Breakdown: Mario-Inspired Animated Waterfall In Blender

Introduction

Hi, my name is Ryanwill679, also known as TrashCG. I'm a 3D Artist who is primarily self-taught through YouTube tutorials and a lot of trial and error. My journey into 3D art started from a desire to create video games, and I thought learning how to 3D model would be a useful skill. Along the way, I discovered a genuine passion for 3D art, which led me to explore Blender as a hobby.

Blender stood out to me because it's free and supported by a massive, passionate community. There are countless high-quality tutorials available, one of the most well-known being the Donut Tutorial by Blender Guru, which helped me early on. Also, the availability of powerful add-ons like FLIP Fluids, which I use for most of my water simulations in Blender.

The Waterfall Project

This particular project began after I was browsing for references and came across an image by James Turner. It featured Mario chilling on a Question Mark Block with grass and a tree on top. That scene inspired me to create something similar with my own twist.

Modeling

The process started with blocking out a Question Mark Block, then modeling the green pipe. I added the grass using a particle system on a plane and scattered vegetation using the Botaniq add-on. All of the vegetation in the shot comes from Botaniq. After that, I added trees and tried a few different shot layouts to see what worked best. For lighting, I used a sky texture in the world settings and adjusted the values to get the right mood for the shoot.

Waterfall

For the waterfall, I used the FLIP Fluids add-on. I began by setting up the obstacles, then added a Domain (a large rectangular volume that contains all the fluid). I also placed an Outflow object, a rectangle that removes excess fluid and whitewater to reduce the load on my poor CPU. I decided the water should come out of the pipe, so I placed an Inflow mesh to generate the fluid.

I ran a few low-resolution simulations to test the look and flow of the water. To control the direction, I added a wall to prevent it from spilling over the other side. After several tests with different settings, I was happy with the result. I then increased the resolution to 450 and enabled Whitewater in the FLIP Fluids settings. Once everything was ready, I baked the simulation and waited for it to finish. Which can take hours or days to be done. But this one only took about 12 hours.

Clouds

The clouds are from Cloudscapes V2 – Hyper Realistic VDB Clouds and Explosions Collection by Bproduction. I used Principled Volume shaders with the density set to 0.100. Lighting made a huge difference in how good they looked. I also keyframed the clouds to move slightly to bring more life and depth to the scene.

Water

The realism in the water came down to detailed shaders and good lighting. I used the materials from the FLIP Fluids add-on.

• Foam and The Spray material: principled BSDF base color set white, the roughness is set to 0.267, IOR set to 1.200, alpha is 1.000, subsurface is set to Christen-Burley weight 0.0, the radius is all set to 0 but scale set to 0.05 m, specular is set to multiscatter GGX, IOR level 0.075. The tint is set to white, anisotropic set to 0.000, anisotropic rotation to 0.00, transmission weight to 0.0275, coat weight and roughness to 0.00, IOR to 1.500, and the tint is white. The sheen weight is 0.00, roughness is 0,500, tint is white. Emission strength is 0.00 and thin film thickness is 0 nm, and IOR;
• Bubble material: principled BSDF base color set white, the roughness is set to 0.0, IOR set to 0.75, alpha to 1.000, subsurface is set to Christen-Burley weight 0.0, the radius is all set to 1.0, but specular is set to multiscatter GGX IOR level 1.0. The tint is set to white, anisotropic to 0.000, anisotropic rotation to 0.00, transmission weight to 1.00, coat weight and roughness to 0.00, IOR to 1.500, and the tint is white. The sheen weight is 0.00, roughness is 0.500, and tint is white. Emission strength is 0.00 and thin film thickness is 0 nm, IOR is 1.330. Next is the spray material, which is the foam texture.

• Water material:

Conclusion

Some free resources:

• ambientCG for free textures;
• Poly Haven for free textures, models, and HDRIs;
• Textures.com for textures;
• Superhive for add-ons.

For anyone just starting out, the most important thing is to enjoy the process of creating art. Don't worry about being perfect. Making mistakes is part of learning. Watching tutorials can be a great help. Get a lot of references for what you are working on. There are tons of great resources out there. Just keep creating, keep experimenting, and most importantly, have fun with it.

Ryanwill679, 3D Artist

Interview conducted by Gloria Levine