
3:22Um but yeah, you can now adjust this. So
3:24this is a black body scale. So like the
3:26closer like the lower this Kelvin scale
3:29is the more it's like fire and like you
3:32know incandescent bulb and then like
3:35warm LED and then you can get to like
3:37skylight and you can go all the way and
3:39it's just like crazy blue. But anyways,
3:41so sunlight um you know until it looks
3:44right to you. [laughter]
3:46Um I don't know something that's a bit
3:48too much. Let's go. Oh boy. I don't even
3:52know. I feel like I was just twisting
3:53that too much. Now, I'm not actually
3:55sure what looks like sunlamp. Anyways,
3:57good thing is we can change it later if
3:58we want to. Um, now the interesting
4:01thing about a sunlamp is it doesn't
4:03actually matter where it is positioned.
4:06You can see if I position this close to
4:07my donut or my thing like nothing
4:10happens. Whereas a point lamp obviously
4:13is very largely dependent on its
4:15location cuz there is the inverse square
4:18law where like light falls off at what
4:20is it uh four times for every doubling
4:24of distance. So a huge sharp falloff but
4:27sun because it's so far away there's no
4:29falloff and so it doesn't matter where
4:30it actually is. So the only thing that
4:32matters with sun is the rotation of it.
4:35Right? So I'm just going to rotate that
4:37to look like early morning sunshine.
4:40Right? cuz it's going to, you know,
4:41trying to tell a story with a donut.
4:43It's challenging, but we're trying. So,
4:45early morning, somebody's got their
4:47coffee in a cafe or something. Um,
4:50that's what we're going with. Oh, look
4:52at that. My mug is just slightly off the
4:55table. And now it is not. Excellent.
4:58Now, this by itself is uh is pretty
5:01boring, right? If you were to do a
5:03render of this, which you can do just by
5:04hitting uh F12, right? That's it's okay.
5:08But it's like this feels too naked,
5:11right? It's just being blasted with
5:13light everywhere. It helps to try to
5:15shape it and kind of highlight what is
5:17important, which is these two elements.
5:19The rest of the scene that can just
5:22Yeah, it's not important to us, right?
5:24So, we can throw that into shadow. Um,
5:26and it's also an opportunity to make it
5:28look like there's a a scene outside of
5:30the view there, which you can do by
5:31casting shadows um into the scene. So, I
5:34want to basically set up two blockers to
5:37make it look like this is shining in
5:39through a window. Um, and as is typical
5:42with uh with 3D, you don't have to model
5:45the windows because we're not looking at
5:46them. You they can just be blockers. So,
5:48I'm going to hit shift A. And for my
5:50blocker, I'm going to use a plane. Okay.
5:54So, it brings in this. I'm gonna move it
5:56over there. I'm going to go R and then
5:59X. holding down control until it says 90
6:02at the top of the screen there. Do a
6:04single click. Um, all right. That is my
6:07first blocker. And then I need another
6:09blocker going uh this way. So I'm going
6:11to have like a slither of light going
6:13across there. So shift D. Move this to
6:17Oh boy. Y then X
6:22R Z to rotate it by 90°. And then here
6:26we go.
6:29like that. All right. And then I'll move
6:31this one over a little bit. Maybe just
6:33make it a little bit bigger.
6:36Okay. To just try to shape it to just
6:38get some of that light to be a little
6:40bit more targeted. I'm also going to
6:42move this mug just further in the back.
6:45Um, so I'm going to hit G. And yeah, if
6:47you want to lock something to a specific
6:49act, like I want to move it along the X
6:50and the Y, but not the Z. We talked
6:53about this with scale, but applies for
6:54everything. So, if I hit G and then
6:57shift zed, it'll move it along the X and
7:00the Y but not the Z. And so, this is an
7:02easy way if like you've got, you know,
7:05that it's touching the ground where it
7:06needs to, but you just need to move it
7:08around. You can quickly move things by G
7:10and then shift Z and it'll move it
7:12around the plane, but it won't lift it
7:14off of the table, which is uh useful.
7:16All right. And then I'll move my plate
7:18over like so.
7:21And yeah, that looks okay. All right.
