The Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) tunes you into thousands of instrument sounds with a headset that syncs seamlessly as you move through its galleries. Take a world tour of cultural instruments and pop culture artists, and return for a live music experience at MIM Music Theater, a year-round concert series hosting more than 200 international acts.
Top Phoenix Attractions
As one of the largest cities in the U.S., you’ll find every kind of attraction in Greater Phoenix: food, nightlife, outdoors and more fill every nook and cranny of our metro. If you’re not sure where you should start, we’ve rounded up the top attractions everyone — visitors and locals — should check off their Greater Phoenix bucket list. Find the best attractions in the urban sprawl of the Sonoran Desert, including hikes, museums, and more. You can also find more attractions below.
The panoramic view from the “hump” of this iconic landmark, named for its resemblance to a kneeling camel, is worth scaling its two tricky trails, Echo Canyon and Cholla.
Hikers gain 1,200 feet in elevation to the summit, which looks out over the city and Phoenix Mountains Preserve. Camelback is one of the most popular urban hiking spots in Phoenix, so expect trail traffic and consider hiking on weekdays. During hot-weather months, hike in the early morning and drink plenty of water. See our outdoor safety tips page for more info before you head out.
Papago Park
Just minutes from downtown is iconic Papago Park, home to red rock buttes looped with trails, scenic views from the intriguing rock formation atop Hole-in-the-Rock Trail and two of the city’s top attractions: Desert Botanical Garden and Phoenix Zoo.
The park is also a popular hub of recreation, including fishing in seven acres of stocked lagoons, the Hall of Flame Museum of Firefighting and scenic Papago Golf Course, set at the base of Papago’s buttes.
South Mountain Park and Preserve
Boasting 50 miles of trails through 16,000 acres of the Sonoran Desert, this municipal park is perfectly suited for outdoor adventure just minutes from the city.
The skyline views and Sonoran Desert flora aren’t the park’s only perks. Keep a lookout for ancient petroglyphs carved into the rocks (we’ve got details in this blog post on petroglyphs in Phoenix). If you’d rather drive than hike, bike or hoof it up the trails, hop on the 5.5-mile Summit Road up to Dobbins Lookout, the highest accessible point in the preserve.
Welcome to our meticulously crafted course, ‘Blender Lighting and Compositing for Beginners’!
This course is designed to be your comprehensive guide, taking you from the foundational concepts of lighting to the advanced techniques of compositing. With engaging, step-by-step tutorials, you’ll unravel the mysteries of lighting, and explore the wonders of HDRI textures, and sky textures.
Whether it’s mastering the toon style, achieving the eerie aura in dark scenes, or unveiling the secrets of Cycles Compositing, this course is your gateway to unlocking a new realm of creativity.
And don’t think we will just be using Cycles to achieve all this as you will see we will be using both render engines – Cycles and Eevee – showing you their strengths and weaknesses along the way!
Top 6 Points about ‘Blender Lighting and Compositing for Beginners’:
· Master the use of HDRI textures for enhanced ambient lighting
· Use emission textures to light up your dark or horror scenes
· Illuminate your interiors with stunning volumetric God Rays
· Learn how to use Blender’s lighting and compositing features to create next-level stylized assets
· Utilise a 3 Point Light and studio light set-up to enhance your presentation
· Maximise Blender’s compositing features to take your rendering to new heights
Dive into our Download Pack
Dive into our expansive download pack, meticulously curated to enhance your learning experience. It’s a treasure trove featuring 11 fully prepared scenes, complete with stunning models at your disposal for any project. Each scene is paired with an exemplary Blender file and a corresponding project file, offering a clear visual guide to aid your practice.
‘Blender Lighting & Compositing for Beginners’ gives you the opportunity to upload 10 mini projects as part of your learning process.
Using the files provided in the ‘Blender Lighting & Compositing for Beginners’ download pack, you have the chance to create the lighting and complete the compositing process for 10 different scenes:
· Stylized beehive scene
· AT-AT Walker scene
· Spooky cemetery scene
· Stylized blacksmith building scene
· Music hall building scene
· Piano room scene interior
· Car model scene
· Astronomy desk scene
· Viking hut scene
Course Modules
- Lighting Basics: Understand Blender’s core lighting system, including Sun, Point, Area, and Spotlight.
- HDRI Lighting: Paint your scenes with lifelike illumination using High Dynamic Range Imaging.
- Sky Texture: Create diverse lighting conditions using Blender’s internal Sky Texture tool.
- Freestyle Rendering: Transform 3D scenes into comic book-style illustrations with Blender’s Freestyle feature.
- Dark and Horror Scenes: Craft cinematic night and horror scenes with emission and volumetric effects.
- 3 Point Lighting: Master the technique behind stunning isometric and stylized models.
