Tag Archive for: graphicscrate

Download Free Space and Planet HDRI Images – How to Create Space Environments in Blender

Download free space HDRI images for your 3D VFX project here.

ProductionCrate has released an incredible bundle of 100 space and atmosphere HDRIs for you to use in your 3D digital art and VFX. 10 of these are available to download for free today, and only require you to sign up for a free ProductionCrate account.

Getting to space in your 3D renders can be the most visually rewarding project an artist can work on. Capturing the grand curvature of the earth, the vast atmospheric clouds and endless stars in the sky serve as the best background in the universe, and now you’ll be able to access it for free. The free HDRI’s include:

Orbital 46 – Sunset
Orbital 45 – Sunset
Orbital 40
Orbital 38
Orbital 35
Orbital 34
Orbital 30 Sunset
Orbital 29 Sunset
Orbital 14
Orbital 10 Sunset

These free space HDRI’s are ready to download in 16K resolution, making their resolution perfect for cinematic renders that demand a high texture quality.

Download Earth from Space HDRI for your 3D renders and VFX

Download Earth from Space HDRI environment images

If you’ve worked in 3D artwork, you’ll most likely be familiar with HDRI images. These are specialized images that are designed to contain all of the information to illuminate a 3D scene. This is achieved by representing the colour and intensity of light coming from every direction and is used by a rendering engine to integrate a 3D object into the environment contained in the HDRI image. HDRI images are one of the foundations of all VFX projects, as lighting your 3D models to match the lighting of background footage is crucial to achieving a photorealistic result.

In this example, the spaceship illumination is automatically prepared, as the HDRI image contains a bright sun, as well as a soft blue light beneath (representing the light reflected from the planet).

Download Free Planet HDRI Environment Maps for your 3D renders and VFX

Capturing HDRI images is a tedious process. First, a camera will be positioned in the expected location of the 3D object (so that the light being captured accurately represents the conditions expected). By taking several photographs at varying exposures, it’s possible to avoid the clipping seen if a photo contained a shadow and the sun in the same frame. By doing this, the multiple images can be “stacked” together, with an algorithm automatically identifying which exposure levels contain the most information for each area of the picture. Additionally, the exposure information is embedded into the final result, meaning that while typical images have brightnesses ranging from 0 – 1, our combined “high dynamic range” image may spread from 0 – 1,073,741,824 (based on the OpenEXR specification). This process is repeated with the camera rotating enough times to capture 360 degrees of imagery, creating a spherical photo similar to those you encounter in Google Street View. The end result is an image that can be wrapped around an environment, projecting its light into a scene exactly how it would do in the real world.

While the process of creating these can be a laborious technical obstacle, the end result is an asset that can be added to any 3D scene instantly. This is why we created these space HDRI images, simulating an accurate appearance of the Earth from space for you to download now!

Download Orbital Space HDRI for your 3D renders and VFX

Granted, we did not go to space to capture these images, however, incredible attention to detail has been carried out to offer the most realistic and spectacular backgrounds for your spaceship scenes. Refusing to accept mediocre results is what pushed us to create truly unique HDRI images that are simply out of this world. In these 16K HDRI space images, you’ll see vast cloud structures, sunsets, physically accurate atmospheric scattering and the arching thin blue line between earth and space.

The 16K resolution of these space HDRI images provides an unparalleled level of detail with minimal impact on performance. Thanks to the high resolution of this environment map, you can zoom in up close to every cloud scattered in the sky with little loss of visual quality. The 360 degrees of content, combined with the 16K resolution, makes this the definitive space environment that offers your camera unlimited freedom of movement. Tilt up, pan left, zoom in, and witness an awe-inspiring view of Earth from space.

With incredible colour and exposure accuracy, anything that you add to your scene will be influenced by the light with pixel-perfect accuracy. Edges on your 3D models, whether it’s a spaceship, astronaut or asteroid, will catch the highlights of the blazing bright sun. Swathes of blue light received from Earth’s vast atmosphere provide vibrant fill light, softly illuminating the underside of your models. The pitch-black darkness of empty space will create unbeatable contrast and shadows. All of these features combined replicate the iconic lighting seen in space scenes from Star Wars, Gravity and Interstellar.

Download Space HDRI Environment Maps for your 3D renders and VFX

How to create a Space Scene in Blender

Adding space HDRI images to your 3D scenes is much simpler than you would expect. In most software, such as 3ds Max, Maya and Cinema4D, you first create a Sky or Dome light source. This sets up a source of light that comes toward your scene from every angle. We can then specify what colour each ray of light should be by simply using our space HDRI images as a texture. You may need to set the mapping to “spherical” so that it interprets the image’s coordinates correctly.