7:26Now, yeah, like I said, this this this
7:28looks okay, but it also looks kind of a
7:31little bit like film noir, right? And
7:33what does film noir look like? Looks
7:34fake. Looks very like curated and
7:37designed in a comic strip, right? And
7:39the big telltale for that is like we've
7:41got almost complete darkness over here,
7:44right? Um, and the real world is not
7:46that like that. If this was a cafe, you
7:48would have things bouncing off uh other
7:51objects to the left hand side outside of
7:53frame. But not only that, this is a
7:55sunrise. It's not happening on Mars or
7:57anything like that. So the sky is blue
8:00generally speaking. So uh there needs to
8:03be some blue light as well. So what I'm
8:05going to do is Oh, look at this. We've
8:07got our blockers and yeah, let's
8:11actually move my light and my blockers.
8:14So shift selecting those. I'm going to
8:16hit M and I'm going to create a new
8:18collection and I'm going to call this
8:20lighting. Um, and then we can call these
8:23two objects. By the way, if you want to
8:24rename two objects and at once, uh, you
8:28can do it by I was just trying to
8:30remember the hot key. [laughter]
8:32Uh, there you go. It's Ctrl F2. Um,
8:35which is the same hotkey I think.
8:37Actually, no, I don't think it is in
8:38Windows, but anyways, Crl+ F2 and then
8:41you can just say uh find and replace or
8:44you can just say set name and then you
8:46can say new and I can just call this
8:49blockers or blocker and then just say
8:52okay. And there we go. It's call it
8:53blocker and then the other one
8:54blocker.001. Okay, cool. So now I as I
8:59said I want to create some skylighting.
9:01So I'm going to add a new lamp or I
9:03could duplicate the sun. I'll just
9:04duplicate the sun. So, I'll move this
9:06over to there. And I'm now going to hide
9:09I'll call this one sun, right? My
9:12original one. And then this new one I'm
9:13going to call sky. And I'm going to
9:17change this to be a point lamp. Like
9:20this. Um, and now I'm going to disable
9:23the sky. And this is actually a good tip
9:24to do. It's a really uh bad trap that a
9:27lot of beginners do is when they're
9:28they're working with lighting, they end
9:30up just kind of like throwing in lights.
9:32But you have to work in isolation. You
9:34should only be looking at each light
9:36separately to understand what purpose it
9:39actually has on the scene. So, hiding my
9:41my sun lamp. I'm going to position this
9:44up high because the sky is high even
9:47though there would be like a window
9:48there. Something about actually let's
9:50just see the scale in relation to get
9:53real mathematical here. The scale of the
9:56donut in relation to how tall would the
9:59window be? Maybe up to about here. I
10:02don't know. Um about there, let's say.
10:04And let's move it over a little bit.
10:06Okay. And then
10:10let's uh increase this. Let's remove the
10:14tint. And instead, I'm going to make
10:15this like you can actually like keep the
10:18tint, right? And make it go like all the
10:19way to that. But I want to have a little
10:21bit more control over it. I might want
10:23to make it look a little more purplish
10:24or, you know, we're not going for
10:26something entirely photorealistic. We're
10:29going for like exaggerated realism. Um,
10:33which can often look way better than
10:35real realism. So, this you can see this
10:38is a soft color. This is like
10:39moonlighting, but it just needs to be a
10:42little bit just so that there's the hint
10:44that there is skylighting along with the
10:46uh sun. Now, the other big factor that
10:48it's missing is that the skylighting is
10:51not casting shadows like this, right? If
10:54the sun was away and it was just being
10:56lit by like think of like an overcast
10:57day, right? The sky itself, the entire
11:00dome is the size of the light. So the
11:03radius of our lamp here needs to
11:06increase, right? By a lot. Now this uh
11:11this is a very underused value like it's
11:14one of the most important values when it
11:16comes to lighting is the radius of
11:18something because it's the softness of
11:20the shadow. As an example, let's just
11:22bring this in or actually hang on. Let's
11:23just increase this so we can actually
11:25see it. What can I do? Exposure. There
11:27we go. All right. So, this is uh like
11:29the default it comes in like this. Okay.
11:32And you can see how harsh those shadows
11:34are. So, as a as a rule, harsh shadow is
11:37very good at revealing detail. So, we
11:39often use a lot at polygon cuz we need
11:41to show the the detail of textures along
11:43a surface. So, if you want to highlight
11:44the sprinkles or something like that,
11:46you would use a very small radius like
11:49this. So, it's really sharp um shadows.
