half stormy half not

[usertm]

Hi terragen users,

I wondered if anybody had the time, they could take a peak at this file and suggest a setting or two that I can tweak to make these clouds sing. I'm trying to have one side be ominous and dark and the other side be more sunny (sun peaking through)

I've played around with several combinations, harder edge, depth, contrast as well as a billion other combinations and the cloud detail just seems to be lacking.  Clearly I am missing a vital piece of information.  Critiques? comments?  suggestions? They just always seem "smudgy" if that makes sense.  I'm looking for those billowy, tall clouds in certain areas but they just seem to keep looking stringy and long.

Cheers from a frustrated Canadian 

[usertm]

the render at low settings

[Tangled-Universe]

For taller structures you simply need to increase the cloud depth.

I'm pretty sure you're already using a billow noise type as cloud shader?
The default settings of contrast @ 1 and rougness @ 1.5 should already give decent results.
Play with noise variation in the tweak tab to adjust how rapidly big and small structures should vary over space.

To get more definition in your clouds you need to adjust edge sharpness and density.
Try an edge sharpness of 30 and density of 0.02 or 0.03, for instance. Something along these ratios should give something to start with.

It's difficult to point 1 or 2 settings, because with clouds almost everything is related to each other.
Practice is key.

Cheers,
Martin

[Tangled-Universe]

Also, if the image you attached is the resolution and quality you're testing with then I'd really suggest to use twice the resolution and up the quality as well.
Things can change quite dramatically when designing at low res and low quality and then rendering at full res and detail.

[usertm]

These are great suggestions I will try them... thanks alot!