Hi everyone,
I am slowly going crazy as I cant find the proper setting to increase the detail in my clouds. I have brought down the contrast, increased the samples, played with the glow, what i'm looking for is more of a puffy cloud (cumulous) that will pick up light but still retain it's form without having light go right through it. I've tried to alter the depth as well.
Best if you post a link to a reference image. It's much easier to help this way.
Yes indeed, show us what you have got already and a reference to where you'd like to go.
Ok,
In that case maybe you can tell me why my water looks so awful as well haha - I just find with the clouds, if there is a strong light source directly behind them they lose ALL of their detail. I realize that light either goes threw, or because of the depth of the cloud blocks the light completely, but I was hoping to have some light wrap around it or something just to hint at it's shape.
:)
This is the sort of effect I want... just more shape.
Which rendernode were you using, full or quick?
I see you're rendering your clouds at detail 6.x.
Generally you should use a number of samples equivalent to a quality setting up to 1 max.
In rare situations you would need better quality.
You also use quite some atmosphere samples (128).
Usually you only need such number of samples when you have a very dense atmosphere or much contrasting elements in the atmosphere.
Both don't really have to do with what you're asking, but for future work it's important to realize this.
There's a sticky thread on render settings which address these (although on some points it might need a revision now).
Full if I remember correctly....
Hm,
I was following the info I had read about when there is noise to increase the atmo to no more than 128 samples, and clouds 128 max as well? Is this not correct?
That's good to know, I'll have to revisit the render threads :)
Quote from: usertm on March 21, 2011, 05:59:25 PM
Hm,
I was following the info I had read about when there is noise to increase the atmo to no more than 128 samples, and clouds 128 max as well? Is this not correct?
No, that's not correct.
Unfortunately there's a lot of bad info on the forums in regard to rendersettings.
The best thread is the render recommendation thread, as it has everything centralized.
It's indeed rare to need more than 128 atmo samples, though I can point you to works here which required (far) more. So in general it's correct that you shouldn't go beyond 128, but the majority of works require 64 at most (depending on the type of lighting etc. etc.).
You may have seen that I did not mention cloud samples specifically, since it isn't the number of samples which determines the amount of noise, it's the number of samples which are required to get a certain detail level/setting.
Why is this?
Dense and tall clouds need a LOT more samples to achieve "quality 1" than thin flat clouds.
For dense tall clouds you could for example need 512 samples to have quality 1, but for thin flat clouds it could be 20 samples only for example.
Therefore the detail setting is much more useful info.
This confusion and mis-understanding of these principles is one of the things the forums are flooded with.
I haven't even addressed how these things change when switching from regular rendering to ray traced rendering of the atmosphere.
This render settings recommendations thread I mentioned is important :)
So for future reference am I understanding correctly that I should be focusing on the quality of each cloud ie. the file I am working with now (not the one I sent) has some flat clouds at literally render quality setting 1, but the samples are at 8. So adjust each one so that it's no more than 1 even if the sample is very very low? :)
Quote from: usertm on March 21, 2011, 06:18:06 PM
So for future reference am I understanding correctly that I should be focusing on the quality of each cloud ie. the file I am working with now (not the one I sent) has some flat clouds at literally render quality setting 1, but the samples are at 8. So adjust each one so that it's no more than 1 even if the sample is very very low? :)
Yep :)
The quality setting provides best information on what you can expect, since samples are linked to density and depth of the cloud which makes it too arbitrary.
Thanks so much I'm sure you'll cut back on my rendering time tremendously!!! I was wondering why it was so darn slow!!
I've got something rendering for you now. Tell me if you like it...I'll post it in here...
edit: Cloud-Wizard Frank beat me to it, as expected :)
Well, here it is anyway!
this is how I would do it. The tgd should get you very close to your reference photo.
Regards
Frank
hehehe, I only beat you because I was rendering with AA 1 for the tiny preview :)
Holy Moses,
Both look awesome!! Thanks soooo much. What was it do you think that was preventing me from getting the detail that I was looking for?
:)
I think you have been really close. You needed more cloud edge sharpness and less glow power in both the haze and the cloud layer. the fractal feature scale should have matched the cloud depth to get shapes similar to the reference photo. Other small tweaks here and there, but these were the main points.
Cheers,
Frank
Awesome, yeah I have been afraid of edge sharpness...
again, much appreciated.
cheers
Hopefully it won't confuse things further, but I do want to mention that when you get to starting to need really high sample levels for either clouds or atmosphere, Raytrace Atmosphere can usually both improve quality and reduce render time with much fewer samples. It's a bit tricky to use correctly since cloud and atmosphere quality are partly controlled by the *antialiasing* sample settings when Raytrace Atmosphere is enabled, but once you get the hang of it, it works extremely well. I use Raytrace Atmosphere all the time now, seldom not, and render times are better with equivalent or better quality. Generally my AA is between 3 and 6, atmosphere samples between 12 and 32 (seldom more than 32, even for really demanding scenes - in those cases I just increase AA), and cloud samples up to 64 max in most cases (even if this means cloud Quality is less than 1). I know it's a bit counterintuitive, but the RT Atmosphere option has just been added recently so some things have not yet been tuned to account for it. It might be best if the cloud Quality sliders would adjust themselves if RT Atmosphere is enabled, and based on the AA level, since it does have a dramatic effect.
Anyway, something to play with...
- Oshyan
The clouds and atmosphere seem to me to be much better since the last update.