11:52Whereas if you want to reveal more of
11:53the form and just the overall color of a
11:56surface, that is when you would use a
11:58larger radius, right? As a general rule
12:01and it has a huge impact on uh on
12:04lighting. The other big thing is is
12:06distance. So there's I mentioned briefly
12:08the inverse square law. Um a lot of
12:10beginners, you know, they're going like,
12:11oh, it's like skylighting. I'll just
12:12position the lamp up here, right? The
12:15problem with that is because of the
12:16inverse square law, every doubling of
12:19distance, so from like here to here,
12:22right, is going to uh well, hang on.
12:25From here to here, what am I thinking
12:27of? But basically, like from the the mug
12:31to the end of the donor, it could lose
12:33something like a third of its energy.
12:35Um, it's it's a it's just an uh what do
12:38you call it? It's not something that is
12:40obvious, but it is really really
12:41important. So something needs to be far
12:43away or appear to be far away. You got
12:45to try to make it look really far away
12:47basically. Um so you know something up
12:50in up up in the air basically. All
12:52right, let's clear that and let's
12:54increase it and go back to the radius.
12:57So nice large radius in the sky. You
13:01know, it's not as big as the sky
13:03actually is, but you know, something
13:05like that. So we've got smooth lighting
13:07over everything. And now with my sun.
13:10Ha, look at that. We've got the tinge of
13:13blue lighting in the air. Um, but we
13:15have the lovely hot, warm sun uh coming
13:18through as well. All right, the final
13:21lamp that I need is that bounce lighting
13:23for the rest of the cafe. So, I'm going
13:25to duplicate my uh skylighting there.
13:28And I'm going to position this. I mean,
13:30you know, how what's the height of the
13:32ceiling or what is it even bouncing off?
13:34Who knows? There could be a wall here
13:36and it's bouncing off that. This is more
13:38where you get to control um you know
13:40what what is it that you're actually
13:42doing. So again, I'm going to hide my
13:43sky, hide my sun. So I'm just looking at
13:46this bounce lighting coming off the
13:47wall. Um and I'm going to uh clear this
13:50to make it look uh just like white
13:53light. Um and by the way, if you want to
13:54change something to the default value,
13:56just mousing over a color here, just hit
13:59backspace and now it goes to its default
14:01value. I can also backspace on the power
14:03and it goes to its default value of 10.
14:05Um, so that's a handy one to know. And
14:08again, I will
14:10Yeah, I mean, I can have a little bit of
14:12control over this cuz there could
14:13actually be a lamp off in the distance
14:15there. We don't really have a lot of
14:16rules for this bounce one. I'm just
14:18looking at trying to fill in the
14:21darkness there. Right. Right there.
14:23Because without it, and we'll call this
14:25uh indoor bounce, right? If you don't
14:29have it, it just looks too dark. So,
14:31there needs to be something there just
14:33to fill in this area of our donut. All
14:36right. So, that's what I'm looking at
14:37there. Something about that. Let's look
14:41at it from the camera view. And I think
14:44now my skylighting is uh a little bit
14:47too blue. I'll dial it back a little
14:49bit. I think it might actually be a
14:51little bit too bright. So, let me just
14:53dial that in. In which case, now I can
14:55make it a little more saturated.
14:58Pull it in.
15:00Okay. How's that? Okay. That's the sun.
15:05That is the indoor by itself.
15:09Okay. All right. And that's pretty good.
15:12That is not bad. Now, you can play with
15:14it a little bit. Um, but that's
15:16generally we've got it in the right
15:17place. Now, I'm going to move my camera
15:19in a little closer. So, I'm going to
15:20check this little uh camera view thing.
15:23And, uh, sorry, lock toggle lock to uh,
15:26camera view. And now I'm just going to
15:28move around and just pull the camera in
15:30a little bit just so we've got a tighter
15:32view of our donut. And then again, just
15:34make sure you uncheck that so that we
15:36can uh move around freely without it
15:38interrupting. Okay. Now, some of you
15:40might be wondering, how can we improve
15:42this so it doesn't look crap? [laughter]
15:45Because what we are using right now, um,
15:48this is called the EV rendering engine.