To create the space scene in Blender, you will first navigate to the Shading window. By changing your output from Object to World, you will be able to manipulate Blender’s background. Start by adding an Environment Texture node and use the file explorer to navigate to your downloaded space HDRI image. Once the Color output of the Environment Texture node is connected to the Background node, your HDRI image will be ready!

How to create a Space Scene in Blender - Material Setup

For best results, making your spaceship’s surface metallic and reflective will create the most immersive appearance. Seeing the reflections of Earth on the panels and details of your ship is an excellent way to tie the foreground and background of your artwork together, making them feel like one cohesive scene. Creating a bloom effect will also help the brightest parts of your image, such as the sun, appear to interfere with the lens for a truly photographic appearance.

Likewise, it is recommended to adjust the exposure and saturation of the space HDRI to steer your scene towards realism or stylized. Adding a bloom effect, which is built into Eevee’s rendering engine, is an easy way to simulate the bright lights of space bleeding through the camera lens.

How to create a Space Scene in Blender

ProductionCrate’s Youtube channel has uploaded a detailed tutorial on how to create space scenes in Blender. David presents several additional tricks that will then take your render to the next level, such as additional bounce lighting, bloom and how to customize the color of the planet.

If you need assets to populate your space scene with, ProductionCrate has a collection of free 3D spaceship models for you to explore. Additionally, our library of assets hosts astronauts, aliens, robots, asteroids, and other 3D models that are easy to download, set up and render.

Download Free Space HDRI for your 3D renders and VFX

Additionally, graphicsCrate hosts a unique collection of Nebula effects that can be added onto these space HDRI images for an incredible backdrop to your planet.

ProductionCrate is excited to see what you will be able to create with these free planet HDRI images. Whether you’re working on a blockbuster space film or a music video aiming to push the limits of creativity, ProductionCrate is here to make it possible.

Want to explore more content? Check out our entire collection of HDRI imagery here!

Download Free Planet HDRI Environment Maps for your 3D renders and VFX

 

The Ocean Cinematic Creator Kit

Ocean scenes for films, games and illustration are a challenging task. You may think you’ll only need a blue background, but there are many subtle features that make an ocean realistic.

ProductionCrate’s mission is to empower our community with unlimited creative freedom, with over 10,000 professional VFX, sound effects, and 3D models.

The diverse range of content covers every creative requirement you’ll encounter. You’ll be able to get your visuals, models and sound design elements from the same source, all under the same price.

Ocean Cinematic Creator Pack Submarine 3D Model

Ocean Visual Effects

Compositing underwater ocean scenes similar to Aquaman, Jaws and Finding Nemo has become effortless with our range of VFX assets.

Ocean Surface VFX Assets

A variety of pre keyed and loopable ocean matte painting assets, perfect for diving underwater. Built for instant compositing with minimal color correction with a transparency matte included. Use these to create shots that are impossible with a camera.

Ocean Cinematic Creator Pack

Bubble and Dirt VFX Assets

Bring dynamic particle effects to your ocean VFX for immediate realism. These practical pre keyed videos are professionally designed to bring your underwater projects to life. You can even use the static bubbles to create your own particle system for more control.

Ocean Cinematic Creator Pack

Shark VFX Assets

Photorealistic shark effects that are both fun and easy to composite into your video editing project. All of our assets provide pre-keyed and green screen download options. A variety of angles allows you to craft your scene precisely.

Ocean Cinematic Creator Pack

Ocean Cinematic Creator Pack

Ocean Sound Effects

Enhance the immersion of your ocean scenes with ambient sound effects.

Bubble Sound Effects

Match the bubble assets with some sound effects, available in MP3 and WAV formats for maximum studio quality. There are several options to choose from, so you can avoid repetition. These small details add huge value to your art.

Ocean Cinematic Creator Pack

Splash Sound Effects

Our large collection of foley sound effects allows you to match any special effects you add to your video, all from the same website. Whether it’s the sound of the ocean waves, or someone diving into the water, our sound effect library has got you covered.

Ocean Cinematic Creator Pack

Ambient Sound Effects

These powerful ocean ambient sound effects are perfect for underwater scenes in both film and games. There’s no more effective way to add an extra layer of immersion to your project than to download these sound effects.

