Blender, as an open-source, free 3D software with powerful animation and rendering capabilities, is loved by numerous 3D artists. Many people wanting to enter the 3D industry choose to start learning with Blender and there are plenty of free Blender learning resources online. In this article, Fox Renderfarm, a leading Blender render farm and cloud rendering service provider in the CG industry, will introduce a complete tutorial on making Venom effects in Blender.
Introduction
Venom: The Last Dance | Image from Sony Pictures Entertainment
Blender comes with a built-in add-on that can create ivy on a mesh. What it does is add curves to the mesh, allowing you to simulate realistic ivy growth. These curves are fully customizable, and you can edit its settings and animate the ivy by controlling the starting and ending points of the curve in the properties. Give it a simple glossy black material and you will get something like Venom.
IvyGen
It is a great tool that adds generated ivy to a mesh object starting at the 3D cursor. The best part is that it is free to use and it is official.
How To Install IvyGen in Blender?
Firstly, open Blender, go to edit, select preferences, go into the extensions tab and search for "ivy gen" and install it. For this process to work, make sure Blender is connected to the internet as the extension is now downloaded from the Blender official extension website.
Another way to enable it is by downloading it manually from the Blender official website.
Go to the official Blender website for extensions, or use this link: https://extensions.blender.org/add-ons/ivygen/.
Search for Ivy Gen, click "Get Add-on" and drag it into the Preferences window and you are good to go. Make sure to save your preferences so you do not have to do it again.
Tips For Preparing Your Mesh?
Check Your Topology and Subdivisions:
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Good topology is key! Use quads wherever possible to keep your mesh clean and apply a Subdivision Surface Modifier to smooth things out. The better the mesh, the better the effect.
Apply Scale and Rotation:
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Press Ctrl+A and choose Scale and Rotation. This ensures modifiers animations behave correctly.
How To Use IvyGen?
Ivy gen works by generating curves from the 3d cursor, so first change the location of the 3d cursor to your object’s surface, you can do that very easily.
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Press "Shift + Spacebar" and select the cursor by pressing spacebar.
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Now you can edit the 3d cursor and it will move to the point where you click, just place the 3d cursor where you want the animation to start from.
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After that, Press N and a new menu will pop up, open the "create" tab and click "Add new Ivy".
These are the simple steps you need to follow to generate the basic ivy, but this is not enough.
Best Settings:
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Set the maximum time to 10s
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Set the Ivy length to 3m
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Set the adhesion weight to 0.25
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Set the branching probability to 1
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Uncheck "Grow Leaves"
After you change these settings, add ivy and you will see the results. Do this multiple times with different seeds and you will find the best one.
After that, add a bezier curve, go into the data properties of the "ivy" curves, under the geometry tab, select the taper object as the bezier curve, check map tapper and decrease the resolution to 0. Select the bezier curve, go into edit mode and scale it down until it looks good. When done, add a subdivision modifier and set it to 1, and that’s it.
How To Animate It?
Animating it is pretty easy, in the curves properties, under the bevel tab, you will find the start and end mapping, you just have to animate the end value.
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Go to the frame where you want your animation to start.
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Set the end value to zero and press the key "I" while your mouse cursor is above the value, you can also click on the mini icon that is on the side of the value.
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Go to the frame where you want to stop the animation.
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Set the end value to one and press the key "I" while ensuring that your mouse cursor is above the value, you can also click on the mini icon near the value.
Now when you play the animation, It will work perfectly.
Material
Venom has a black glossy material that is very easy to recreate in Blender.
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Open the shader editor
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Create a new material
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Change the principled BSDF color to black
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Decrease the roughness to 0 (zero)
That was it, a black glossy material like venom.
You can add more detail by adding a normal texture of a rock from ambient CG and scale it down so it looks bumpy, and animate it to add more randomness.
Final Tips
I have experimented with ivy gen a lot and here are some tips that will help you create your perfect venom effect.
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Ivy gen is related to gravity so make sure your 3d cursor (venom effect) starts from the bottom of your mesh, this will always give the perfect look and you can rotate it later.
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Make sure you use my settings and experiment with the seed until you get something that you like.
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Lighting it will be a little difficult but use an HDRI because the material is glossy and it will reflect the surroundings.
Check out the video tutorial here:
