5 Quick Steps to Create a Realistic Flag Animation in Blender!

 

5 Quick Steps to Create a Realistic Flag Animation in Blender!

 

Hello Doomers, welcome to the viewport… Download the resource file here.

Today, let's see how we can create this TVK (Actor Vijay's party) flag animation in just 5 steps! 

 

Step 1

First, add a cylinder, then make it a little smaller, and scale it along the Z-axis.

Next, select the top face, press E, and scale it by 3. You should get a sphere shape.

To add some more details, create these two edge loops at the top, then extrude them with Alt + E. 

This will create a pole-like effect. But if you add subdivision, it will look better.

To fix this, you can add edge loops in appropriate places to smooth out the pole.

Next, for the flag, Shift + Right-click to create a plane at this location, then rotate and scale it. Don’t forget to apply the scale.

Go into Edit mode, press A to select everything, right-click, and subdivide. Set the subdivision to 3.

Step 2:

Now, let’s move on to the shader editor because we’re going to do some texturing.

First, select the pole and give it a new material. Set the metallic value to 1, roughness a little lower, and you’ll get an easy silver material. You can change the base color to get a gold or copper look.

For some imperfections, add a noise texture and press Ctrl + T to set the texture coordinate to object. Then, connect the noise texture to a color ramp and set the colors to black and grey. This will give it some imperfect roughness, and that’s it for the material.

For the flag, just google a flag image, download it, and add it as an image texture. If the flag’s alignment is off, press Ctrl + T, change the mapping’s rotation, or adjust the UV editor to get it right.

For a realistic touch, add a magic texture to the flag, set the object coordinates, adjust the scale, and you’ll get a fabric-like look. Connect this to a bump node for normals, and the flag will look realistic!

Step 3:

For lighting, go to Polyhaven and download any HDRI image. Here is the link.

Once downloaded, go to World settings, change the color to environment texture, and select your HDRI. 

This will set up lighting and sky, but if you want to change the sky position, go to the Shader editor, switch from object to world, and use Ctrl + T to change the mapping’s rotation.

If you need additional lights, you can create them too.

Step 4:

Now, let’s talk about the important step: cloth simulation.

To do this, first click on the cloth, go to the physics tab, and select "Cloth". Press spacebar to start the simulation. You’ll notice it doesn’t work as expected because of the default settings. 

To quickly change this, click on this icon and choose a preset like silk (I chose silk).

But if the cloth is still not behaving correctly, go to Edit mode, select the edges, create a vertex group, and assign the pins. \This will hold the edges in place.

In the cloth settings, select the shape and assign the pins group. Now the flag’s edge should stay in place.

But there’s another problem: the flag pole is going through the flag. To fix this, click on the pole, go to the physics tab, and select "Collision". Now, the problem is solved.

But there’s still no wind in the viewport. To add artificial wind, press Shift + 1, go to Force Field, select wind, and set the strength to 10,000 to 20,000. Add some noise and adjust the location where you need the wind to blow. This will make your flag fly!

Step 5:

Now go to the compositing tab. Add a Viewer node, and change the backdrop to the image editor to see your changes in real-time.

Add an RGB curve to tweak the contrast. This is experimental, so play around with it, but don’t overdo it. Keep it subtle.

Add a Filter node and set it to soften the edges. This will replicate the natural look of images.

Next, add a Blur node to soften the edges further, using Gaussian blur to blur the image without losing too much detail. Keep it subtle again.

Add a Lens Distortion node to replicate real-life lens effects. Set the values to 0.01, and make sure the "Fit" option is selected to avoid the background from being distorted.

Next, add a Glare node and set it to fog glow. Play with the settings to get the desired glow effect.

Then, go to Color Balance, adjust the Lift to a subtle blue tone, and the Gain to an orange tone to create a warm look.

Finally, add RGB curves for highlights and shadows to fine-tune the contrast, and adjust the Exposure node. I set it to 0.3.

In the Output Properties, choose the file format as PNG and set the location. If you’re rendering a video, save it in MP4 format.