Cloud Settings Question

[Harvey Birdman]

Hey, all -

I'm putting together a little Halloween image. I'm using a cumulus layer sitting right on the ground to emulate a fog layer. It looks pretty good except in one region where the fog isn't particularly distinct, but it shows up really heavily where objects penetrate the layer. Take a look at the cropped bit of the image below. The fog on the left side of the picture looks good, but as it crosses towards the right, the bases of the columns look more and more incorrect. The fog seems to discolor the areas of the columns that are in the fog, even though it doesn't appear between the columns.

Is there some setting that might mitigate this effect? I've been playing around with light and color settings for the cloud layer but haven't had any luck yet.

[rcallicotte]

I'm not sure.  I've used Source Lights to control the lighting and that's an experimentation in progress.

Hey, all -

I'm putting together a little Halloween image. I'm using a cumulus layer sitting right on the ground to emulate a fog layer. It looks pretty good except in one region where the fog isn't particularly distinct, but it shows up really heavily where objects penetrate the layer. Take a look at the cropped bit of the image below. The fog on the left side of the picture looks good, but as it crosses towards the right, the bases of the columns look more and more incorrect. The fog seems to discolor the areas of the columns that are in the fog, even though it doesn't appear between the columns.

Is there some setting that might mitigate this effect? I've been playing around with light and color settings for the cloud layer but haven't had any luck yet.

[Volker Harun]

I am just guessing ... I would approach it this way:
First three steps: Turn of Environmental Light in the Cloud layer only, Environmental Light on atmospheres at all and/or turn off GI
Keep the best setting.
Increase the cloud colours, increase fake internal scattering to get a better view on the clouds.

Any difference?

[Harvey Birdman]

Hi, Volker -

I'll let you know. I may have found the trouble. I'm using several light sources to illuminate and fake translucency of a jack-o-lantern (see below). Two sources are outside the pumpkin, one inside. I'd turned off shadows on the outside sources so there weren't multiple shadow patterns, right? Well, I'd also turned off 'glow in atmosphere' on those two sources. Can't tell you why, now - must have been late.



So I have a little test render running now. If that doesn't fix it I'll try your suggestions..

[dhavalmistry]

maybe you can take a look at this....

http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=2611.0

I used a cloud layer to simulate the fog....if you are interested, I can share the clip file....

[Harvey Birdman]

D -I'll let you know. I've used cumulus as fog before, that's why I was a little puzzled at this. The lighting conditions are different than anything I've done before, so I kind of suspect I screwed something up there. Thanks for the offer - I'll be in touch if necessary...

[Harvey Birdman]

Hey, guys -

It seems that the renderer doesn't like the bottom of the fog bank being below the surface of the ground. The problem was only evident where the primary light source was behind the camera and the bottom of the cloud lay below the ground level; adjust the thickness and height so the bottom was above ground level and voila! it'd appear.

[Oshyan]

This may be related to some issues with clouds intersecting terrain or the "horizon through clouds" issue that have been fixed in internal builds already. You may want to revisit this with a future update...

- Oshyan

[Harvey Birdman]

Cool. It seemed like ... undesirable behavior, but I wasn't sure if it could really be considered a bug. It's too bad - I had a bitchin' fog bank rolling through...

[bigben]

This may be related to some issues with clouds intersecting terrain or the "horizon through clouds" issue that have been fixed in internal builds already. You may want to revisit this with a future update...

- Oshyan

Wicked... soon I won't have to nose dive the camera through the cloud layers 

[Harvey Birdman]

So, Oshyan... if you want to send me a copy of this new version that doesn't have this problem... I promise not to tell...       

Seriously, this picture was finished three days ago, or would have been except for the 3 days I've now spent trying to first analyze the trouble and then position a fog bank so it doesn't highlight this bug. I think I'm going to put it aside until the bug is fixed.