Ocean Cinematic Creator Pack

Ocean 3D Models

Bring physically-accurate photorealistic 3D models to your ocean environment for ultimate creative control.

Specialist 3D Models

Gain full control of your ocean scenes by utilising our photorealistic models. Whether you need a naval battle using our submarine, a shark attack using our fully rigged asset, or a sunken ship with a treasure chest of gold, everything is at your disposal to build your environment.

Ocean Cinematic Creator Pack

Island Landscape 3D Models

We’ve developed custom-built terrain models for your tropical volcano island shots. High-quality normal maps amplify the level of detail in these to an incredible level. The flat edges allow you to seamlessly combine this with any planar surface to help you instantly build your tropical paradise.

Ocean Cinematic Creator Pack

Sand and Rock 3D Models

Our optimised photoscanned 3D rocks are professionally designed for easy and instant integration into your project. These perfectly constructed assets have been built to help save you time in your workflow, and focus on the aspects of your 3D scene that truly matter.

Ocean Cinematic Creator Pack

And much more!

Bring physically-accurate photorealistic 3D models to your ocean environment for ultimate creative control.

Island Matte Painting Assets

Expand your scene infinitely with our exclusive range of ocean and island matte painting assets. These carefully designed graphics are built with compositing in mind to make your job effortless. With transparency built-in, you simply need to drag and drop these into your scene to deliver the scale of a cinematic blockbuster.

Ocean Cinematic Creator Pack

3D Sand Materials

If you happen to be landlocked, you may find yourself struggling to find a beach to shoot your shot in. The solution? Download from the selection of photorealistic sand materials for your 3D renders, VFX and games. The high-resolution 4K textures are also available for free in low resolution, and is compatible with most rendering engines.

Ocean Cinematic Creator Pack

Scripts and Plugins

Our powerful library of scripts and plugins to give you an exclusive advantage in After Effects. Our light wrap generator is an instant 1 click solution to take your composting to the next level without any skill required. Our Chromatic Abberator script will give your underwater scenes a realistic lens distortion. Check out the rest here.

Ocean Cinematic Creator Pack

 

This diverse range of digital content allows anybody, whether you’re a studio professional or a solo indie developer with little experience, to be able to create the impossible. Your very own ocean scenes are now only a few clicks away. So sign up, and start downloading!

High Resolution Blood Texture Pack

This new texture pack got a bit messy! We’ve found ourselves needing extremely high resolution Blood Textures for our Horror and Action projects more and more often. We decided it was time to build out a proper bundle.

Bloody hand prints, splatters, sprays and droplets are all featured in the new pack available on GraphicsCrate. If you’re making a zombie flick, a thriller with a shoot-out or an apocalyptic video game you’ll find what you need here.

You’ll notice these have all been keyed out and  are available as PNG files. We suggest using a blending mode to get the absolute best results possible from this pack. Choose Multiply, Overlay, or Soft Light blending modes yield the best results. I do suggest playing with your options to see what works best in your scene.

Color correcting to better match your footage or even adding some blur to drop the high resolution will tie everything together. We suggest using both video and image blood effects tandem to create the exact effect you need.

Download HD Looping Ocean Effects for your Videos

Download Ocean VFX Matte-painting assets here


We’re proud to see our matte-painting library help artists create stunning landscapes for their movies to take place in.

Most of our set-extension resources come from GraphicsCrate, a collection of over 1000 professionally built images that can be stacked together to build whatever comes to the imagination. Combining these matte-painting assets with FootageCrate effects creates a unique combination that brings your scene to life, especially with the introduction of our newest ocean assets!

These are a powerful tool that can make adding the sea to your VFX shot a simple one-click process, helping streamline your compositing workflow and save you time.

To ensure that these ocean effects are flexible, there are several variations to choose from. From here, you find the asset which best fits your setting, whether that is a sunset or a clear day.

Download HD Looping Ocean and Sea Video Effects

One exceptional highlight is that these HD ocean effects are loopable. This means that no matter how long your shot lasts, the waves will continue to move in a natural seamless motion without any visible stutters. Just take a look at it in action and see if you can figure out where the cut is!

Download HD Looping Ocean and Sea Video Effects

We’re excited to see what you manage to create with these ocean effects. If you want to see what else you can create with GraphicsCrate, check out our latest Nebula collection.

Download Ancient Temple Matte-Painting Assets

Download ancient temple matte-painting assets here

We have uncovered a collection of ancient structure assets for your VFX and matte-painting projects.

