I never made a Hurricane and stubled upon the Terragen 4 Basics Video in which is explained How to Create a Hurricane.
https://planetside.co.uk/terragen-tutorials-terratuts/terragen-4-basics-create-a-hurricane/So I followed the video and made one.
And this was my first result.
Hurricane, made by following the tutorial
After a little research, I found some nice reference shots from the ISS and Hurricane Florence. So I decided to add more Easy Cloud Layers to bring in more details.
I found out, that Florence had a diameter of 300 Miles (equals 500 Kilometers) and so I changed my Hurricane diameter to match the size of Florence.
I further placed my camera in orbit at the same height of the ISS (408 Kilometers) and changed the perspective.
Hurricane with more Easy Cloud Layers
To improve my scene I added another global cloud layer and fiddled here and there in my settings. The Sun is only 5° above the horizon and has a strenght of 6.5.
As you can see the sun is now casting long shadows from the higher clouds at the global cloud layer below, it looks more realistic and a bit more three dimensional.
The final result was not so bad at all.
Hurricane improved
In the next version, I decided to force the Global Cloud Layer into the vortex of the Hurricane and mixed a secound Cloud Layer v3 into the existing Hurricane.
The render times exploded, because of the 5 embedded Cloud Layers in this rendering and only an old Pentium IV with 2.66 GHz and 8GB RAM fighting its way.
Hurricane consisting of 5 Cloud Layers
2 for the Hurricane (One slightly higher with bigger clouds and the other with smaller clouds lies below) plus 3 more for finer details.
Due my outdated computer, I decided to come to an end here for a moment. Later, I can make another fresh start based upon this scenery.
If I had more computer power, I would add some masks (real cloud images) to bring in more realism into the whole scene.
But as a starter, the result is not so bad...
For all beginners (like myself) here is my node network as a solid base to give everyone a good start.
A clip file for your benefit is also attached. Have Fun!
NODE Hurricane Plus
STORMLORD
