Hurricane

[bigben]

That's rather clever.  Thanks for sharing that.  However, it's a pity that you need an image mask.  I'm working on making interesting procedural cloud formations using function nodes - I'll let you guys know how that turns out.

This method of constructing large clouds may still be of some value to you though. Replace the image map with your function in my TGD and use the colour adjust nodes for the different versions.

One other thought I had with this particular method is that it may be improved by using multiple (at least 2) masks based on the size of the cloud masses.  This would require some more advanced image processing e.g. NIH ImageJ, but it would allow for more accurate creation of the smaller cloud masses. In my render I lost a lot of the small clouds in the surrounding regions after I tweaked the image to provide a good variation in the bottom (largest scale) cloud layer.

Also forgot to adjust the image proportions before rendering so it got a little squashed 

[cyphyr]

Thanks for the colour adjust shader tip. I'm rendering off another version with the 3 cloud masks at the moment at stupid settings. I'll try the colour adjust setup when its finished. A couple of quick tests I tried with it produced somewhat "flat" results. I could imagine that a combination of maybe 9 cloud layers (stacked very close together) with 3 image masks all controlled by multiple colour adjust shaders could produce a cloud scape almost indistinguishable from reality.
Richard

[helentr]

Both images are great. Thanks for sharing.

Helen

[moodflow]

I need to go buy an inflatable sailboat and try to sail into that thing to make sure its as real as it looks.  Nice work!

How did you get the stratus like clouds on the edges?  Is that the actual hurricane image as a 2D object?  it looks like its 3d.

[bigben]

Thanks for the colour adjust shader tip. I'm rendering off another version with the 3 cloud masks at the moment at stupid settings. I'll try the colour adjust setup when its finished. A couple of quick tests I tried with it produced somewhat "flat" results. I could imagine that a combination of maybe 9 cloud layers (stacked very close together) with 3 image masks all controlled by multiple colour adjust shaders could produce a cloud scape almost indistinguishable from reality.
Richard

I made a couple of quickly masked images and while the theory is good the practise is a little harder. I have a render running at home although somewhere along the way I screwed up some of the settings. Luckily I "made a backup" in a previous post I'll start from there again.

If you or anyone else wants to play as well I've uploaded my set of masks
<http://www.path.unimelb.edu.au/~bernardk/tgdemo/katrina_greyscale.exe> 37Mb self extracting RAR

Contains the raw greyscale mask and three masked versions with 2 particle size ranges and the remaining image.. It may also help to restrict clouds to the mask by plugging the colour adjust shader into an intermediate surface shader: (black, coverage 0.5, fractal breakup 1, colour adjust connected to child layer and fractal breakup)... and then into the cloud fractal's blending shader.

The lowest cloud layer has a coverage adjust >0 so it will partly extend across the entire render (adds a bit of haze to the atmosphere). This is OK in this case, but having this duplicated could be detrimental. I'd set it to 0 for the other 2 layers.