Blender 3D Tips, Tricks & Training

ChrisP’s Feature-Packed Startup File

I have put together a really handy Startup file containing

Stage (Seamless & Room w/ individual walls)
Lights (3-Point Studio Lighting)
Camera (w/ Track-To and Focus Point)
Volumetric Dust Particles
HDRI (w/ Coordinates Controller)
Fixed World Center Empty
Shader Preview Orb
Materials (Metallic Car Paint, Architectural Glass, Plastic, Procedural Scratches, Dust, …)
Scripts (Animation Nodes rendering, Bullet Time Effect)
Feature-Packed Compositor Node Tree (Anamorphic Lens Flares, Fake Volumetrics, Glitches, Sharpen, Glare, Color Correction/Grading, Dirt, Vignette, …)
Practical Default Settings

The latest version will always be available to download from patreon.com/chrisp

Animation Nodes

Animation Nodes is an awesome free Add-On for the great 3D software Blender and was created by Jacques Lucke.

I used to publish my own builds for B2.8x here but as of October 2019 I don’t see the need any longer since there are current builds (even with extra nodes!) for Blender 2.8+/2.9+/3.0+ available at GraphicAll or from 3DSinghVFX at GitHub (see Latest)

Blender crashes when rendering animations?

The latest builds of AN have improved this issue drastically, BUT if you still experience crashes when rendering with “Auto Execution” switched on (I found that 1 out of 5 render jobs still crash), then there are several things you can do/try:

Best solution when you are 100% ready to render: Watch the “NO MORE CRASHES!” video
Switch on “Lock Interface” in the Render menu
Bake the animation to keyframes (if possible)
Use “Viewport Rendering”

If you run into other problems with AN you might also want to check my troubleshooting video!