How to Create a Lightning Storm
Posted on 22. Jun, 2010 by Andrew Price in Compositing, Lighting, Modeling, Weather
Last week I posted the how to create rain tutorial, and was surprised at the number of comments requesting lightning! I guess they go hand in hand or something?
Anyway, it took me a while to get the technique nailed down, but I think I’ve finally worked out an easy way to create and animate a lightning storm within Blender.
During this tutorial you will discover how to:
- Quickly model a detailed lightning bolt
- Make an object disintegrate
- Create light flashes
- Add glow and glare effects in the compositor
To play along at home, download the starter file.
Watch the tutorial:
[Note: This tutorial uses Blender 2.5 Alpha. You can download it here]
>>Download the finished .blend<<
Reference image used: ¡Rayos!
Lightning reference videos:
- Lightning Storm #1 Live Lightning Crashes
- National Geographic Special
- Lightning Strikes Qantas Plane
- Townsville lightning strike
- Up close strike
Do you have any real life lightning stories? A near miss? Post it below! I’d be interested to hear them! 
88 Responses to “How to Create a Lightning Storm”
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30. Jun, 2010
[...] week I showed you how to create a lightning storm, but this week I wanted to show you something a little hotter… Heat [...]
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01. Jul, 2010
[...] How to Create a Lightning Storm [...]
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03. Jul, 2010
[...] How to Create Lightning in Blender | Blender Compositing | Blender Guru – 23. Jun, 2010 [...] week I posted the how to create rain tutorial, and was surprised at the number of comments requesting lightning! I guess they go hand in hand or [...] [...]
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18. Jul, 2010
[...] How to Create Lightning in Blender | Blender Compositing | Blender Guru – 03. Jul, 2010 [...] Let it Snow! [...] [...]
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clebou
23. Jun, 2010
Really really nice…
I however have a render problem, like the one experimented by Victor Vera. Once a frame is rendered, I can see the Scene, City and Lightning layers one at a time but the combined layer is completely white. Any idea?
(using 2,5 alpha 2)
thx
nathan
23. Jun, 2010
nice tut! like always
great idea with the texture key framing!
have fun with your girl in south korea! i want to go there one day!
and @ clebou, make sure that u have the mix nodes there and the right way around
hope it helps
Sherminator
23. Jun, 2010
Yeah, you can say that I’m wery banal, but this is awesome tutorial. these lightnings and everything. Altough my computer is too damn slow to handle that city and clouds wery well, but I’m getting new one real soon. In Blender Guru I have learned that I didn’t even thought is plausible. You don’t know how pleased I am for these tutorials. Keep it up.
P.S. Sorry For my bad English and greetings from Lithuania.
cedal
23. Jun, 2010
hey, thanks again for a great tutorial!
but why Alpha 1 and not 2?
just like the rain-turorial btw but you didn’t respond to my reaction there:P, so here now;)
Enis
23. Jun, 2010
Great tutorial, thanks
Zazizizou
23. Jun, 2010
Great tutorial ! Thanks alot
!
I was wondering why snow, rain and lightning storm in summer time ?
They all look great though. Thanks again, you’re the best =DDD !
Oleeblood
23. Jun, 2010
nice one ! Thanks!
@clebou, you have to connect RGB Curves.001 Node Image out to Color Balance Fac input.
monkey-donkey-mom-call
23. Jun, 2010
the final result didn’t looks pretty at all …
and the clouds are fake in the form
Jerry
23. Jun, 2010
Very nice… The camera movement adds a very cool tuch..
love the lightning!!!
Just watching the video.. has given me ideas on making a city scene.. and I did,. lol
But next month can it be about water? making a river, ocean, a soda drink.. ect..
