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Expert Review: Blender for Filmmakers: Animated Sci-Fi Hologram Effect

By Prosun • December 21, 2025

Course Overview

This course, provided by Skillshare, is characterized by its rigor and practical application focus. The curriculum covers essential concepts: Transport your viewers to a scifi world by adding a hologram effect to any 3D object in Blender. When instructor Alden Peters first started exploring the world of 3D animation and VFX, he saw it as a way to combine his love for 3D and scifi films filled with aliens and robots. Since then, Alden has gone on to work fulltime as an independent filmmaker, motion graphics, and VFX artist and created awardwinning projects like Friends of Sophia, Femme, and Coming Out. Now, Alden wants to show other filmmakers how to use 3D animation to boost the production value of any feature film, short, or show. In this class, Alden reveals how to create 3D holograms and motion track them to any object. You’ll follow along as Alden animates and renders out a few 3D objects in Blender and then motion tracks them to a book and finally composite everything together in Adobe After Effects. With Alden by your side, you’ll: Add tracking markers for 3D object tracking Create your holographic 3D models in Blender Replace and mask out undesirable aspects of your footage in After Effects Composite your final product in After Effects Whether you’re a scifi lover and can’t wait to use a hologram effect in your work or you just want to the power of 3D object tracking, you’ll leave this class with a new set of 3D animation tools you can carry forward within any of your other projects. You can also take what you’ve learned today to create your own oneminute film by watching all five of Alden’s 3D animation classes. Plus, you can find more details about addons, additional software, and exclusive discounts in the class resources. General knowledge about Blender and Adobe After Effects and how to navigate both software, is required to take this class. You’ll also need a computer, Blender, Adobe After Effects, fSpy, a camera, and a tripod. Alden uses After Effects 2023/If you’re using a prior version, the Alpha Matte and Luma Matte functionality changes slightly. Instructor bio: Alden Peters is an awardwinning independent filmmaker whose work has been celebrated at film festivals worldwide. His 2024 queer scifi film Friends of Sophia, starring Nana Visitor (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), premiered at BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA Film Festival. An expansion of his 2021 proofofconcept short, it follows a string of acclaimed projects including FEMME, a short comedy about navigating dating apps as an effeminate gay man, and the featurelength documentary COMING OUT, which won multiple international awards and is streaming on Amazon Prime. Alden’s films have earned directing, acting, and production design awards, and his collaborators include Emmy and Golden Globe winner Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) and Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All At Once). A graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts’ Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film & Television, Alden currently lives and works in Los Angeles, where he continues to create bold, original storytelling.