15:51And it's the reason we've got this kind
15:53of fuzzy noise to our shadows. It's the
15:56reason we have some of our objects are
15:59not really casting much of a shadow in
16:01our scene. Um, and it's also the reason
16:04you might notice that as you like rotate
16:07around, right, you got like wow, look at
16:10this like bright lighting on the plane
16:11here. And watch what happens as I move
16:13the camera. Just disappears. [laughter]
16:17So Eevee is a game engine. So it's doing
16:19a lot of game hackery and that means it
16:22is largely it is due to being screen
16:25space meaning that it's doing bounce
16:28lighting here. Okay. So it's bouncing
16:30the off the plane onto this wall here.
16:34However, it's it's only visible um it
16:38can only see what the camera sees. So
16:39it's called screen space. And that means
16:41that the moment that this moves away and
16:43we no longer have that bright light
16:45reflecting off there, it doesn't know
16:46that that plane exists and that
16:48something should bounce up there. So, it
16:50can result in these like large changes
16:52of lighting. It's kind of the biggest
16:54issue if you're making animations um and
16:56the cameras flying through some spaces
16:58and you don't want to have lighting kind
17:00of changing all over the place. I've got
17:02a whole video on EV if you want to watch
17:03that. Um I talk all about this and go
17:05into more detail. Um but, you know,
17:07these are kind of one of the biggest
17:09limitations. Now, the main thing you
17:11should be trying to do if you're using
17:13the EV rendering engine is the default
17:16value right here for steps is wrong.
17:18Like there's no reason it should be that
17:20low. Steps, you could think of this like
17:23accuracy. Um, now if I increase this to
17:2616, which is the maximum value, look at
17:29how much better those shadows are.
17:31Right? This is the before and then this
17:33is the after. Okay? And it's even more
17:35stark here, right? Look at look at how
17:37much more connected that is. And then if
17:39I go back to here, look at all this
17:41extra crap, right? It's it's basically
17:45an accuracy amount and it should be
17:47maxed out unless you're working on a
17:49really really poor computer and it
17:51happens to stall it or something, you
17:53know, but even then you you double it at
17:55least go to 12. Um, but that by itself
17:58will improve the look of shadows. Um,
18:00the other thing as well is my icing. I
18:03just want to check. Okay. Oh no, that's
18:06the sprinkles.
18:08Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So,
18:10I think I said that I had the scale of
18:12my icing too high on my donut. I think a
18:1403 looks good. And on my sprinkles, I'm
18:17also going to drop that. I'll make it
18:1806.
18:20Nope. Nope. Nope. Let's go 08. So, we
18:24want a little bit, you know, this is a
18:26little bit of pass through here, but not
18:28a crazy amount or else. Yeah. [snorts]
18:30And that's this is quite common to do,
18:33right? If you're making something, you
18:34might set a value when you're in one
18:36state of Blender and then when you add
18:38in lighting from, you know, a more
18:40extreme like sunlight coming in, you
18:42start to notice that some materials
18:43actually, yeah, it doesn't look good.
18:45Um, and so you need to adjust it. And
18:47that's a totally fine thing to do. Um,
18:49there's not really any way uh around it.
18:51Now, the fuzziness, this fuzziness that
18:53you can see right here, um, that is a
18:55result of the samples. So samples you
18:58can think of I mean it's it's like
19:01samples per pixel on a screen and like
19:04basically the more samples you have the
19:05clearer it's going to be. Now what
19:07you're actually looking at right now is
19:09the viewport samples which is set to 16.
19:12When you do your render it will kick in
19:14and use this amount which is 64. So see
19:17how fuzzy it looks there. I do my render
19:19and it comes in not so fuzzy. There is
19:22still fuzz. There's always going to be a
19:23little bit of fuzz, but at least it's
19:26not uh, you know, crazy, but yeah, if
19:29you want to increase it, you can uh, you
19:31know, double that or whatnot. You can
19:32have fun with that. Another thing that
19:34can improve the realism of an EV render
19:37is using a light probe. So, as I
19:39mentioned with the light bouncing off
19:41here, as it fluctuates around, it's kind
19:43of throwing light as it goes around. But
19:45the other issue is that for example um
19:49the the it doesn't actually know that
19:51light is hitting the underside of the
19:54donut here and it would blast out in
19:57that direction because it can't see what
19:59is behind the donut right now. It also
20:01can't see um uh like light that would be
20:04hitting the edge of this plate here and
20:06then bouncing it back this way, right?