With several different lighting angles, such as overcast and sunny. These effects are built to match your footage without any hassle!

All of our Free users can access these high-quality graphics, which all have been built with scalability in mind, so whether it’s a tight shot or a wide angle, your VFX will blend in realistically. Pro users can download these at full-resolution (4K)!

You can combine these with our apocalyptic overhanging-vine and destruction graphics to blend the temple into your scenery, giving the appearance that the abandoned temple has been left there for centuries.

If you’re interested in creating your own, we have a special new category of 3D ancient structure assets! These are perfect for your game level designs, 3D renders and VFX! But we’ll get into the full power of these 3D assets in a future article.

Want to know more about our GraphicsCrate library of thousands of matte-painting VFX goodies? Check out our apocalypse effects!

Download Apocalypse Matte Painting VFX

Download Apocalypse VFX matte painting assets here

ProductionCrate has just released a huge new bundle of apocalyptic assets!

Transforming an entire scene into a wasteland is one of the most enjoyable VFX projects you can take on. You can bring destruction to buildings, roadways, cars, plants, and just about anything that you like, taking inspiration from the Walking Dead, the Umbrella Academy or 28 Days Later. Though often this can involve many hours of tedious work to create each individual feature of the scene.

Thankfully, we’re here to help. We’ve created over 50 set extension assets to help you construct your post-apocalyptic VFX shots. Let’s take a look at some!

Download HD Apocalypse VFX Assets

This apocalyptic city is perfect for distant set extensions. All our assets have been pre-keyed and are ready for you to import into almost any compositing software, whether that is After Effects, Hitfilm, Fusion or Premiere Pro. We even have several different lighting variations, so that you can choose the one that best matches the environment of your shot.

Download HD Apocalypse VFX Assets

We also have over 25 damaged car assets for you to download and composite onto your empty roads. There are two different car types, all with a huge range of angles, lighting conditions and shadow mattes – so you can be sure that these will blend into your shot without any trouble. For even more variation, you can even change the hue and saturation of the car paint! Download these destroyed car set extension effects here. 

Download HD Apocalypse VFX Assets

We’ve also added some awesome large-scale smoke plume graphics! These PNG effects are perfect for distant smoke and are incredibly easy to use with their transparent backgrounds. We also have several HD animated smoke plumes if you want to include motion in these effects which you can download here. Use these to help create an atmosphere in your scene that no other practical effect can!

Download HD VFX Smoke Plume Assets

Time for an in-depth look at how you can composite these into your scene! Chris and Adrian cover all the techniques you will need in this especially awesome Saturday Morning tutorial:


We’ll love to see what you can create with these stunning effects! If you want to learn how you can composite a nuclear blast into this post-apocalyptic landscape, check out this tutorial here. 

Download Space Matte Painting VFX Assets

Download space matte painting VFX assets here

Space is every VFX artist’s dream!

Planets, nebula, galaxies, stars, black holes and thousands of other interstellar features can be built together into a spectacular colorful mess.

In cinema, there are no rules to what our galactic scenery can look like. We can experience the dark and dangerous feel of Interstellar, or the vivid and lively action packed sets from Guardians of the Galaxy.

If you’re new here, ProductionCrate is a library of thousands of visual effects, sound effects, graphics and other creative resources – all available for you to download to save time and money! Here you can access a whole bundle of space related effects to build your incredible VFX projects.

Download Professional Matte Painting Space VFX Assets

One of our favorite collections is the huge array of nebula assets. These come as high resolution (4000×4000) graphics that you can composite into your space backgrounds. This can be done in most compositing software, such as After Effects, Hitfilm or Nuke. You may even drop several of them into your 3D software to create 3D nebulae instantly!

Download Professional Matte Painting Space VFX Assets

If you need to get started, check out our basic star texture background. This will be the perfect canvas for you to start building out your scene.

Download Professional Matte Painting Space VFX Assets

We’ll love to see what you create with these space VFX assets. You can check out a full tutorial which will breakdown the pipeline behind CGI a space scene.

If you want to check out even more cool content, have a look at our Helicopter VFX tutorial!

 

 

New High Resolution Sky Textures

Sky Replacement requires both work and the right ingredients. Keying out the sky is the first step, a nice blue sky will provide you with an easy key, or enough contrast between the sky and the foreground elements will let you pull a luma-matte. Whatever technique you go with, you’ll still need to have the right image for your new sky. That’s where our latest assets to GraphicsCrate come in.

