Render My 2024 FotS art contest submission

Well, there it is. I spent way too long on this, but hey, it's my first time doing a full render.
Making this made me realize that I kinda suck at planning ahead for my Blender projects, but the only way to learn from my mistakes is to make some, so I'm glad I made mistakes I can learn from.
I will post a separate thread explaining the process, because I dunno why, I just feel like it.

(PS: idk how to do some sort of signature, since I don't have one, cause this is the first place I've ever posted work, but my post explaining the process will hopefully be enough proof that this is my render. oh, and if the contest was only for 2d art and my 3d render is disqualified, than I guess it's too bad for me)

 

3d is allowed i think
just add your name to the artwork for a signature

 

3D is definitely allowed. submission accepted!

 

this is sick!!!!

 

Very nice!

 

Really good, was this with eevee or cycles?

 

Cycles, I left Eevee behind long ago.

 

besides cycles apart from having much superior quality and flexibility, it is also pretty quick to render with correct settings, so there's really no downside
btw do you have footage of the process? I'd like to know how you got those light rays, I might need those in the future

 

I'm still very much a beginner in the whole 'posting your work on the internet' thing, so I haven't really figured out timelapses, but the node setup is pretty simple.
You just plug two Volume Scatter nodes into an Add Shader node (I know I have mix shader in the screenshot, my mistake), one with anisotropy at 0.0 and another with anisotropy at 0.7, with the density factors being a 1/5 ratio, Like so:

It gives the same kind of look as MC Shaderpacks in game, which I really like.

 

Oh that's pretty cool, thanks

 

If you tweak the nodes a bit and add a gradient texture, then that node setup can be used as the atmosphere of a planet, which is something I had been trying to figure out for soooo long. Hope it helps you in the future!

 

ah thank you! tho I prefer using compositing mode for that, it's really versatile and gives good lighting quality

 

I haven't really messed around with compositing yet, so I don't know how you could manage an atmosphere using only compositing nodes. The main stuff I've messed about with is shader nodes and geo nodes, and I really wanna know how the heck drivers work.
(Edit: It just occurred to me that you might've mean't atmosphere like glare, while I mean't atmosphere like outer space models of planets)

 

Oh I see, then yeah ahah

 

:o that's dope, love how glowy the ghost is

 

It took a few test renders to get the glow figured out, I'm glad it ended up looking good.