Here is a test shot of where I'm at. I've used a popular earth cloud mask to define where the clouds form. The numbers on the ground relate to a grid I've set up, so I can blend in a higher definition mask and create a more interesting formation out of satelite photos in Photoshop.
I've used three Cloud shaders to vary the height with decreasing coverage, to break up uniformity in the Y.
I've realised I need to design more variation in cloud structures, as well as playing around with the internal cloud lighting settings. Plus add the obligitary high altitude whispy stratus.
Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated.
Cheers
Jon
Looking good, no advice at all just remember that the scales used will be LARGE as in HUGE :) Although thinking about this it may not be an issue given that your using real world satalite images as your blend shader mask.
Richard
The map shouldn't be much larger than 4k, as I'm going to alpha mask the edges and placed ontop of the global clouds map (8k planar mapped) through a seperate Image Map Shader with the placement offset, to cover 4x4 of those grid sqaures (3x3 if I can get away with it).
What I did do is add in some low scale noise to break up the scaling, which is quite a neat little trick. (Pats own head :P)
Second stage, applying masks to formations to form weather patterns.
I need to 'fill in' around the swirl at a lower altitude, to break up the hard shape a little. Since this render I've added a lower 'coverage adjust' on a new layer with a higher altitude to break up some of the flattness ontop of the storm front, and have got into lowering Haze and Atmosphere densities so that I can see the land.
This one took 1hr 20mins to do. With Quality 1, AA 3. GI set at minimum. Soft shadows off (for the moment, hence the beams)
What I have found would be a usefull feature, is some sort of 'solo button', so that I can turn off layers by pressing a button on a layer I'm working on. But then I would guess that could cause problems on identifying which node is actualy producing an input into the stream.
Talking outloud as usual. If anybody has any suggestions on anything, I'd appreciate another view.
Thanks
Jon
both look great..although the clouds in the second one look a bit too squashed at their ceiling, apart from that....super job!
I tend to agree a bit with inky, however I really like the update a lot. I think the depth and sense of scale are awesome.
Also like the lighting and rays a lot!
Thank you. I'm currently rendering out an update image, which should take care of the 'flatness'.
The idea is to get the Sun elevation to rise a couple of degrees over 150 frames, so I get movement in red fall off and shadows. Not sue if I can get the planet to rotate too, I fear another test. The outcome will dictate on whether I say 'fuck it', and render out a 4k plate instead. But it would be seriously cool to get very minor 3D movement over that time.
This sounds like a really cool project. Keep us posted!
- Oshyan
This is interesting. Looks real.
Ta
This render has unfortunately lost 'something' and I think it's down to decreasing the atmosphere density. I've lost some of the red hues in the fall off region, and lost some glow.
I also switched on soft shadows with a setting of 10 10, which bumped this render to over 5 hrs on my quad core machine. The idea was to lessen the atmosphere rays. But this is way too long to animate, even with 3x dual processor quad core machines to chug out the frames, and a cheesy lens flare will soften that. We'll see.
I've kicked off another render, with a basic alpine terrain (which I know doesn't look right, it's for me to gauge render time and atmosphere settings), which I'll post once done.
Another feature request, could there be a skip existing frames option. I could see this as being very usefull. I'd want to render out those 150 frames on every 25/12, then fill in if all's going well.
Looking incredible! 8)
Latest render, then a contrast version, finally with a lens flare ;D
Contrasted.
Lens flare.
I've just kicked off a low quality 100 frame render with the sun elevating. Look forward to seeing it the morning.
The most recent versions seem to have darker clouds which I don't think is necessarily a change for the better. But otherwise looking good. The cloud mask is well utilized. Looking forward to seeing the animation.
- Oshyan
I think you're right. I'll have to go back a few saves and pull out the Atmosphere and Cloud Density settings.
I ran into another problem. I found there was obvious banding on the animation as the sun elevated. It's not obvious on a still, so have supplied a link to a .mov file zipped. This is not the final movement, I wanted to see how the sun level interacted with the clouds as it moved, especially in the red side of things.
www.mediastation.co.uk/AnimationIssuesTest01.zip
After rendering out a cropped area with higher quality settings, found out this wasn't the problem. Then I switched off my 2D cirrus layer and rendered another strip out, which seems to have solved it. Looks like there is no 'fall off' with the light on that layer. I'll render out another pass this evening. I may have to comp the cirrus layer in post with a moving mask. Not a biggy.
I've also up loaded frame 68 out of 100 to highlight the problem, which isn't that obvious unless you see the animation.
Nice little sequence. I wonder if the banding is related to cloud acceleration cache settings. If your acceleration cache in the 2D layer is still on, try turning it off and rendering one of the problem frames. You might also try adjusting the quality settings (increase), although I have a feeling that won't help.
- Oshyan