Islands

[Dune]

Testing a spotlight... the second was has undergone some post in PS.

[TheBadger]

Nice test. Looks like you got it working. The question is, how easy is it for you to pin point the light, and, how many can you easily have in one scene?

[inkydigit]

looks incredibly useful Ulco!
look forward to hearing more!

[cyphyr]

Nicely done
Are you using a top down image map or a camera projected one (or another method ? ) I've found issues and positives with both.
Richard

[masonspappy]

Very nicely done!!

[Markal]

Very cool. The image and lighting sets a layed back mood. The detail could be a bit better but, wow...great start!!!

[Dune]

It is VERY simple; make a very small mask in PS (100x100px or so), black with a soft, or varied, or hard white spot in the center. Call that in a image map shader, attach a camera, set angle to however large you want the spot (I used 1.5) and point the camera at the sun. Use that to inversely blend all cloud fractals. Voila.
You can put hundreds of camera's+masks all around if you like. Or use a larger mask with several dots, perhaps even paint it in TG first from a topdown view, render it and use that (theoretically).

Oh yes, you have to put the camera where you want the light to fall of course, and maybe fine tune the angles to get it right.

[choronr]

Incredible, I like this a lot.

[Dune]

The detail could be a bit better but, wow...great start!!!

@ Markal; It was just a quick test, that's why it isn't very sophisticated.

[cyphyr]

...
You can put hundreds of camera's+masks all around if you like.
...

This is the method I use, it can be very effective. I call it "Cloud Busting". Only one issue I've come up with and that is that with many cameras (10+?) going from an internal network to main node view was getting VERY slow.

Richard

[Dune]

What would make that so slow? I haven't tried more than 2 camera's.  What if you paint a white dotted mask over a temporary black terrain, where you want the lights (or just render a ortho view and paint on that towards a black/white mask), render it and use that as a mask projected by a central located camera? I don't know if that would work actually.

[cyphyr]

I think the slow down comes from each and every camera kind of generating it's own preview (excuse my non technical "guess-planation").
Using an image with several holes could be useful but may run into accuracy issues.
The biggest problem I've encountered is seeing the edge of the hole I've created. Since it's slicing through the cloud layer it looks unnatural.
The plan y SSS had some potential since (I believe) that could be warped along it's length and so avoid the un-sightly sliced through look. However it has a greater chance of revealing its edges as it's not at an angle.
I've also used several localised overlapping cloud layers to achieve a similar effect; much more trial and error but the final effect is far more believable.
Ultimately as with all these things it's a matter of using whatever combination of techniques get you you intended result.

Richard

[Dune]

How would you use the SSS then, as it can't be projected into the clouds? Or you mean a painted shader, plan Y? That would really be trial and error, shifting it until at the right spot. The mask can be warped as well, or just make a 'warped mask', like this:

[cyphyr]

Hmm, just had a quick play with the SSS and you right, it's not reliable at all. It might be workable if SSS could be rotated in the z and x, not just y.
I know an image can be warped but since its a "projection" of an image only it's initial state is warped. The projection dose not change along it's course.
I also found that if the images overlap (ie the cameras are too close together) then they can mask each other, the edge of one bitmap cutting across its adjacent mask.
Richard

[Tangled-Universe]

Ah you've used this method, I thought something completely else

I do this to sometimes, using a camera hooked up to a distance shader.
Then use that distanceshader as blendshader for your clouds and you're done.
It only takes some fiddling with positioning, but with some math and (gu)estimation you get there pretty quickly.