With over 20 new High Resolution Sky Textures, we’ve got you covered. Sunsets, stormy weather, bright blues and those classic white clouds are all available. Never leave your videos with boring skies ever again!

The ultra-high resolution images are available for our Pro Users. Free users can download preview images, with enough resolution for 720p video.

 

 

Download HDRI Maps for your 3D Projects

Download 8K HDRI maps here.

Say hello to your new source of specialist HDRI environment maps!

GraphicsCrate has widened its ever-expanding library of assets for visual artists by releasing over 25 HDRI maps, all ready to download. Our CG approach to creating these meant we are able to provide an exclusive range of environments unlike any other, such as space, oceans and at cloud-level.

Download HDRI Maps for your 3D Projects

We’ve also ensured that all of these have an un-clipped high dynamic range, meaning you can drop these into your 3D scenes and get the perfect lighting instantly.

These graphics are unlike any other, giving you the power to realistically light a spacecraft orbiting Earth, or even an aircraft mid-flight.

Download HDRI Maps for your 3D Projects

Our 8K resolution maps allow them to be used directly as backgrounds in your 3D projects without any further compositing.

Once downloaded, it’s yours forever! You can use it in games, 3D rendering and compositing to create the perfect look for your scene.

Download HDRI Maps for your 3D Projects

These textures are in .hdr format, which is compatible with most industry standard software such as 3ds Max, Cinema4D, Maya and Houdini, meaning you will never have to go through the hassle of converting to another file format.

Need even more 3D content? Discover our road materials here!

 

Using our Puddle Maps!

If you’re reading this, there’s a chance you’ve stumbled upon our puddle map collection and wondered, “What on Earth are these for?”. You’re not alone!

If you’ve had some experience with 3D design, you may be familiar with “glossy maps” or “reflection maps”. These are textures which can tell rendering software how “shiny” an object is. Think of a white texture being for a mirror (very shiny), and a dark gray texture used for concrete (very dull and matted). We discovered we can use these in After Effects to create utterly-realistic reflections to help composite VFX into your scene, or just make it visually incredible. You may have seen Andrew Kramer’s Video Copilot tutorial which involved a similar process.

We have dropped one of our fire VFX assets (found here) into our street, but anyone can see it is looking pretty dull at the moment! Our mission is to make this look both realistic and more visually interesting!

Puddle Tutorial Part 1

We will then need one of our puddle maps. There are different varieties (such as asphalt, tiles, road surfaces and more), so choose which one best fits your shot. Drop it into your scene, make it 3D, and align it with your ground:

Puddle Tutorial Part 2

Here is where you might see where this is going! Duplicate any of the layers you want to reflect in the puddle. In this case, the fire and the backdrop. We’ll name them the same but with “Reflection” at the end. Pre-compose the puddle map as well.

Puddle Tutorial Part 3

For each of the “Reflection” layers, flip it vertically and position it in a place where it would approximately match what it would look like if the floor was a gigantic mirror. Here’s my attempt (with the walls roughly masked out):

Puddle Tutorial Part 4

(Same process with the fire)

Puddle Tutorial Part 5

You then want to pre-compose these newly reflecting layers, all into the same composition. We’ll now be looking at something like this in our layer panel:

Puddle Tutorial Part 6

Now for the magic moment! Apply the “Compound Blur” effect to our reflection layer. The compound blur effect is similar to a traditional blur, except it blurs an image with its blur strength dependant on another texture (so brighter areas are blurred more than darker ones). Set our blur layer to our Puddle Map, and turn up the Maximum Blur parameter. You’ll quickly see everything fitting into shape!

Puddle Tutorial Part 7

Puddle Tutorial Part 8

It may take a little bit of experimentation since no project is the same. For example, setting this layer to an Alpha Inverted Matte might fix some issues you may have to your scene. You can even try using different puddle maps from the range in our collection.

You can then mask out any areas you don’t want a blur to appear on, such as these posts which are trying to make our life difficult.

Puddle Tutorial Part 9

Lastly, as we have a fire in our scene, it’s mandatory to add a glow effect (we can go deeper into this in another tutorial!).

Puddle Tutorial Part 10

Hopefully, this clears up any questions regarding these puddle maps! These things are powerful tools for any compositor in VFX or design, and will always give your scene an extra breath of photorealism. We hope you enjoy using them!

Puddle Map and Fire Tutorial in After Effects

Did you enjoy this guide? You might also like to read about our bullet hole collection!