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I'm trying to make a globular cluster in blender. Here's an example image of what I'm trying to make using a sphere, particles, and (if needed) geometry nodes.

enter image description here

At the moment, I have a geometry nodes setup that looks like this. I was unable to find a way to get particles inside the sphere. So, I filled in the sphere since it seems the particles are dependent on where the spherical mesh is. I also made the particles not be Newtonian. However, I want my sphere to be more densely packed in the center compared to the edges (like in the image above). I also want to make each of the particles glow like a star in blender (I know how to do it with standard objects via compositing and material nodes, but I don't know how I could make that work here) so that it looks like a globular cluster.

enter image description here

I'm now trying to add color and glow to my objects so that they act like stars in my globular cluster. However, I'm struggling to put color or a glow for the each star.

enter image description here enter image description here

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2 Answers 2

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Welcome ProximaCc, first you need a vertical edge.Then you subdivide it and you instance on each point a plane with the same subdivision (a volume cube of vertices).

enter image description here

You realize the instances and delete every vertices out of a sphere for this you use a Geometry Proximity based on the center point, and a Greater Than Math node the you instance your center point on the sphere.

enter image description here

Now you have a volume sphere. here in order to displace the point you use a Noise Texture, The Vector Math Scale control the influence of your noise, as you need something more packed in the center you can control the scale with a Math node Power (negative power work find) link to the Geometry Proximity you used before.

enter image description here

I hope it help.

Edit: My bad, in order to add a material instances should be a mesh, also you have to plug a set material at the end:

enter image description here

The new .blend.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you so much for your reply! This was very helpful! I was able to get good proportions for my globular cluster so that it has an end with just a few particles on the outside. This may sound like a simple question, but how would I make the particles glow? I tried using the material panel but wasn't able to make the particles themselves glow like stars. It would also be wonderful if I could get the stars to be different colors so they can, after compositing, glow in different colors. $\endgroup$
    – ProximaCc
    Dec 26, 2022 at 6:19
  • $\begingroup$ Those are two different questions one for the colors, you can look out this: blender.stackexchange.com/questions/282121/…. For the glow there is that: youtube.com/watch?v=Tu3U6wD7lu4 $\endgroup$
    – Fred I. R.
    Dec 26, 2022 at 7:24
  • $\begingroup$ I've tried to do both using the methods. However, when I render them, no color or glow is shown. I put a set material between the Realize Instances and Delete Geometry Nodes to add color. $\endgroup$
    – ProximaCc
    Dec 26, 2022 at 15:38
  • $\begingroup$ I have edit the .bend and the post you should be able to do it... $\endgroup$
    – Fred I. R.
    Dec 26, 2022 at 15:57
  • $\begingroup$ I just added two more images to show you where I'm at $\endgroup$
    – ProximaCc
    Dec 26, 2022 at 15:58
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Treating this as a geonodes project, I think this is how I would build it, taking advantage of Mesh to Volume.

This generates the point cloud, and it has a good bit of parametric control over density:

enter image description here

Make a material for the stars, spend as much time here as you want, because I think you have your work cut out for you. Different colors have different apparent brightness and it'll affect your compositing experience. I kept it super simple.

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I instanced a simple icosphere for my stars, giving them some random size

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Then you render and you're into Compositing

In this particular example, I noticed there was a lot of green glare, and found that by modulating that channel a bit I could get some pretty good effects.

enter image description here

Obviously there's a lot to improve here, but that's an example of one flow.

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