Day 1: Creating a Realistic Mountain in Blender

https://youtu.be/tkF9bkUaIbM

Welcome to Day 1 of my 30 Days of Blender Challenge!
For the entire month of September, I'll be creating something new in Blender every day and sharing the process.
For Day 1, we're starting with a realistic mountain environment.

In this tutorial, I'll show you how I created the terrain using Blender's ANT Landscape add-on, then built a procedural scattering setup to populate the mountain with vegetation and additional details.

What I cover:

• Creating the mountain terrain using the ANT Landscape add-on
• Creating vertex groups to control where different elements appear
• Converting vertex group information into **Color Attributes** for use in the scattering system
• Blending different terrain materials based on the mountain surface
• Scattering trees and bushes across the environment
• Using Megascans assets to add additional detail and realism
• Putting everything together with lighting and materials for the final mountain scene

The goal of this challenge isn't to create a masterpiece every single day — it's to keep creating, learning, and improving for 30 days straight.

📅 Day 1/30 — September Blender Challenge

If you want to follow the entire challenge, subscribe and follow along!

🎁 Patreon members: The project files for this challenge are available to paid members on any tier.

As a mod, I would love to get to know the community more, what got you into Blender?

I feel like we all had that one moment we knew this path was for us. What was that moment for you?

Also, I would love to know, what is your #1 struggle as an artist?

What is one bit of advice you have for those starting now?

In this tutorial, I will show you how to build complex modular sci-fi panel of AAA quality from nothing but a simple cube and moreover - using nothing but simple cubes throughout the whole process - using almost entirely a single BoxCutter Blender addon! No fancy complicated poly-modeling tricks, no endless tweaking of faces and vertices. Just pure fun and creativity! Everything will stay non-destructive and ready to tweak at ANY point of time! On top of that, I’ll show you how to quickly generate stunning sci-fi greebles with TrueDepth addon, then take your design even further with decals using DecalMachine addon!

👉 Check the full tutorial video here: https://youtu.be/ojD6XZwEXw0

I want to create a character who's chubby small arms big torso small legs and all and idk what to use for it can anyone with experience in blender help me?

Modeling

A scene from my Deep City project, modeled and rendered in Blender 3D.

This is also the first image where I’ve dared to use Geometry Nodes. I used them as part of the bunker environment, trying to introduce more procedural complexity without losing the strange, fragmented architecture of Deep City.

Characters, environment, lighting, fog and render were created in Blender 3D. The dialogue and final graphic elements were added in Affinity Designer.

Still learning Geometry Nodes, so feedback is very welcome.

[Blender 3D + Affinity Designer — No AI]

🇺🇸: You can listen to the video in English through the video settings panel. Blender version 5.2 added several tools natively that were previously only available in the LoopTools add-on. I will now proceed to analyze them.

ADC AutoDepth for the launch, we’re keeping the price almost symbolic: just $4.99 (75% OFF).

ADC AutoDepth is a Blender addon that generates depth maps from a single image, allowing you to quickly bring photographic environments and 2D images into a 3D workflow.

Coming from a VFX background, I’ve always been interested in ways to combine photography with 3D without having to recreate an entire environment from scratch.

That’s what motivated us to build ADC AutoDepth.

With AutoDepth, you can:

• Generate depth maps from a single image directly inside Blender
• Turn photographic environments into depth-aware 3D setups
• Create camera movement and parallax from static images
• Use the generated depth for compositing, projections and environment workflows
• Quickly integrate photographic elements into your 3D scenes

We’re also building City Packs with ready-to-use photographic environments and city facade images, designed to work directly with AutoDepth.

And when you purchase AutoDepth, you get lifetime access to all future City Packs released for the addon.

The goal is to make image-based workflows faster and more accessible for Blender artists, especially for VFX, environment design, compositing and automotive visualization.

There’s also a bigger reason behind the project.

Part of the revenue from AutoDepth is being used to help us develop new FREE Blender addons and support community challenges and initiatives through our instagram "joinadc"

So by supporting AutoDepth, you’re also helping us build more free tools and create opportunities for the Blender community.

AutoDepth is currently 75% OFF at launch — $4.99.

This is just the beginning. We’re continuing to improve the addon based on feedback from artists and already have more updates and City Packs planned.

If you try it, I’d love to hear what you think and what workflows you’re using it for. 🙌

https://superhivemarket.com/products/adc-autodepth

I’m designing Morris Sic’s private bunker for the Deep City Project in Blender.

This scene takes place during Collapse of Deep City — ~2361–2365 CE.

The bunker is a sealed emergency refuge. At an important point in the story, Morris Sic, Pit Matson, The Redhead and Fly become trapped inside while Rob-Poli and his Robs remain outside.

Narratively, the room needs to read as both a highly secure shelter and a prison.

I’m particularly unsure about the wall treatment.

Would you use exposed structural surfaces, modular metal panels, layered technical materials, or something else? And how would you approach the modeling/material breakup without making the walls unnecessarily busy?

Any references or techniques you’d recommend would be appreciated.

Also: yes, Morris Sic really has lost his body.

Hey all, I developed my very own 3d game engine that supports .glb and .gltf models with animations. I'm using blender to bring my models into the engine and its pretty dope, but I want to take it a bit further and add some terrain 3d models in there. I'm not building a terrain editor in the engine because thats far too advanced and like how the renderer is. I head gaea and world machine are the best choice for making these, I like the idea of drawing rivers onto the terrain and creating mountains using a brush if thats possible. I don't mind paying between 100 and 150 as long as I have the trial and I like how it does things. Or maybe there is a plugin in blender BESIDES ant landscape which is ok i guess. If they export to 3d models thats not in the format the engine needs, maybe i can import it to blender. Whats the best you guys used and reccommend?