20:08It can't see it because from where the
20:10camera is, it just can't see those
20:11objects. So, if you wanted to um add
20:15that, you could add in a light probe
20:17volume. So, I'll show you what that
20:19looks like. Uh first of all, I'll just
20:21shift rightclick on my donut just so
20:23that that's the point it comes in at.
20:25I'm going to say shift a light probe
20:28volume. So, this will cast like a grid
20:32of ping pong balls over your scene. And
20:34I say ping-pong balls cuz I'll show you
20:36what they look like soon. Um, but
20:38basically you want to scale this to look
20:41to kind of encapsulate everything you've
20:43got in the scene. And we've got way too
20:45much vertically, so I don't need all
20:46that much there. Um, and you want the
20:49ping pong balls, these little balls to
20:52be sitting just above the surface of the
20:54table. Again, I go into way more detail
20:56in my EV video, which you could watch if
20:59you were interested in this. You really
21:01want to dive into EV, by all means. Um,
21:03I think I probably only need about
21:05three. No, I'll go four. Why not? Um,
21:07okay. And then now that you've got this,
21:09if you hit the bake light c, you'll see
21:12that the scene gets a little bit
21:14brighter. So, this is how it looked
21:15before and this is how it looks after.
21:17And you can uh improve this a lot by
21:20just like shuffling the balls around.
21:22So, that now I've got one ball that is
21:25going to be, let's say,
21:29let's go a little bit. Oh boy. Here and
21:33here. So, I've got one that's going to
21:34be resting right on the edge of that
21:36plate there. And I want one inside the
21:38donut. All right. And now, let's do that
21:40now. All right. And now we've got more
21:43bounce coming from there. So, each of
21:44these you can think of like little lamps
21:47that are going through the scene and
21:50able to see things from the other side
21:52that the camera cannot. So, it's able to
21:54break that limitation of something being
21:57screen space. And you can see that looks
21:59better. So, this is with the light probe
22:01on. And then if I was to turn my probe
22:03off and do another render. So this is
22:06with it off. This is with it on. All
22:08right. So very big difference.
22:10Definitely worthwhile having a light
22:11probe if that's what you're going to use
22:13uh to do your render. Uh and by the way,
22:15if you want to visualize what they can
22:16see and uh underneath viewport display,
22:19you can enable data and then each of
22:21these points become little ping pong
22:23balls. That's why I think of them like
22:24that. Um, and you can see the actual
22:26light that was captured at each one of
22:28those points and, uh, essentially, yeah,
22:30what light it's going to be throwing out
22:32into the rest of the scene. And the
22:34final thing that's going to make a big
22:36difference to your final render here,
22:38um, and one of the big reasons that this
22:41feels like a, you know, a CG computer
22:43graphics render is that right now
22:45everything has the same amount of focus.
22:48And that is physically impossible with a
22:50real camera. There's no way to have
22:52something that doesn't have um depth of
22:55field unless you were using a pinhole
22:57camera, believe it or not. Um but
22:59anyways, so to get that look, to get
23:01depth of field, we're going to select
23:03our camera object in our outliner and
23:05then down here there is a checkbox for
23:08depth of field. And ooh already it's
23:10starting to look cool. Now you just
23:12select the object that you want to be in
23:14focus. So you click the little eyropper
23:16tool and then you want to click on the
23:18object. Now, if you've got what I have
23:19here, you can see it's always clicking
23:21on the volume um because it thinks that
23:24the volume is in front of it. But
23:25anyways, yeah, I can now just click on
23:27my icing object there. And um you can
23:31see now this is the before and then this
23:34is after. So you can see in the
23:37background there that noisy uh you know
23:41concrete texture that isn't relevant to
23:43the viewer um is now buttery smooth. And
23:46that's a really nice way to not only
23:48make something look more realistic, but
23:50also to guide the viewer to what is
23:52important cuz that is one of the biggest
23:55problems you have as an artist is you're
23:57giving somebody an entire image and
23:59you're trying to tell them like what is
24:01the important bits like what should they
24:03be looking at and they don't know if
24:05everything has just got like hyper noise
24:08and detail and color and everything. So
24:10you're trying to guide it and that's one
24:11of the tools uh to do that. And one
24:13final other tip as well. Um cuz the the
24:16biggest like downside to using EV is
24:20like the shadows just don't feel crisp
24:22enough. They don't feel like tight
24:23enough to the object. It's kind of a
24:25little bit too it's a little bit too
24:27blurry. If you select a lamp like this
24:29one here, the sun lamp, and then you go
24:31to your shadow settings here, there is a
24:33box that says jitter. And you won't see
24:36any change in the viewport unless you
24:38were to go to your viewport settings and
24:40enable jittered shadows. But I don't
24:41think you should cuz it's just when
24:43you've got that enabled just like every
24:44time you move it, it just jitters around
24:46and it's super annoying. But if I was to
24:48do another render now, you will see that
24:52the shadows just feel a little bit more
24:54accurate, especially in the background
24:56there, right? Um, and essentially it's
24:58uh I believe it's like rendering each
25:01like multiple versions of the lamp at
25:04like because it's got a radius on it, a
25:05little soft radius. Um, so enabling
25:08jitter can work a lot better for like
25:10soft lamps like what we've got here. So,
25:13um, there you go. So, that's one of the
25:15other tips. But if you want to go very
25:18realistic and you want to avoid the
25:21light probes, you want to avoid all
25:23these settings like jitter and all this
25:25kind of thing and you just want to you
25:27just want to make something and then
25:28just have it come out beautifully, then
25:30you should be using a different
25:32rendering engine. You should be using
25:34cycles, cycles, cycles, cycles.
