Final render: a giant sacred tree girded by a straw rope rises over a small wooden shrine at night, with stone lanterns, red spider lilies and moonlight rays through the mist.

Sacred Tree

Sarah Fournier's seal

A full environment study: a giant sacred tree watching over a small Shinto shrine at night, lit only by moonlight and stone lanterns. Modeled, dressed, lit and rendered in Blender.

SOFTWAREBlender 5.0
RENDERCycles · 640 samples
OUTPUT2880 × 1578
LIGHTS8 candles + moonlight, fill & rays
SCENE195 meshes · 8 collections
02

Environment Overview

Same camera, from untextured geometry to the final frame. Drag the divider to compare the clay pass with the finished render.

Gray render of the whole scene, every surface the same clay, lit by the film's moonlight, lanterns and mist. FINALCLAY + LIGHT
Material preview of the scene in overcast daylight: camphor bark, wooden shrine, gray roof tiles, stone stairs and lanterns, red spider lilies.
MaterialsマテリアルOvercast daylight, no fog: what the textures do on their own.
Build breakdown制作過程20 s · terrain, stairs, shrine, sacred tree, forest, lanterns & props, vegetation, solid, materials, lighting, shaded, post-production.
03

The Sacred Tree

The trunk is a bundle of ropes: each strand starts at a root, spirals up through the trunk and leaves as a branch. A voxel remesh fuses them into twisted, muscular wood without any sculpting, and the bark relief follows a smooth fiber field.

The twisted trunk of the sacred tree seen from above the shrine roof, girded by a thick straw rope, its branches splitting into the crown.
Trunk & fork幹About 4.8 M quads. The core ends in the fork and the flank strands run on into the branches.
Large surface roots spilling down the slope beside the shrine and a small lit lantern.
Roots根Surface roots spill down the slope beside the shrine and a small lantern.
The straw rope tied around the trunk, with folded paper streamers and straw tassels.
Shimenawa & shide注連縄・紙垂Three twisted strands covered in straw, pulled taut around the trunk, with folded paper shide and straw sagari.
04

Architecture

A haiden with an irimoya roof, a chidori-hafu gable and a karahafu porch, modeled after real shrines in Tokyo. Built bottom-up like the real thing: stone base, veranda, round posts, nuki tie-beams, kumimono brackets, double rafters, then the roof tiles laid one by one.

The wooden shrine hall seen from the stairs at night, small lanterns lit on each side, the tree's roots and a moonlight ray behind.
Haiden, three-quarter view拝殿Weathered bare wood, lattice doors, straw shimenawa tied to the porch posts, suzu bell and offering box. The hall stays unlit inside.
Close view of the shrine roof: the curved karahafu porch gable below the triangular chidori-hafu, rows of gray tiles with moss and ridge ornaments.
Karahafu & chidori-hafu唐破風・千鳥破風1,000 sangawara tiles modeled and laid one by one, as on Meishin-ji: sagging, slipped and missing tiles, onigawara on every ridge.
The shrine seen from its right side, the hip-and-gable roof against the roots of the tree.
Side elevation側面The irimoya profile against the roots of the sacred tree.
05

Props

Eight candles are the scene's only warm light. Around them, the signs of a shrine still visited: a stele, an offering box, rope and paper.

06

Material & Detail Studies

A few surfaces up close, rendered in the scene's own light with shallow depth of field.

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