Preparing Scene in Blender#

So this is the big one. Blender has unlimited possibilities, and there are an unlimited amount of things you could do with your render. But here are some basic ways to present your build.

I suggest familiarising yourself with Blender’s controls and layout before preceding, but if you don’t want to then read the next section.

Basic Controls#

  • Use scroll wheel to zoom in and out

  • Use joystick looking sphere at the top right to change perspective

  • Hold middle click and move mouse to change perspective

  • Hold shift and middle click then move mouse to pan around

Watch this if you don’t understand.

Lighting#

There are two basic ways to light your scene, HDRIs and lights/lamps (sun, area, etc). I will cover using HDRIs, as they provide easy, quick, realistic lighting.

HDRI#

  1. Click Shading on top to go to the Shader editor

  2. On the left middle switch shader type from Object to World. You should see in the middle bottom (node editor) the two nodes Background and World Output

  3. On the top left click Edit, Preferences, Add-ons

  4. In the search bar enter Node Wrangler and check the box next to Node: Node Wrangler

  5. Go back to the shader editor and left click Background, and CTRL + T

  6. The nodes Texture Coordinate, Mapping, and Enviornment Texture should pop up

  7. Download a 2k HDRI from Poly Haven

  8. Click Open on the Enviornment Texture node, and select your HDRI

Render Engine#

  1. For Minecraft renders it’s best looking to use cycles. As of writing cycles X hasn’t been released with it, but you can mess around with it in alpha.

  2. To enable switch to cycles from eevee (default engine), go to the right side panel in the Layout editor, and select Render Properties, Render Engine, and select Cycles

  3. On the top right of the 3d viewport click the sphere Viewport Shading

Viewport Shading

Camera#

  1. In the Layout editor in the 3D Viewport on the top left click Add, Camera

  2. On the right side of the 3D Viewport click the camera icon. You are now seeing what the camera sees. Whatever is in the outlined box in the center is whatever will be in the rendered image. In order to leave the camera, click the camera icon again

  3. On the right sidebar click View, View, View Lock, Lock: check Camera to View

  4. Now when you move around the camera will also move around

  5. I suggest increasing the camera focal length (like decreasing Minecraft FOV) by selecting the Camera, going to the right side bar, clicking the green camera icon, and changing Lens, Focal Length

Camera Focal Length

When in Camera or View Parts of the Render are Cut Off?#

This is a common issue and it is because your camera’s or view’s “render distance” is too low, so parts of your render too far away are not visible. This however can be easily fixed.

For Camera Cut Off#

If when you are inside of the camera, looking at what the camera is seeing

  • Follow step 5 above and the image above, but instead of changing Lens or Focal Length increase End value under Clip Start

For View Cut Off#

If you are looking at the scene while not in the camera.

  1. If you cannot see Item, Tool, View on a vertical bar at the top right of the 3D Viewport click the small arrow on the top right of the 3D Viewport

  2. Click View

  3. Increase End value

View

Ground#

One of trillions of possibilities is to only show the Minecraft build’s ground in the image, and another is to make a plane and extend it, another is to use an “Infiinite Background” (explained in the next section).

Background#

You can either use the background of the HDRI, which can sometimes work or sometimes look completely unrealistic, not show anything except the Minecraft build in the image, or hide the HDRI background and use an “infinte background”.

HDRI Background#

Just position the camera where you can only see the ski of the HDRI in the image.

Drybol

No Background#

Just position the camera where you can only see the Minecraft build in the image.

Iceland

Infinite Background#

Common techinique in real world photos, now in Blender. Watch this or this or maybe this.

Boston

I’m sure I missed some things, if they’re not in the extra page, tell me on Discord. Of course I’m not going to cover every single thing that can be done in Blender.