Cloud Busting

Started by Hetzen, August 18, 2010, 12:07:43 PM

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glen5700

Just wanted to say thanks for this thread, lots of good stuff that I have never tried. Definitely going to be working with this.

Thanks!!

Dune

This a revolution in the clouds. If you can sculpt clouds like you would a landscape, you'll have endless possibilities (overhangs, lateral displacement...) Or am I too optimistic?

FrankB

yeah, you are too optimistic :)

Hetzen

That's rather pessimistic Frank. Nothing stoping you put a warp shader in between the HF and the conditional. Although, you are right in saying that what you create on the ground will be replicated in the sky. I think it's more akin to making a jelly mold that you allow your cloud fractal to fill. Sure, you're going to get clipping, and there are limitations with using HFs. But again, there's nothing stopping you using a warp shader to add more detail at the end of the string.

chris_x422

Very nice work guys.

I never get the time to play with clouds as much as I'd like.
There's a lot of potential for getting more varied shapes going.

Volker Harun

Very good work!

You can achieve the gradient faster, using the smooth step scalar (functions -> step -> smooth step) and plug in your 1000 and 7000 nodes - after your clamp.

I am quite surprised that the heightfield works. I thought it would give only displacement and not colour information.

Volker

Hetzen

Thanks Volker. I knew I'd missed something. Smooth Step has been very useful in the past.

The reason why the HF works, is you have to check "Apply colour and shade" in the Colour tab, then un-check "Shade by light" and check "Shade by height". You now have a gradient from the lowest point (black), to the highest (white).

Hetzen

This has been an on going project, in which I've been trying various methods I can think up in the car bent over the wheel looking at the sky on the way to work.

The last method involved creating an image map, which had all sorts of restrictions on it, like resolution and coverage. It seems there is another way. Which is something I'm currently exploring.

The first image is a storm spire which lives in one cloud node, the second is a very low rez image of the process coverage across the skyline, again all within one cloud node. All clouds start at the cloud nodes base altitude (Cloud Altitude - half the cloud depth). Which means there are no floating blobs of cloud within a 2k cloud altitude range. It also means there's an interesting horizon when the camera is above the clouds.

All very much work in process. And atm still look like crap. ;D

AP

I like where this is heading. Having realistic isolated storm cells would produce convincing planet-wide cloud scapes and even in closer scale would be fantastic. Keep it up.    ;)

Hetzen

Absolutely Chris, it's good to see that someone else is thinking on the same lines.

What's nice about this method, is that global sized masking doesn't smudge the effect.

There is an image I'd like to replicate at some stage, which is attached. I think this method is the best I've found so far to get there.

Seth


cyphyr

A photo from the Space shuttle I've seen used in movies and doccumentrys, because its shch a stunningly beautiful image!
:)
I've tried to get similar results but the search continues.
Watching this thread :)
Richard
www.richardfraservfx.com
https://www.facebook.com/RichardFraserVFX/
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Ryzen 9 5950X OC@4Ghz, 64Gb (TG4 benchmark 4:13)

AP

That photograph is nifty. Clearly several super cells can be seen down there.

max_thehitman


This is very important information. Thanks everyone for your most valuable tips and tricks and
the mini-tutorials.
I will put them to good use!
Cheers
MAX

Themodman101

Wow, Ive never thought about doing clouds this way. Will certainly help me in my future endeavers. Thanks for the help! :D