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General => Terragen Discussion => Topic started by: trojanGoat on August 27, 2012, 06:04:08 PM

Title: Custom shaped clouds
Post by: trojanGoat on August 27, 2012, 06:04:08 PM
Hey All,

Is there a way to create clouds in Terragen 2 based on geometric shapes?  I'm hoping I can bring an obj file in terragen and fill it with some cloud volume.  If this is not possible is there a work flow I can follow to achieve this result.

My goal is to have clouds that resemble the shape of a variety of different objects.

There's some examples on the link below

http://www.oddee.com/item_96563.aspx

Thanks.
Title: Re: Custom shaped clouds
Post by: TheBadger on August 27, 2012, 08:32:05 PM
Yes there is. I have a tutorial that someone (I think) from these forums made.
I cant upload it for you because it is not my work. I will try to track down the original link for you and post that. Give me a min.
Title: Re: Custom shaped clouds
Post by: Oshyan on August 27, 2012, 09:10:39 PM
Just to be clear, at this time you cannot import an object from another application and render it as a cloud in Terragen. You can use various masking/blending techniques to put shapes into clouds, to be sure, but most would be image-based, not object-based. You would essentially mask the cloud using a grayscale image of the shape you want achieve. Achieving realistic edges this way can be a challenge, but it's possible. Animating the effect would be more difficult.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Custom shaped clouds
Post by: trojanGoat on August 27, 2012, 09:44:26 PM
Thanks I'll try it out
Title: Re: Custom shaped clouds
Post by: TheBadger on August 27, 2012, 10:07:54 PM
Yes of course Oshyan knows better. The tut I was looking for did just as Oshyan described; Using images in clouds similar to how images can be used on terrains.

I'm having a hell of time finding the tut though. Still looking.
Title: Re: Custom shaped clouds
Post by: TheBadger on August 27, 2012, 10:18:04 PM
Sorry could not find it. I cant even find the tut on my system. I must have deleted it by mistake or never saved it in the first place.

But I found something that applies to terrains, that you may be able to convert to clouds. Just think in terms like Oshyan described.
http://fc04.deviantart.net/images3/i/2005/152/9/0/Photo_terrains_for_Terragen_by_stickersticker.jpg

Title: Re: Custom shaped clouds
Post by: trojanGoat on August 29, 2012, 04:37:13 PM
I have this working now

It was fairly simple,

render camera >> Image map shader (projection camera) >> density shader

thanks!!