25:38Now, my recording has slowed down
25:40because it's using my CPU. Um, this is
25:44cycles. Now, I'll actually uh I'm going
25:46to just turn that off for a sec cuz it's
25:48slowing down my computer. The first
25:50thing you should check if you want to
25:51use cycles because some of you just
25:53tried that then and much like my
25:55computer, I don't know if you can hear
25:57that, but it has started to wor up. the
26:00fans are like, "Whoa, this is using
26:03maximum uh maximum heat." Right? So,
26:07first of all, go to your edit and go to
26:09preferences and then go to system. Then
26:12at the top there, you've got cycles
26:14render devices. Um, what you want to see
26:16is if you have any graphics card on your
26:19computer that you can use to render, you
26:22should be using it. So, if you've got an
26:24Nvidia card, you would be clicking CUDA
26:26or optics. Optics is preferable. So, if
26:29you've got a card that supports optics,
26:30use the optics one. HIP is for AMD
26:33cards. Open API is for Intel, I believe.
26:37And then metal. You'll see metal if
26:39you've got a Mac. Um, in my case, I've
26:42got a uh Overkill RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell
26:46Workstation Edition, which I just got,
26:48given to me by the kind folks at Dell.
26:51They gave me a Whisbang um Dell T2 Pro,
26:55and uh it's amazing. I think it costs
26:58like $20,000 or something stupid. Just
27:00the card by itself, I think, is like
27:0215,000. It's It's ridiculous. It's
27:05obviously enterprise and prolevel. But
27:07for the three people watching this that
27:09happen to own a studio, if you really
27:12want to deck it out and give artists
27:13stuff that they'll never have to worry
27:16about render times, this is the card. It
27:17is amazing. So, if you've got one of
27:20those cards, use it. And then make sure
27:24here where it says device, you want to
27:25make sure instead of CPU, it is using uh
27:28GPU instead.
27:30And now you can see how much faster that
27:32is. Right now this is in 4K on my
27:36computer and this is the size of the
27:38window here. If you want to like speed
27:40up your render, you can also just change
27:43the size of the window, right? I can
27:45drop the size of this like this, right?
27:47So, it's only going to be rendering on
27:51how much it can see here, right? So, as
27:52I move around, you can see it's much
27:54faster now because the size of that
27:56window is so much smaller. Um, so that's
27:58another thing you can do if you want to
28:00be able to move around whilst it's uh
28:03whilst it's rendering. Now, the
28:04fuzziness that you can see here, that is
28:07samples. So it's still the same term
28:09samples. But the difference is is that
28:12cycles is a path tracer, not a
28:14rasterized engine like uh uh EV. So path
28:18tracing means that you don't have to
28:20deal with any probes or anything like
28:21that. It can see what is behind the
28:24donut. It can see between the sprinkles.
