Swirling Rock: Blender Tutorial  

In this tutorial I will be going over how to create a swirling desert rock in 3D using Blender. I will cover how to set up materials, use them for displacement, mixing materials as well as how to create the swirling effect within the texture. I will also be going over how to set up a live way of modeling the rocks using metaballs and curves. This allows for you to see your rock forming as you build it and its super fun too!  
As a small bonus I go over some other things you can use to help set up your scenes. Such as, basic lighting and hdri, render settings in eevee and cycles, volumetrics and fog planes as well as using plant assets and scatter tools to help with set dressing. 

As a side note, I introduce the tutorial using cycles but part of the way through I switch to eevee as I notice the displacement feels better. So feel free to start in eevee if you prefer. I go over the render settings to help with that I believe in the third video. This still works in cycles I just preferred how it looked in eevee. I did this as a live demo because I prefer to show mistakes and what I learn and find out along the way. To me this feels more natural and helpful for the viewers. 

Feel free to send me a message and ask any questions. I will do my best to answer and help out if there are any issues!

Use code: THEFIRST50  to get a 25% discount.

Files included:

• 3hr Full commentary live demo split into multiple videos

• Blender File without the plant assets as they are from sources I do not fully own. 

Programs Used: Blender 4.3.2 eevee and cycles