- Basic Compositing: Discover the transformative power of the Blender Compositor.
- God Rays & Interiors: Infuse flat interiors with dynamic, atmospheric lighting.
- Studio Lighting: Learn professional studio lighting techniques, especially using the Eevee render engine.
- Eevee & Cycles Compositing: Culminate your learning with advanced compositing in both Eevee and Cycles.
Lighting Basics
‘Blender Lighting & Compositing for Beginners’ will be your complete introduction to the core of Blender’s lighting system, spotlighting the four quintessential light sources:
Each light casts its narrative in a scene, and we’ll guide you through their distinct roles:
- The Sunlight simulates natural daylight, casting parallel rays across vast landscapes.
- Point lights are akin to bulbs, radiating light uniformly in all directions.
- Area lights offer a broader, diffused glow, perfect for softening shadows, while Spotlights focus light into a directed beam, ideal for highlighting or dramatic effects.
The in-depth demonstrations of ‘Blender Lighting & Compositing for Beginners’ will empower you to harness these lights, taking your scenes to the next level with the desired mood and depth.
HDRI Lighting
Dive into the world of High Dynamic Range Imaging (HDRI) lighting, where we equip you with the tools to paint your scenes with lifelike illumination.
You’ll get hands-on experience with a pre-arranged scene, inviting you to bring in your own HDRI source. As you integrate HDRI lighting, you’ll learn to navigate the vast sea of available content, identifying quality sources that elevate your scene.
We’ll highlight what to watch out for, ensuring that your lighting choices enhance realism and depth, providing a solid foundation for mastering this game-changing technique.
Sky Texture
Uncover Blender’s hidden gem, the Sky Texture tool, is a powerful feature for creating stunning lighting environments.
This section guides you through lighting your scenes with styles ranging from whimsical Pixar-inspired brightness to the golden hues of a realistic sunset, all without relying on external downloads.
‘Blender Lighting & Compositing for Beginners’ will help you discover how Sky Texture can transform your scenes, offering a versatile range of lighting conditions that can be achieved with a few clicks, right within Blender’s toolkit.
Freestyle Rendering
Use ‘Blender Lighting & Compositing for Beginners’ to dive into the world of toon-style rendering with Blender’s Freestyle feature.
Here, you will learn how to transform any 3D scene into a vibrant comic book-style illustration with ease.
Learn the techniques to apply bold outlines, dynamic shading, and iconic inked accents, all with a few simple clicks. Whether you’re aiming for a lighthearted cartoon look or a dramatic graphic novel effect, this section will equip you with the skills to infuse your scenes with a unique and captivating comic book aesthetic.
Dark And Horror Scenes
Unveil the secrets to creating night and horror scenes with a cinematic flair. ‘Blender Lighting & Compositing for Beginners’ delves into the use of emission and volumetric effects to craft scenes that are both dark and rich in atmosphere.
You’ll learn to manipulate light and shadows to create eerie ambiences, perfect for fans of the Resident Evil franchise or anyone looking to imbue their scenes with a sense of foreboding and suspense.
Whether it’s a moonlit landscape or a shadowy corridor, this section will teach you how to elevate your scenes from simply dark to narratively compelling and visually stunning.
3 Point Lighting
‘Blender Lighting & Compositing for Beginners’ will let you discover the power of 3 Point Lighting, a technique that has been a game-changer for artists and creators on platforms like YouTube.
This simple yet effective method is behind those stunning isometric and stylized models that capture the eye.
Basic Compositing
‘Blender Lighting & Compositing for Beginners’ will be your first introduction to the Blender Compositor.
Quite simply, the Blender Compositor is a game-changer, and it took me years before even looking into this part of Blender and my work suffered because of it.
No scene will ever look as good as it can do without the help of compositing.
The Blender Compositor also brings a wealth of complexity and this is why this section will be just the lightest touch for beginners covering the very basic nodes.
God Rays & Interiors
Mastering interior lighting and volumetric effects can transform flat, lifeless scenes into vivid, atmospheric spaces. ‘Blender Lighting & Compositing for Beginners’ delves into the intricacies of lighting interiors to avoid flatness, ensuring each corner breathes life.
We’ll explore the magic of God Rays using volumetrics, a technique that introduces rays of light that add a dynamic, ethereal quality to your scenes.
Studio Lighting
Dive into studio lighting, a crucial aspect of rendering in Blender, especially using the Eevee render engine known for quick and impressive results.
If you’re looking to render products or cars for clients, or just aiming for a realistic look to showcase your assets, this course section is designed for you.
‘Blender Lighting & Compositing for Beginners’ will start with the basics and gradually move to more advanced techniques, all while keeping it engaging and easy to follow.
The Eevee render engine is a great tool for achieving good-quality renders quickly, and this section will guide you on how to make the most out of it.
