Archive notice: This article was originally published on 8 July 2020. It has been translated into English and lightly edited for clarity while preserving its historical context.
Christian Scubli’s black-hole setup for Blender draws on the visual treatment created for Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. The tutorial is divided into eight sections: black-hole setup, black-hole material, photon sphere, accretion disk, accretion-disk colour, accretion-disk density, finishing touches and final render.
Most of the tutorial concentrates on the time-consuming material construction. That emphasis makes the lesson particularly relevant to artists studying the relationship between shader design, the accretion disk and the final rendered appearance.
More of Scubli’s work was available on his 3dtotal profile. The Building a Black Hole featurette for Interstellar provided further context. Test the material and render settings on a short frame range before committing production resources.
