Hopefully it won't confuse things further, but I do want to mention that when you get to starting to need really high sample levels for either clouds or atmosphere, Raytrace Atmosphere can usually both improve quality and reduce render time with much fewer samples. It's a bit tricky to use correctly since cloud and atmosphere quality are partly controlled by the *antialiasing* sample settings when Raytrace Atmosphere is enabled, but once you get the hang of it, it works extremely well. I use Raytrace Atmosphere all the time now, seldom not, and render times are better with equivalent or better quality. Generally my AA is between 3 and 6, atmosphere samples between 12 and 32 (seldom more than 32, even for really demanding scenes - in those cases I just increase AA), and cloud samples up to 64 max in most cases (even if this means cloud Quality is less than 1). I know it's a bit counterintuitive, but the RT Atmosphere option has just been added recently so some things have not yet been tuned to account for it. It might be best if the cloud Quality sliders would adjust themselves if RT Atmosphere is enabled, and based on the AA level, since it does have a dramatic effect.
Anyway, something to play with...
- Oshyan