Jerry
23. Jun, 2010
here is the city scene if anyone would like to see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-VTENKgsxg
flyover – I think I will try and add a lightning bolt later and some rain…
BlendKraze
23. Jun, 2010
Here is a nice reference video as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8oN0YFAXWQ&feature=related
ROUBAL
24. Jun, 2010
A slight animated displacement mapping could add some more life to the lightnings, by moving them a bit on few frames..
bucknell
24. Jun, 2010
dude thanks
i have wanted to know how to make lighting for far to long.
thanks to u i now know
Latif
24. Jun, 2010
sorry if this has nothing to do with your tutorial but i was just intersted in knowing if there was anyway in animating a blur. For example i would like to have some text fading from a blur to being perfectly legible.
Leighton
25. Jun, 2010
Yes, there is Latif. Just do a blur node in the compositor and add a time node to the “fac” value.
Jantomedes (pl)
25. Jun, 2010
Hi Andrew,
You forgot add this tutorial to Monthly Special/Weather.
-Jantomedes
Reaper
26. Jun, 2010
Hi Andrew
is there anyway for me to download your video tutorials.
Its just more convenlent for me.
Tio Ilmo
26. Jun, 2010
Hi Andrew,
Congratulations for your nature events tutorials. I suggest you make something like earthquake or a tsunami next time.
Moe
26. Jun, 2010
@Reaper
Yes you can download the videos, you just need to watch it on the vimeo page and have a vimeo account. Just look for where it says download at the bottom right corner. Cheers
Ryley Swan
27. Jun, 2010
AWESOME Tutorial!!
for your next month of tutorials could i suggest effects-like dust, smoke, explosions, demolition, shattering etc…etc
P. Teckelenburgh
27. Jun, 2010
hello
i donwloaded the finished blend file and saw that you had lots of buildings on the ground. everything in your blend file says that you used the particle system: the object group etc. but how did you apply it?
AlexDS
28. Jun, 2010
so, so cool :O
FredFrid
29. Jun, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BcALSRJptc
This is not a Lihtning animation but a Model for the WM please give me a plus and a coment
(sorry I´m geraman)
P. Teckelenburgh
29. Jun, 2010
he never answers…
Don
29. Jun, 2010
I wanna say it again cause it would be awesome! Do a stormy water scene in the ocean
Big Buck Blender
02. Jul, 2010
Very good wanted to have this talent, I hope to have more tutorials.
der to visit my page and comment!
bigbuckblender.blogspot.com
Tadeus
02. Jul, 2010
Why can not I render an image? Render finish a white image.
I have a notebook r580 samsung i5-430m 4GB DDR3 (1066 MHz)
NVIDIA GeForce 330M GT (DX10, SM 4.0, PureVideoHD) 1GB
kingcreole
02. Jul, 2010
nice tutorial i tried to animate something like Zeus weapon and afterwars i saw this tutoritorial and noticed i allmost did the same compositing xD but i did something else when modeling (used a lot of noise displacement effects, subdivision surface and some latices) anyway i understood everything and maybe i’ll use it later and combine my technice with some particle hair for the small lighning strikes ^^
Larry Rains
04. Jul, 2010
Wow! Great stuff Andrew.
cedal
06. Jul, 2010
is it possible to remove reactions…
because I asked a very stupid question about something mentioned but it wasn’t said here at all… so please?
Stephen DuMont
21. Jul, 2010
Have you considered taking lightning patterns from the Mandelbrot set?
Dave
22. Jul, 2010
http://www.davidjarvis.ca/blender/tutorial-17.shtml
NSpurgeon
25. Jul, 2010
Hello, Great work on the tuts, I just got started with blender about a week ago, and so far I have done the fire tut with some success, although I think you rush through things a bit too fast, and I would like to know more about what some of the parameters that you use and change, actually do. However, right now I seem to be having a problem getting my reference picture to show up when I enable it, I am currently using Blender 2.5 A2 Win 32 on Win XP, the image I am trying to load is a JPEG. Not sure if I don’t have a setting right or if its something else. Although the image doesn’t show up as the background on the 3D viewer, it will show up in the UV/Image editor, if I open it there. Not sure what I’m not doing right, or what I may be doing wrong. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
NSpurgeon
26. Jul, 2010
I figured out what I wasn’t doing. I needed to load it as the background, then switch to front view and press 5 on the number pad. Now I’m back up to speed, for now.