Here it comes, my first image after a long time. As you may notice, I've put most focus onto creating that thunderhead. I consider it a work in progress, however I'm close to where I wanted this to get, and I kinda like how it turned out, so I thought I might as well post it here . Took 3 hours to render at 0.8 quality (two parallel crops) - not too bad.
Cheers,
Frank[attachimg=#]
Grant you, Frank, I'm not complaining and I want to know how you did that lower part, but I think the very top looks like a little too liquidy for clouds. That sai, I LOVE the actual thunderhead at the bottom. It's perfect!
All I can say is wow. Thank you for again showing us what is possible.
holy cow!!!.....did u use my clip file??
The foreground has a very winxp feel about it. Love the background and the thunderhead too.
Agree with calico somewhat about the top, I'd like to see it more ballooning out the top (is that how you describe it?).
Iain
Quote from: dhavalmistry on March 05, 2008, 11:59:39 PM
holy cow!!!.....did u use my clip file??
Glad you like it :-)
... but what clip file? No, this is one simple cloud layer with just about the right settings. We had clouds like this all over Germany recently. They were so beautiful, I couldn't resist trying them in TG2. It turned our to be pretty easy to do. The right lighting does the rest.
However, I've had to learn a lot about the clouds shader and the cloud fractal, before it became clear how to make such clouds (especially with reasonable render times).
As I said, it's a WIP, I think I will make a few changes. I'm fine with the simplicity of the ground, though.
Cheers,
Frank
Quote from: lonewolf on March 06, 2008, 02:07:20 AM
... I'd like to see it more ballooning out the top (is that how you describe it?).
Although a cloud like this was the "model" for this image and really looked closely like it, yeah, I know what you mean. Difficult to do, as the cloud profiles are somewhat hard coded. I may have an idea that I could try, though.
Regards;
Frank
Wow, I love these huge cloudfronts.
monks
Very cool. The top is a little to noise for my taste, but the bottom is as
calico said.
Quote from: FrankB on March 05, 2008, 06:31:05 PM
I consider it a work in progress, however I'm close to where I wanted this to get, and I kinda like how it turned out, so I thought I might as well post it here.
Be sure to post us the updates :P
I gave it another try. Unfortunately I currently don't have any decent image manipulation program at hand - just the crappy picasa. I would have chosen to postwork it a little here and there. As an experiment, I've chosen another aspect ration, too.
I'm interested in hearing which version you think is better.
Thanks,
Frank
This one is fantastic!
Frank, I like how you've experimented with lighting and this is pretty well done. Love the darkness under the thunderhead - phenomenol.
HI Frank,
I actually prefer the first version, especially the lower (blurred) parts of the clouds. To my eyes the colouring also looks more natural on the first version.
Cheers,
Saurav
The first one looks more natural but the 2nd has a fantastical quality about it that I like as well.
monks
Thank you guys!
I find it especially hard to make the shadowed parts look real. In all images I've seen yet, the billowry shapes look very odd when in shadow - unnatural, too sharp, too distinct, simply wrong. I believe it has to do with the fake internal scattering in combination with edge sharpness. I'm currently rendering a third version (that still has fake internal scattering), but once that's complete, I'll give it another try with fake scattering turned off (or significantly reduced), and less edge sharpness. I'm curious to see how this will compare.
Cheers,
Frank
Here's the third render (actually I've cropped the rendered result - the cut-away parts haven't been so good).
Let me know what you think.
Cheers,
Frank
[attachimg=#]
This is the best one. This is more realistic and is magnificent in size.
Quote from: calico on March 09, 2008, 01:11:38 PM
This is the best one. This is more realistic and is magnificent in size.
I agree!
Fantastic sense of scale!
Is this just one cloudfractal or two or more combined?
Some parts of the fractal look really awesome and some parts look 'just good' ;)
Thanks!
It's really in the cloud layer and fractal that make it up. There's only one fractal.
I have another one cooking at the moment, and I can already see I'll have to run another one after that. I am close to getting this one nailed down to look like I want it to.
Cheers,
Frank
Sounds good already ;) looking forward to see it! :)
That's a real joy to behold!
monks
Can I be a tiny bit controversial and say that I still prefer the first version :-\ For me the low softer, fuzzy billow makes it my choice, I got soaked by a cloud just like that this afternoon. There are areas of the last one that are looking better than the first but some of the shadows in this latest version are showing a sort of random lighting variation.
hi,
I think I would like to see a mixture of version2 and version 3. Although version 2 is a little bit to blueish, as slight tint in version 3 would be nice.
