Mission: Fluffy Photo Cloud

[FrankB]

Here we go at attempt #1  (rendered at only 0.8 )

cheers,
Frank

[rcallicotte]

Beautiful.  Like the dark blue and the clouds are awesome.  How did you make these?

[Tangled-Universe]

Oh man that looks really amazing! Just like Calico said: such nice colours!
I'm also wondering how you made these 

Martin

p.s. looking forward to attempt #2

[old_blaggard]

Ah, very nice, Frank.

[RealUser]

Very good and realistic.

[nvseal]

Very realistic result.

[FrankB]

thanks guys!

this is attempt number 2. I have reduced the quality a wee bit so the file size become smaller.

Regards,
Frank

[Tangled-Universe]

Hi Frank!

Thanks for posting a high-res picture of this. Seems you've only adjusted the colours a little?
It looks very good, adds a little bit more definition. Also nice is that the clouds in the background keep looking good as well.
Sometimes clouds look well at close-up but are ugly when viewing from a distance, or vice versa
I think when it's about making these kind of clouds it's of great importance to find the right balance between the depths, densities and edge sharpnesses of the fractals(?)
Would you like to give a few directions on how these clouds were made?
It's really outstanding work! Are there more attempts coming?

Martin

[Volker Harun]

Good work.

[FrankB]

Hi Frank!

Thanks for posting a high-res picture of this. Seems you've only adjusted the colours a little?
It looks very good, adds a little bit more definition. Also nice is that the clouds in the background keep looking good as well.
Sometimes clouds look well at close-up but are ugly when viewing from a distance, or vice versa
I think when it's about making these kind of clouds it's of great importance to find the right balance between the depths, densities and edge sharpnesses of the fractals(?)
Would you like to give a few directions on how these clouds were made?
It's really outstanding work! Are there more attempts coming?

Martin

Hi Martin,
well the first attempt was only a crop render at low quality, the high-res version in turn is only slightly different, but was done in full quality, more GI samples etc.
However, a third attmept of the same scene is currently rendering with less warping. I also felt the internal scattering was a bit too dark, hence the next version is more conservative in this regard.

For these type of clouds, I prefer an edge sharpness less than 1, and a density between 0.01 and 0.03. I usually also up the cloud colour towards more white, lower the default light propagation and enviro light. However, to me, two things are key:
- I use a specific density fractal to serve as a blend shader for the "real" density fractal. The blend shader is almost a black and white mask, and ensures that the clouds are not all over the place and there's more distance between clouds, and some predefined dimensions without comprimising on their size. Simply reducing coverage unfortunately also reduces the size of the clouds, and I don't want that to happen.
- the second most important thing is to save in openexr format, otherwise it becomes impossible to work out all these nice shades of cloud-white. If you had seen the final render image, it didn't look as exciting, only the ability to fine-tune a wider range of exposures brought up all these details.

Cheers,
Frank

[rcallicotte]

Great.  I like this a lot.  The second one looks like rain clouds forming.

Would you mind explaining a tad bit more about the use of a "...density fractal to serve as a blend shader for the "real" density fractal."?  This sounds really like a good idea, but what is this doing really?  What does the second density fractal do that makes separation and controlling sizes of the clouds more in our control?

[FrankB]

Here's the final version:

thanks for the comments, guys.

Cheers,
Frank

[FrankB]

Great.  I like this a lot.  The second one looks like rain clouds forming.

Would you mind explaining a tad bit more about the use of a "...density fractal to serve as a blend shader for the "real" density fractal."?  This sounds really like a good idea, but what is this doing really?  What does the second density fractal do that makes separation and controlling sizes of the clouds more in our control?

It's probably easier to show you the blend shader tgc.

Regards,
Frank

[bigben]

...The blend shader is almost a black and white mask, and ensures that the clouds are not all over the place and there's more distance between clouds, and some predefined dimensions without comprimising on their size. Simply reducing coverage unfortunately also reduces the size of the clouds, and I don't want that to happen.
- the second most

Hi Frank

Very nice clouds.

You could try a colour adjust shader to adjust the contrast of this shader. That should provide you with a tweak for coverage. Contrast controlled by the difference between black and white point, raise or lower both by the same amount to increase/decrease coverage.

[rcallicotte]

   Vunderbar.  Easier to explain this way sometimes.   This is great.

Thanks, Frank.