CelestialFX

Sun, sky, clouds, moon and stars, driven by the time of day

CelestialFX builds a complete, physically based outdoor lighting rig in one click: a real sun, Blender’s physical sky, procedural clouds that cast moving shadows, a moon with real phases, stars and the Milky Way. Then you art-direct all of it from one panel: drag the clock and the whole world follows, from blue hour to golden hour to a moonlit night.

No HDRIs to hunt for, no node spaghetti, no Python handlers that break when you share the file. Everything is plain Blender data, it works in Cycles and EEVEE, and every setting can be keyframed.

Every animation on this page was rendered with CelestialFX on a deliberately simple scene, a plane and a sphere, so you see exactly what the add-on does and nothing else.

Daylight that follows the clock

01 One click, real daylight

Open the CelestialFX tab in the 3D Viewport sidebar and press Add Sun & Sky. You get a physical sun, sky, soft sky fill, clouds and a night sky, already balanced and ready to render.

02 Any time of day, from 00:00 to 23:59

Sun position, intensity and color temperature come from real solar math for any place and date. Scrub the Time slider, or jump to one of 10 moments: Blue Hour AM, Sunrise, Golden AM, Morning, Noon, Afternoon, Golden Hour, Sunset, Blue Hour and Night.

03 Time-lapse in one click

Pick a start and end hour, press Animate Time-lapse, and watch the shadow travel around your subject while the sky changes color with it.

04 Four real seasons

Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter each set their own date, sun path and climate: air, light color, typical clouds and night sky. Pick one of 13 places, from Reykjavik to Caracas, Tokyo, New York or Sydney, or enter your own latitude and North direction.

Clouds, weather and shadows

05 Six weather presets

Clear, Fair, Partly Cloudy, Mostly Cloudy, Overcast and Storm, one click each. Then fine-tune cloud cover, size, altitude, thickness, edge softness and detail. Snowfall is built in.

06 Moving cloud shadows

Cloud shadows sweep across the whole scene for almost no render cost. Fit Shadows to Scene sizes them to your set in one click, and optional volumetric clouds are there for hero shots.

07 Full shadow control

Hard noon shadows, soft overcast light, or anything in between: Visibility, Softness and Overcast Diffusion let you shape the sunlight exactly the way a cloudy sky would.

Night

08 From sunset to starlight

As the sun sets the sky darkens, auto exposure adapts and the stars come out. The moon has real phases and lights the scene, with the Milky Way, night sky glow and an optional city glow that lights the clouds from below.

Built-in animation tools

09 Animate with one button

Time-lapses, weather transitions, snowfall, lightning and twinkling stars are written as plain keyframes, so you can edit them in the Graph Editor like anything else. Wind speed, direction and cloud evolution make the sky move on playback.

10 Weather transitions

Blend from any scene preset to any other: every light, cloud and weather setting changes smoothly over the frame range you choose.

11 Lightning

Generate lightning strikes with real flash patterns that light the clouds and the whole scene. Pick how many strikes and a seed, and you are done.

Presets and Celestial Looks

12 19 scene presets

11 day presets: Clear Morning, Sunny Noon, Partly Cloudy, Overcast Day, Cumulonimbus, Storm Afternoon, Golden Clouds, Hazy Summer, Snowy Day, Snowstorm and Clear Winter Day.

8 night presets: Blue Hour, Clear Full Moon, Starry Night, Moonlit Clouds, Cumulonimbus Night, City Overcast Night, Pitch Black Storm and Snowy Night.

13 Celestial Looks: heavenly compositor moods

A bonus compositor module with 8 moods: Golden Gates, Ascension, Seraphim, Celestial Dawn, Ethereal Mist, Moonlit Heaven, Divine Judgment and Fallen Angel. Divine light, god rays, celestial haze, halo aura, sparkles, sun beams and heavenly bloom, all editable, with a mix slider and a live viewport preview. Your existing compositor setup is kept.

Why CelestialFX

• No scripts, no handlers. Everything runs on drivers on a small rig object: the file renders the same anywhere, even with Auto Run off or on a render farm.
• Cycles and EEVEE. Physical sky, sun and moon in both engines.
• Real solar math. Latitude, date, North and city presets for accurate light.
• Animation ready. Every setting can be keyframed; the tools write normal keyframes you can edit.
• Lightweight. Fast procedural clouds with shadows; volumetrics only when you want them.
• 19 scenes and 8 moods to start from, so you get a great image in seconds.

Requirements

• Blender 5.0 or newer (tested on Blender 5.2 LTS).
• Cycles or EEVEE. In EEVEE, enable Jittered Shadows in the render settings to see sun softness.
• Installs as a Blender extension: Edit > Preferences > Get Extensions > Install from Disk.

Support

Questions, bug reports and feature requests are welcome and directly shape the next update. Check the Documentation tab for a full guide to every panel. Thank you for supporting independent Blender add-on development.