28:27So it's actually casting like a bounce
28:29off this sprinkle into that sprinkle
28:31into that one. It's also doing it on the
28:33other side of the doughut that we can't
28:35see. It's actually shooting rays from
28:38the camera out into the scene and
28:40whatever it hits, it's collecting that
28:42information. So, it is much more
28:44physically accurate. It is the gold
28:46standard for rendering um that um you
28:50know computer graphics researchers use
28:52and you know every movie VFX shot is
28:54generally nowadays using path traces. It
28:57results in a way better image but
28:59obviously you have to pay for it with
29:01render times. Now, one thing as well is
29:04uh this noise that you can see here when
29:06we do our render, it's going to kick in
29:08a D noiseise, which is going to clear
29:10that up. But you can also enable it in
29:12your viewport. And then as you move
29:14around, you can see that it's uh it's
29:16still got like a little squiggle to it.
29:19Um but it is uh it's obviously much
29:21clearer and it's easier to see things uh
29:23with that on. But now that I've got
29:25that, I can do a render. It's going to
29:27load in everything. The first time you
29:29use Cycles, by the way, it might be
29:30slow. Um, especially the first time if
29:32you use a card like an Nvidia card or
29:34AMD or anything like that, it will be
29:36slower. Um, but after that, it should be
29:38relatively quick. I say relatively
29:40quick. I've got the fastest card
29:42available right now. And you can see
29:44it's no longer instantaneous. It is well
29:47over 20 seconds. There we go. 23
29:51seconds. Okay. But the difference,
29:54right? Like if I go to right EV
29:58like there is a big difference there. I
30:00mean, actually, that was um before I did
30:01the jitter. Let's let me just let's
30:03really compare apples to apples. Okay,
30:07there we go. But yeah, there there
30:09definitely is a big difference,
30:10especially in the shadows, um especially
30:13in the reflections. So, there's it's a
30:16noticeable difference, but it's also a
30:18noticeable difference in the time,
30:19right? The EV1 is less than a second.
30:22The Cycles one is 23 seconds, and that's
30:25on the fastest uh card available. So,
30:27you're going to pay for it. And this
30:29matters most when you're doing
30:30animations because how many frames is
30:33there in 1 second of footage? Generally
30:3524 to 30. Um I'm actually recording in
30:3860 frames right now. So that would be uh
30:4130 frames a second. So 30 * 23 just to
30:44get 1 second of footage. So if you're
30:46doing an animation, that's where EV
30:48really um can speed up your workflow.
30:51But also like Eevee is just so much more
30:53accessible. Part of the reason I stuck
30:55to Eevee for all this tutorial up until
30:57now is that uh I learned from uh talking
30:59to people who did the previous donut
31:01that some people's renders were taking
31:03like over 20 minutes. Some people were
31:05over an hour to do one single image of
31:08the donut. And I couldn't believe it. I
31:10just I I thought, "All right, we have to
31:12use Eevee then because there's just no
31:14way people are going to be able to
31:16finish this thing." So Eevee definitely
31:19can get a great result. Um, it's not
31:21going to be as good as cycles, but like
31:23I said, the times, you can't beat it.
31:25It's so much faster. Um, so there's no
31:28shame in uh using it if you don't have a
31:31computer that uh can't do cycles. Now,
31:33you can experiment with your lighting.
31:34You can experiment with your scene. You
31:36can add in different assets. You can
31:38change the colors, make a whole bunch of
31:39different variants. If you want to go
31:41further, you know what I'm going to say.
31:43I have released a course and it is
31:45designed for people literally in your
31:47shoes right now that have just finished
31:49the donut and they want to know what
31:51they can do next to improve and learn
31:53more about Blender. So this course it's
31:56called the beginners academy and it
31:58teaches you the core essential Blender
32:01skills which is modeling, texturing,
32:03shading, lighting, camera and rendering.
32:07And although we touched on all of those
32:09in this series, that's really just the
32:11tip of the iceberg because there's so
32:13many different techniques to modeling.
32:15There's so many different approaches to
32:17texturing and to rendering and to
32:18lighting. And we go through all in much
32:21more detail in this course. So if you
32:24finish this donut and you want to go off
32:25and learn by yourself, there is a whole
32:28YouTube full of tutorials out there. But
32:30if you want something that is targeted,
32:32more comprehensive, and will walk you
32:34through the 8020, the 80% of Blender's
32:37uh tools and techniques that you use 20%
32:39of the time, then this is the course for
32:41you. All taught by me, uh all taught
32:44using the latest Blender 5.0. Um and I
32:47hope that you will uh enjoy it.
32:49Otherwise, thank you for watching this
32:51entire series. If you want to join the
32:52course, you can click the link below.

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