Blender 2.8+ Space Scene Setup Tutorial

Introduction:

In this Instructable, we will be creating a space scene setup in Blender 3D. Hopefully by the end of this tutorial, you will have achieved a similar result to the first image. This will be an intermediate tutorial for blender users. One should be capable of working in the compositor and shader node editors.

Setup:

• A PC capable of running blender.

• Early to intermediate knowledge of the Blender interface.

• Blender 2.8 or later.
• Basic to extended PC knowledge.
• A model you want to show off in a space scene.

For systems settings, make sure you go to Edit>Preferences>Systems if you have a GPU, select CUDA(if an Nvidia GPU), Optix(if you have an Nvidia RTX Card) or OpenCL if you have an AMD GPU. Or None, if you only have a CPU. Highly recommended to use a GPU over the CPU.

As is the tradition with all blender tutorials, you must delete the default cube!

In this step, find the models you want to put into this scene. A starship, an astronaut, a space station, an asteroid you name it!

• Go to File>Append and search through your folders to find model you want to import.
• Select its blend file>Objects folder> and then select all the objects in that file that you want to import.

After that loads in, this would be a good time to save! Remember to save often from here on out till the end of the tutorial.

In this case, I'm using my Enterprise model (still yet to give it materials).

Next in the Control Panel, in Render Properties you want to change the Render engine from Eevee to Cycles. And if applicable, the Device to GPU compute. This will make renders so much faster.

Still in Render Properties, scroll all the way down to Color Management, here change the "View Transform" from "Standard" to "Filmic". For "Look" I normally recommend Medium High Contrast but I suggest playing with this depending on the scene and the objects imported.

Note: Sampling, light paths, motion blur and all the others will highly depend on what you choose to put into the scene, and what you choose to do with the scene. So they will not be featured in this tutorial.

Here in this step we will be creating a simple starry background!

Go to the Shader Tab, and switch the node viewer from "Material" to "World". Then click "Use Nodes"

Then recreate the node setup shown in the images:

• Shift+A>Textures to import the noise textures
• Shift+A>Convertor to find the Color Ramps
• Shift+A>Color to find the "Mix RGB" nodes

The upper node group deals with the white stars while the lower one deals with the blue ones. My blue hex code is: D2F2FF but choose what works for you.

Make sure to plug in the nodes groups as follows:

• Noise Texture (Fac) > ColorRamp
• ColorRamp (Color out) > Mix (Color)
• Mix (Color) > Background (Color)
• Background (output) > World Output (Surface).

Finally change the left most sliders on the color ramps to black and drag them until they are similar to image above. This manipulates the noises textures into the starry patterns we want. And that's all there is too it!

Note: Feel free to mess around with the scales on the two noise maps, though they shouldn't be the same size. Otherwise the two maps would overlap. Also mess around with the mix factor and strength of the background node to your liking.

In this step we will setting up the camera.

Often times I like to recommend a high focal length for space scenes. Normally somewhere between 75 & 100mm.

Follow these steps if you want to make it look like a miniature:

• Check the Depth of Field option.
• In "Focus Object", select the main part of the object you want the camera to focus on.
• Next, under Aperture, change the settings to those shown in the image.
• Mess with the "F-Stop" if you want more or less blur on the non-focused objects. The lower the F-stop, the more blur there will be and more it would look like a miniature. Feel free to mess around with Blades and Rotation, but Blades must be set to a minimum of 3 to have an effect.

Note: You need to be in Rendered View to see these effects in real time. Also make sure to play around with the camera's F-Stop so that the stars are not completely blurred out.

Surprisingly in space, the sun gives off a lot of light. We want to reflect that in the scene.

So either add in a sun lamp or convert the default lamp into a sun and change the strength from somewhere between 1-20. I recommend you go as high as possible without blowing out whites. (Making it so bright that true white can't be distinguished from grey).

This all depends on what's going on in your scene though. Angle it so you cast excellent shadows on your model.

If you are going for that Rogue One look, I suggest changing the sun color to give it a slightly warm look. My go to is: FFF9F3.

Now hit that render button and this is the result we have before we start our compositing magic.

After rendering your image, it is time for the last final step that will really sell that space look!

Go to the Compositor as shown in the 1st image, and click Use Nodes. Then add a viewer node to see your progress as you go!

Next, recreate the node group shown. Here are the key things to pay attention to:

• Glare Nodes
  • The first glare node (the upper one) is used for the very bright parts of the image, while the lower one is used to give the overall image a glowing effect. That is why that one has a lower threshold.
• Lens Distortion
  • You want to keep the Distort and Dispersion Values low. Otherwise you will run into overly distorted images beyond what normal cameras would do. Unless that is the effect you are going for.
• Color Correction
  • Input a color balance node and change it to Offset/Power/Slope.
  • Then in the Offset, make it very dark blue. Use the HSV color system and make H: .56 S: 1 and V a tiny number like 0.01 or 0.02.
  • Then under slope, make it a light orange.
• Remember to like everything to the compositing node once you are done! Otherwise your final render would not look like what you see in this screen.

And that is all! We've gone from our precomposited render to this composited one, giving us the space look we desired! I hope you enjoyed the tutorial and feel free to post links to your results down below or ask any questions!

Feel free to mess around with any of the settings, or expand upon the starry background to make it better!