Today we’ll be making a Sunset Animation in Blender. I’ll be using the 2.81 version of Blender. We’ll be making use of the following tools and techniques :
- ocean modifier
- subdivide
- emission material
- bloom
- space reflections
- timeline
- frame rate
- insert keyframe
- play animation
- animation output formats
- render animation
Here’s an image of our final animation:
And here are the steps:
Table of Contents
Step 1 – Add a Plane and an Ocean Modifier
Delete the default cube and save the file.
Add a plane.
Add an ocean modifier to the plane.
Scale the plane: S 0.5
Step 2 – Add the Sun
Add a UV sphere.
Go to edit mode.
Subdivide the sphere: Edge -> Subdivide
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Step 3 – Scale and Move the Sun
Go to object mode.
Apply smooth shading : Object -> Shade Smooth
Scale the sphere: S 5
Move sphere along Y axis outside the plane.
Step 4 – Set the View
Select the camera.
Lock the camera to view.
Set the view so that you can see the sea plane along the whole width of the viewport and the sun behind.
Uncheck Lock camera to view.
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Step 5 – Add Material to the Sun
Go to Rendered shading.
Change the world color to black.
Delete the light.
Add an emission material to the sphere. Set its color to hex FF4F0A (orange) and strength to 10.
In the Render tab select Bloom.
Check Screen Space Reflections.
Step 6 – Add Material to the Ocean
Select the plane.
Add a material to the plane and set its roughness to 0 and base color to black.
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Step 7 – Align the Camera
Zoom out.
Align the camera to view.
Step 8 – Insert Keyframes to Create the Sunset Animation
In the Timeline set the end frame to 120. At 24 fps (frames per second) the animation will take 5 seconds.
Go to frame 1.
In the ocean modifier add a keyframe for time (RMB -> insert keyframe).
Go to the last frame.
Set time to 5 in the ocean modifier and insert another keyframe.
Play the animation.
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Step 9 – Render the Sunset Animation
In the Output tab select an output folder.
Set the file format to FFmpeg video.
In Encoding -> Container select MPEG-4
Make a test render: Render -> Render Image
Render the animation.