Eevee Render Engine Compositing
This part of the course is the pinnacle of our journey with Eevee, aiming to bring together all that we have learned into a professional and eye-catching result that will be a gem in your portfolio, resembling the work of a skilled artist.
We’ll explore lighting, rendering, compositing, and importantly, layering, laying down the foundation for some truly excellent renders.
Cycles Render Engine Compositing
This is the final part of ‘Blender Lighting & Compositing for Beginners’, finishing with the complete Cycles render engine set.
We will be covering layering like ambient occlusion as well as other channels like diffuse.
This part of Blender Lighting & Compositing for Beginners’ lays the groundwork of just what’s possible in Blender as we bring all those node trees together working with sky texture nodes, layers and composite to finish with a night and day difference between the emitter and professional renders.
Summing it all up
Looking back on my early days with Blender, which was over ten years ago, I wish this course was available.
It would have saved me a lot of time, speeding up my progress in a significant way.
That’s why we created this course—it’s more than just a set of lessons; it’s your shortcut to mastering Blender’s lighting and compositing features.
‘Blender Lighting & Compositing for Beginners’ is THE Blender Lighting Course!
It is designed to help you move from creating plain scenes to rendering eye-catching projects.
It’s a chance to light up your Blender journey! Don’t let this chance pass by. It’s time to stop dreaming and start doing.
Until next time, happy modelling everyone!
To get in touch with me about any questions or support, please email: [email protected]
How Guns N’ Roses killed the golden age of hair metal
It would be easy to say that all hair metal died when grunge started sweeping the airwaves. From the moment that Kurt Cobain started a party in the middle of a school gymnasium in the video for ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, every single flashy rock star wearing mile-high hairdos was deemed irrelevant and quickly forgotten about. Although history might look like everything happened quickly, Guns N’ Roses is probably more responsible for making the hair metal scene die. Then again, it’s essential to look at where the Sunset Strip was when Guns N’ Roses started to make it big. After acts like Poison and Def Leppard had become the biggest names in music, second-string bands were starting to lay claim to the throne, with everyone from Warrant to Winger beginning to make waves in the scene as well. At the same time, there was another alternative coming from underground.
Outside of the hard rock scene, acts like Jane’s Addiction also brought a particular flash to their playing, which would set the world on fire in 1989 with their debut Nothing’s Shocking. While the alt-rock titans were still making their way into the cultural conversation, Guns N’ Roses came on the scene looking like no other hair metal band. While they were packing the same venues that acts like Ratt and Poison were playing a few years earlier, the aesthetic of GNR was completely different from their peers. As opposed to the mile-high hair and the sequined outfits, the band took the same mentality to their music as The Rolling Stones had, creating a fantastic mix of hard rock and bluesy flair whenever they took to the stage.
The X-factor came with a healthy dose of punk rock. Coming from the Seattle music scene years before grunge, Duff McKagan was responsible for bringing a punk sensibility to the band, being as into acts like the Dead Boys as he was with Led Zeppelin. With the addition of Axl Rose behind the microphone, they had a signature wild persona that made them look like a street gang instead of hairspray models. While the band had to fend off comparisons to glam act during their early shows, their debut, Appetite for Destruction, was when everyone got a taste of what they could do. Even though there were more than a few similarities between the guitar tones, hearing songs like ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ and ‘Paradise City’ gave listeners a look at the darker side of Hollywood, accompanied by videos that were the epitome of rock and roll excess. Even though they shared screen time with acts like Def Leppard at the time, the rest of the hair metal scene knew that their days were numbered. Instead of songs about partying all night, Guns had put a firm stake through the heart of the glam-metal aesthetic, exposing all of the fairweather glam bands as nothing but flashy songs without substance.
While they didn’t mean to stomp out any competition in their path, their need to double down on their double album experience, Use Your Illusion, made them one of the few glam artists that could go toe-to-toe with grunge acts. Even though Kurt Cobain may not have liked being in a heated feud with Rose, there aren’t many other glam bands that could hold onto relevance enough to pick a fight with the likes of Soundgarden or Pearl Jam. It’s not like the shine has worn off from the band’s time in the spotlight, either. To this day, Appetite for Destruction still feels like the sound of modern rock, with Slash holding up as the definition of what a guitar hero should look like, even in the era of hairspray and glitter. Even if Rose has squandered their potential time after time on albums like Chinese Democracy, nothing can dull the sheen coming off their golden era. The Sunset Strip in the 1980s may have been a wild ride, but Guns N’ Roses was when hard rock realised it could take things seriously again. Many fans may like to go back to their favourite records from the early days, but once you heard a song like ‘It’s So Easy’ or ‘Mr Brownstone’, why would anyone want to listen to the likes of Faster Pussycat ever again?