And I like the softer "base" of the clouds, as the downsides look softer. But after all, this is a matter of taste I guess ;-)
awesome work Frank....OMINOUS!
there is a HUGE cotton candy machine in the sky!....watch outt!!!!! :D:D
love the clouds!
The clouds are great. You need an evil sorcerer's castle on one of those hills. :)
Thanks again for the comments, and I agree to all of them somehow. Bear with me a little longer, I'm getting there.
The last image had the fundamental mistake that the scattering color diverted too far from the cloud color, hence all those weired shapes in the shadows. The increased edge sharpness catered to that effect, too.
In my next image, I'll have base wispiness and softness enabled again.
So long,
Frank
I think I've got it. Although I wish I could have worked on the openexr version, this here is the 8Bit output, hence the shadows on the terrain are a bit dark, but the cloud is as it should.
I also hope that satisfies your wishes to be a mix between the good features of version 1,2 and 3, and not carry on with the deficiencies of those first 3 images..
I discovered that it needed full, large renders in order to fully see the effects the latest tiny tweaks had.
I'm really happy - I have wanted clouds like these ever since I started with TG0.8 back in 2000 or so
Thanks for your comments so far, my render friends ;)
Frank
[attachimg=#]
very good clouds :)
but the lower part on the far left is a bit too flat to my eyes... anyway, it's very very good ^^
The shadow areas are looking much better now however you've lost a bit of the sharpness on the highlights which I originally liked, but it's a balancing act I guess. Maybe the sharpen filter in post might work here. Like you it's also been one of my goals to create a big fluffy monster like this in TG. Congrats on this version.
p.s I think there is a tiny issue on the shadows areas in the terrain where you have crop rendered.
Quote from: Saurav on March 11, 2008, 04:25:37 AM
The shadow areas are looking much better now however you've lost a bit of the sharpness on the highlights which I originally liked, but it's a balancing act I guess. Maybe the sharpen filter in post might work here. Like you it's also been one of my goals to create a big fluffy monster like this in TG. Congrats on this version.
Thanks Saurav! In this case, I took the artist's freedom to intentionally let the bright areas shine a bit, on the expense of sharpness. I feel that matches my viewing experience with real skies quite good. You know, those bright parts in contrast with the dark parts, they glare a bit in your eyes.
Quotep.s I think there is a tiny issue on the shadows areas in the terrain where you have crop rendered.
Yeah, you spotted that :-D
I must have forgotten to blur this away ;-)
Cheers;
Frank
Awesome! The base looks a lot better now- overall it looks more natural. The lower left does look flat, but I think it serves the depth of the composition overall. If you made that area clearer, you would be in danger of presenting a prefect cloud model, rather than a landscape-
monks
I am gonna be picky here and say the flatness of the base is a little too sharp...everything else is looking great!
Nice, Frank.
Looks like you have this pretty much dialed in. This is looking really nice now.
Any tips on the settings you used?
well, clouds are 5000m tall
density 0.2
edge sharpness 3
The key to get the right cloud profile is in reducing the coverage gamma, though, so that the point from which clouds begin to "grow" is pulled down.
The fractal feature/lead-in/smallest scales = 5000/15000/20
Perlin Billows
upped buoyancy
no warping
That's pretty much it. It helps with the lighting to blend by a distance shader so that before and behind your main cloud, the sky remains empty.
Cheers,
Frank
Thank a lot for sharing your settings, very generous of you. :)
Many thanks for these settings Frank.
Thanks, Frank. More to apply. The last time you shared your settings for masking clouds revolutionized how I saw the cloud thing and I did one of my best cloud renders. Here's to more of that! :o
Fantastic work Frank, impressive scales...awesome :)
Thanks for sharing your tips/tricks and settings! ;D
Martin
Thanks Frank, you wouldn't happen to have the Density fractal seed value for that cloud would you? I have found that the seed value changes things very much.
Quote from: sonshine777 on March 12, 2008, 01:22:37 PM
Thanks Frank, you wouldn't happen to have the Density fractal seed value for that cloud would you? I have found that the seed value changes things very much.
You can have it, but I doubt it's going to help you much. Of course the seed changes everything, but it's more in the other settings that give you the TYPE of cloud you want.
Here's the seed: 2778
Cheers,
Frank
Thanks.