Rain in the Distance

[RArcher]

An attempt to duplicate the rain curtain effect that can be seen on distant clouds when heavy rain is falling.  I can certainly see quite a few areas to improve, but figured I would share what I have so far.  Grass is as usual from Klas.

[Saurav]

Beautiful render, I like the muted natural colours.    The rain effect works well here, you could even make it more denser to mimic very heavy rains. There is also grain visible where the rain is falling. Also the background terrain stands out too much IMO, possibly because it's lacking in vegetation or there in not enough details there. I'll be keen to see future revisions of this scene, a very promising start.

[PG]

The colours in the vegetation seem too pale for the darkened scene but I definately agree with Saurav, making the rain more dense would really work here.

[Oshyan]

The "curtain" effect is surprisingly good. What's your technique? The lighting also duplicates overcast light well.

- Oshyan

[mesocyclone]

Very good render and beautiful effect!
The curtain falling in front of that background hills adds to realism. if you made a more dense and localized rainshaft, It would look like a powerful downburst! 

Very well done!

[FrankB]

Very beautiful render, Ryan! As always the lighting is fantastic.
The rain curtain has been implemented nicely. I have a suggestion for that:

Lets say your primary cloud density shader is called d1. Now, the "rain" layer's denisty shader should also be d1, but followed by a color adjust shader, with which you should be able to reduce coverage by decreasing the gamma, or increasing the black point. that way you should be safe that the rain will exist only under the bigger cloud formations, and not at its borders or beyond.

I noticed your incredible dirt layer. It's not the primary focus of the image, but it *really* adds to the realism here. Great job on that!

Cheers,
Frank

[RArcher]

That is a very intriguing idea Frank and I will have to give it a try.  I more or less just hacked this together using a painted shader (which is very unpredictable when used in the atmosphere) to mask out the area under the big cloud, then use a density fractal with fairly small scales that is stretched in the Y direction to give it the banded look.  I'm not sure how well it would work yet to use the same density fractal as the main cloud as the scales are so different, but I could certainly use the big cloud as a mask for the curtain area and then translate is downward which should work, I think.

The next version will also have the hills textured properly (I had a population of trees set up, but forgot to turn it back on for the final render).

Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

[Hannes]

Great. I love the lighting.

[rcallicotte]

I agree with Hannes.  The lighting is stupendous.  Any inkling about making a lighting tutorial?

[efflux]

Cool work with the rain effect.

[inkydigit]

excellent work, love the bushes(where did they come from?)