CelestialFX Documentation

Everything in the CelestialFX tab, explained panel by panel

1. Installation

1. Download the CelestialFX zip from your Superhive account. Do not unzip it.
2. In Blender go to Edit > Preferences > Get Extensions, open the drop-down arrow at the top right and choose Install from Disk..., then pick the zip.
3. Make sure CelestialFX is enabled. Its panels appear in the 3D Viewport sidebar (N key), in the CelestialFX tab.
4. To update, install the new zip the same way. Your scenes keep their settings.

Requirements: Blender 5.0 or newer (tested on 5.2 LTS), Cycles or EEVEE.

2. Quick start

1. Open the CelestialFX tab and, in the Daylight panel, press Add Sun & Sky. CelestialFX adds a sun, the sky world, clouds and the night sky, all driven by one small rig object.
2. Click a Scene Preset (for example Sunny Noon or Starry Night) or a moment (Sunrise, Golden Hour, Sunset...).
3. Drag the Time (scrub / keyframe) slider: the sun, sky colour, shadows, exposure and stars all follow.
4. Render. That is the whole setup.

Tip: Your own lights and world are not deleted. To take CelestialFX out of a scene, use the trash icon next to the Daylight panel (Remove Daylight).

3. The Daylight panel

Clock

The header shows the current time and the colour temperature of the sun (or Twilight / Night). Set Hour and Min directly, or scrub Time, which is the value you keyframe. The 10 moment buttons (Blue Hour AM, Sunrise, Golden AM, Morning, Noon, Afternoon, Golden Hour, Sunset, Blue Hour, Night) jump to the right sun height for your place and date. Sun elevation and azimuth are shown underneath.

Seasons

Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter set a mid-season date for your hemisphere, so the sun path and shadow length change. With Season Climate on, each season also sets its own air, light colour, typical clouds and night sky; turn it off to change only the date.

Scene Presets

19 complete looks in two groups. Day: Clear Morning, Sunny Noon, Partly Cloudy, Overcast Day, Cumulonimbus, Storm Afternoon, Golden Clouds, Hazy Summer, Snowy Day, Snowstorm, Clear Winter Day. Night: Blue Hour, Clear Full Moon, Starry Night, Moonlit Clouds, Cumulonimbus Night, City Overcast Night, Pitch Black Storm, Snowy Night. A preset sets the time, weather and night sky together; you can tweak anything afterwards.

Day: Sun & Sky

• Sun Strength and Warmth (K): brightness and colour shift of the sunlight.
• Sky Strength, Air (blue depth), Dust / Haze, Ozone: the physical sky. More haze gives paler, milkier skies and softer horizons.
• Ground Bounce, Ambient Tint and Sky Fill: how much soft light the sky and ground add to the shadows.

Shadows

• Visibility: how dark the sun shadows are (1 = full shadow).
• Softness (deg): the angular size of the sun. Small values give crisp noon shadows, large values give soft hazy ones.
• Overcast Diffusion: how much the clouds soften the sun when the sky is covered.
• Cloud Shadows: Enabled (fast) projects moving cloud shadows on the whole scene at almost no cost. Adjust Strength, Contrast and Ground Height (m).
• Fit Shadows to Scene sizes the cloud shadows to your set so they read well on camera; the globe button (Real Scale) puts the clouds back at real-world size. Cloud Scale lets you set it by hand.

Tip: In EEVEE, enable Render Properties > Shadows > Jittered Shadows to see Softness and Visibility correctly in the viewport and in renders.

Clouds & Weather

• Weather buttons: Clear, Fair, Partly Cloudy, Mostly Cloudy, Overcast, Storm.
• Cloud Cover, Cloud Size (m), Altitude (m), Thickness / Darkness, Edge Softness, Edge Detail, Brightness: shape the procedural clouds.
• Snowfall with Flake Size and Fall speed.
• Volumetric Clouds: optional true volume clouds with Depth and Density. They look great in hero shots but render slower; the default clouds are fast.

Night: Moon & Stars

• Moon Phase (new to full), Moonlight on Scene, Moon Disc Brightness, Moon Size.
• Stars, Milky Way and Night Sky Glow.
• City Glow and its colour: light pollution that lights the clouds from below, great for storm nights.

Date & Location

Pick a Place offers 13 places (Equator, Caracas, Mexico City, Cairo / Giza, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Madrid, New York, Paris, London, Reykjavik, Buenos Aires, Sydney), or set Latitude, Month, Day and North yourself. North rotates the whole sun path around your scene.

Exposure

Auto Exposure keeps the image well exposed from noon to midnight; Night Boost (stops) sets how much brighter nights are allowed to be. Base Exposure is a global offset.

4. Animation

Everything in the Animation section writes ordinary keyframes on the CelestialFX rig, so you can edit them in the Graph Editor or Dope Sheet. Use Scene Range or set your own Start and End frames.

• Time-lapse: choose the start and end time and press Animate Time-lapse. Ranges that run through midnight are supported.
• Weather Transition: choose From and To scene presets and press Animate Transition. Every light, cloud and weather value blends smoothly.
• Moving Clouds & Shadows: Wind (m/s), Dir and Shape Evolution move the clouds and their shadows on playback. Sun Hidden and How Often create passing clouds that dim the sun now and then.
• Snowfall: animate snow from one amount to another with Animate Snowfall.
• Lightning: set Strikes, Seed and Brightness, then Generate Lightning. The flashes light the clouds and the scene. The X button removes them.
• Twinkling Stars: Twinkle amount for night shots.
• Remove Keyframes deletes every keyframe CelestialFX added, so presets work normally again.

Tip: While settings are keyframed, presets cannot change them: remove the keyframes first, or edit the keys directly.

5. Celestial Looks (compositor)

The Celestial Looks panel (CelestialFX tab, and the Compositor sidebar) adds a heavenly grading layer on top of your render. Press Apply CelestialFX: your existing compositor nodes are kept.

• Moods: Golden Gates, Ascension, Seraphim, Celestial Dawn, Ethereal Mist, Moonlit Heaven, Divine Judgment, Fallen Angel.
• Global: Effect Mix blends between the original render and the look; Exposure is applied before the effects.
• Sections: Divine Light, Celestial Haze, Halo Aura, Sparkles, Sun Beams, Heavenly Bloom, Dream Glow, Grade, Vignette. Each has Reset to Mood.
• Light from Active places the divine light on the active object; Follow (Bake) bakes its path if it moves. With Daylight, Divine Light at Sun aims it at the CelestialFX sun.
• Depth Haze from Mist Pass enables the Mist pass and uses it for depth haze.
• Subject from Selection: select your character and click to give it a halo aura.
• Viewport Preview shows the look live in the 3D Viewport.
• Remove CelestialFX (trash icon) takes the look out again.

Tip: With Daylight scenes, keep Effect Mix moderate (around 0.5 to 0.75) for a natural result; CelestialFX compensates for the scene exposure automatically.

6. Troubleshooting

• Shadows look hard or the same in EEVEE: enable Jittered Shadows (see the tip in Shadows).
• I cannot see cloud shadows: check that Cloud Cover is above 0 and Cloud Shadows is enabled, then press Fit Shadows to Scene.
• A preset does nothing: that setting is keyframed. Use Remove Keyframes or edit the keys.
• The night is too dark or too bright: adjust Night Boost in Exposure, or Moonlight on Scene.
• Renders differ from the viewport: make sure the render engine and its sample settings match what you preview; volumetric clouds need more samples.

Support

Questions, bug reports and feature requests are welcome. Message me through Superhive and include your Blender version, render engine and, if possible, a screenshot of the CelestialFX panel.