vue - Spectral Atmospheres 2

[rcallicotte]

PG, this looks nothing like a billboard. 

And in all honesty, a billboard looks way different.

Well actually, it doesn't. A billboard is very flat and has sharp edges. This is very flat and has sharp edges.

[PG]

Really? Cos this is a billboard based cloud.

[dandelO]

I agree, PG. It seems like a very sharp dense 2D cloud. That's not to say that when Bluestorm tweaks some it won't be great, just now it is like a 2D plane. Far too dense and sharp edged, with the wrong lighting.

I've had clouds almost exactly like this in TG2, I referred to them at the time, as 'alto-vomitus'.
Keep plugging away, Bluestorm! I'd like to see how far E-on have taken Vue since '6'. And not just all the pretend things they've tried to insinuate were 'new' in V7 through their publicity. I have Vue 6, I won't be upgrading.

[rcallicotte]

Heck, PG, with a cloud like that it would be better to just use Photoshop.   

[old_blaggard]

I'm interested to see where it goes. I think that getting proper density settings and glow effects is just a matter of time. However, the noise function itself doesn't look as detailed or realistic as what comes out of the TG2 density fractals.

[mads]

Let me add to the billboard speculations.

The spectral cloud system in vue has been upgraded to v2 its a refined and upgraded version of spetral clouds seen latest in vue 6.5 which was v1 spectral clouds.

The spectral clouds in the previous build and the spectral clouds in new build ( vue 7 ) differs only on lifted controls and better control, even a boost in visual appearance.

Now...

PG, to close your bilboard thoughts you should look at an animation I made some months ago for a client.
The animation is primarily rendered in 3ds max 2008 with brazil r/s 2 but the entrance clip is vue 6.5 spectral clouds v1.

Please evaluate if what you see is bilboards and explain why you think that is.

The spectral clouds in vue7 is an upgrade of the clouds I used in the clips here and are not superiourly downgraded to bilboards ofcourse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF2avBpbGuU

[Bluestorm]

Ok, I spent the entire evening playing with the new cloud sliders.

One thing that really annoyes me is the fact that e-on failed again in providing any control over the noise function. Just like in Vue 6 you can control the density of the cloud, but not the noise that is used for producing the billowy details. You have to stick with the algorithm e-on created and there's no way to change it 

[Mohawk20]

You got to admit PG... that does not look like billboards. So that raises the question why the ones in the V7 promotional anim do look like billboards.

[PG]

Sorry to be a pain guys but it still looks like billboards to me, this time a smaller collection of billboards, it's like, if you go for a more complex viewpoint like inside the cloud, it subdivides the cloud into chunks and then renders those as billboards

[Matt]

I think it's just the sharp edges that make it look like that. I'd be surprised if you couldn't get softer edges by tweaking a parameter or two.

The mottled look in the shadows looks very much like TG2's "fake internal scattering" when it's set too high   I wonder if that is tweakable.

Matt

[lightning]

here is a render i found on renderosity looks pretty awesome the clouds look very real


here is the link
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1777015

[mads]

yeah thats nice.
Not bilboard.
Ofcourse the clouds can be altered to a more pleasing look in general.

But you have to accept 100% PG its not bilboards, perhaps the artist skills is lacking in your eyes thus renering clouds out with mega hard edges, blame him, dony blame the program

[PG]

Well TG2's default settings don't look anything like as hard edged so I blame the idiotic programmer who set those parameters.

[efflux]

I stopped at Vue 4.

Sure, the ecosystems are great but you need those to cover the unrealistic terrain sets. I also prefer clouds to not look like soup suds.

TG2 clouds are better, so are Mojoworld's.

That last render called "Cloud Carrier" is what Vue does best but full 3D apps that don't just specialize in landscapes are fast becoming capable of that kind of render quite easily. Even Blender is not far off.

TG2 and Mojoworld (even although it hasn't been upgraded for ages) on the other hand are powerful node based procedural planet generators so more specialized and unique.

[Bluestorm]

Ok, I had some time this weekend, so I gave the new Spectral Atmospheres a try. This is the best result I got so far. I still prefer TG2s clouds though, because they are much more flexible when it comes to the overall shape, especially the noise function. There is no way in Vue to change the noise function of the cloud's details, and to be honest I am quite disappointed that e-on left that one out once again.

The image below is a single cloud layer with Global Radiosity (I put the GR quality way down to -2 in order to avoid insane render times). I upped the contrast a bit in PS, but other than that the render is untouched.