Tag Archive for: spaceship

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

 

Download Free 3D Spaceship Models

We have 5 new 3D Spaceship models available for download. Get these models for free to use in your projects.

These can be instanced hundreds of times to fill an entire futuristic night sky, or scattered around a newly terraformed planet. To provide more flexibility and creativity, we’re including 2 different skins for each of these 5 ships.

 

These are part of the popular Vehicles Category on RenderCrate. Find more 3D spaceships, cars, trucks, airplanes and more!

 

here is where you can download free 3d models of a scifi spaceship

 

Use various planet textures, Sci-Fi corridors or satellite models from the 3D Space category and bring your project to the next level. Don’t forget, you can find every SciFi sound effect you’ll need on ProductionCrate!

 

 

Spaceship Sound Effects Pack

 

Spaceships, done right, can be iconic.

 

They’re a character in their own right. Just think about your favorite spaceship. The Millennium Falcon, Serenity, Battlestar Galactica, Starship Enterprise, they’re all as much a part of your favorite movies and shows as the actors are.  The best ships are the ones that have personality (figuratively or often literally), quirks, a unique look, and  most importantly, great sound.

 

download free spaceship sounds

 

Whether you’re engaging light-speed travel or dodging asteroids you’ll need the right audio to match those impressive visuals. We’ve been building out the VFX side of things, with our 3D content regularly expanding and tutorials to help you along the way, but our audio options have been lacking. Until now.

 

We’re happy to say we now have over 45 spaceship sound effects available for download. This includes a variety of flyby action. interior sounds to set the vibe.  Audio for large and small aircraft, and everything in between. 11 of these sound effects are free for everyone.

 

Here’s some samples of what we have to offer. Check out this awesome fly-by sound!

 

 

What does this desert racer sound remind you of?

 

 

spaceship sound fx bundle

 

We have 48 total Sci-Fi vehicle sound FX for you to choose from, find the right one for your project and start building today! Don’t forget to check out the rest of our Sci-Fi Sound Effects section here

 

 

 

Spaceship UFO VFX – Tutorial

Download HD UFO VFX Assets Here

Whether they’re friendly or not (usually the latter), no Sci-Fi movie is complete without alien spaceships flying over a city. They’re some of the coolest VFX shots out there.

We’re super happy to be introducing these new HD UFO effects, all available for you to download! We even have a free option, so this tutorial is for all of you.

Inspired by Independence day, District 9 and Arrival, we want to show you how you can create your own blockbuster CGI alien spaceship. So let’s get started with the tutorial!

You can use almost any compositing software for this tutorial, whether that’s Nuke, Hitfilm, or Premiere Pro. I’ll be using After Effects!

We’ll first need the city that our outer-worldly visitors will be hanging out over. I’ve gone for the popular choice, New York City! You can download the same image here from Pexels.

Download UFO Spaceship VFX Tutorial

You can apply the same VFX techniques to a video if you would rather use that! If you haven’t yet downloaded the UFO assets, download the effects here.

We can drop our first spaceship into our shot! You’ll find that it’s already looking incredibly realistic without any work needed to be done. FootageCrate elements are all designed to make your workflow as easy as possible!

The first adjustment we want to make is ensuring that the lighting is in the correct direction. You’ll see that the sunlight is coming from the left side of the screen, so if the UFO asset doesn’t match, simply flip it horizontally. This makes the scene seem consistent.

Download UFO Spaceship VFX Tutorial

The next small adjustment we can perform is adding a tint effect. Make both colors match the sky, so that the UFO appears to be distant in the sky. Typically, you’ll increase the tint if the spaceship is larger or further away to give a sense of scale.

Download UFO Spaceship VFX Tutorial

Feel free to go crazy and add even more of our spaceship assets! Once again you can change the tint levels so that the closer spaceships have less of it applied (which you can see in the top right asset).

Download UFO Spaceship VFX Tutorial

If you have buildings that are supposed to obstruct the view of some of these VFX assets like I have here, you can either rotoscope the foreground, or use a simple color key with the sky as the target! We can then use this duplicated layer above our UFO effects to put the buildings in front.

Download UFO Spaceship VFX Tutorial

And it’s as easy as that! In no time we have our VFX UFO invasion underway. Add any final corrections you would like to your scene. I’ve even used our Auto-Cinemabar plugin to quickly create the cinema aspect ratios in a single click!

Download UFO Spaceship VFX Tutorial

We’ll love to see what you create with these UFO VFX assets! If you’re tempted to create your own UFO animations, Pro Users can download our model here.

If you’re interested in more compositing tutorials, check out our Helicopter tutorial.