Hey,
for a change, I thought I should render another cloud ;D
I've got the lighting close the real thing, I think, and have been able to improve the shapes - closer, but not like the real thing yet. What do you think, please let me know.
Cheers,
Frank
Haha, this is awesome :) I just posted about a new version of clouds I'm rendering right now and I can tell you: they look nearly the same like yours. Fractal shape, lighting etc. Haven't seen the final render yet, but anyway.
These look very good! Did you still use the same base of your cloud-package for these clouds or did you choose another approach?
Hi Martin,
yes this is based on the cumulus pack, but it's one (small) evolutionary step ahead, mostly because of changes in the lighting strategy. I figured there are many ways for a proper lighting, all of which deliver similar, but not identical results. Of course, once perfected, I will update the cumulus pack (yes, it will be delivered automatically to everyone who has it).
I will most likely render a few variations (especially on shape details) and post them here. I would like to get feedback then which version looks best.
Cheers,
Frank
PS: sorry for the boring terrain, it's just a placeholder I'm using over and over again while developing new skies.
I admit, that I tried the settings you were propagating in several threads and I do use some and abandon others ...
It just depends on some scenes I guess ... and tast of course.
The lighting here is very pleasing and realistic.
Stille one point about clouds is missing ... the whispiness, which is part of any cloud (more or less visible and even harder to spot on far distances).
It looks like you are on a good way!
(And I do like that terrain, but :-)
Do a favor for me and pull your image above alongside of the photo from the Real thread (in Image Thread) and tell me these aren't almost alike.
It's very close.
What about that?
One curious thing - the whitest parts of the cloud don't seem to get as white as real clouds. Maybe a bit of cheating with supplementary lighting is in order??
no, the sun is rather low, and the atmo density is slightly above default in this image.
I forgot to make color adjustments in post to make up for it.
Cheers,
Frank
I'm not sure, Frank. This is awesome in height and basic structure, but comparing with that photo it just doesn't match the smaller parts with the dark edges. I wonder if there's something that could be done on the programming side to make the default easier to get to these sorts of clouds? I'm not even sure what I'm asking.
@ calico: you're right.
what about his one then:
Oh yeah! You nearly nailed it there Frank! :)
I think you should increase your camera angle or position the cloud further away, because I think these look even more better at slightly greater distance!
Martin
I like this last one, but I agree it should be raised up a fair bit.
Holy Puffs, Batman!! ;D
This one is about as perfect as I've seen.
Quote from: RArcher on February 10, 2009, 09:20:30 AM
I like this last one, but I agree it should be raised up a fair bit.
I think you misunderstood my comment Ryan. By increasing the camera angle I mean increasing the FOV and thus zooming out.
Or position the camera a couple of hundred meters to the back.
Ahh, you just want a bigger view. I would still like it raised up a 1000m or so. ;D
Quote from: RArcher on February 10, 2009, 09:37:15 AM
Ahh, you just want a bigger view. I would still like it raised up a 1000m or so. ;D
I gave you 300 more :-P
Thanks guys, to be honest I'm pretty happy with the latest render as well ;D
To make it a little more like the reference photo from the other thread, I had desaturated the blue some and also applied a very shy blur to the image. Seems that this worked well.
I thought I would just try both suggestions (lift up the cloud a bit and also pull the camera back a little).
I'll post this once finished.
Cheers,
Frank
One more thing, for anyone wanting to try this as well:
The light direction plays a key role in deciding whether this looks great or mediocre.
On the same shot, before this last render, I had the sunlight coming more from behind the camera. The cloud did look quite nice, but not really great. It seemed to be a rather flat wall. Changing the light direction so that shadows could underline the depth of the formation much clearer really did the trick.
Regards;
Frank
Fantastic work Frank!
Honestly, we need a bit more sizes for the "bulbs" so there is more variation in shape. Right now we only have feature scale (the main scale), lead-in scale (the largest scale), and smallest scale.
I've tried many times to combine multiple fractals with different scales to generate this effect, but still haven't found the magic formula. I feel its just a matter of combining them correctly at this point.
Version 4, ready for your critical yet gentle looks ;-)
hmmm...if you ask me the distance is (nearly) the same as the previous one.
Nonetheless I think it looks really good. I just think the billowy shapes will look sharper and less noisy from slightly greater distance, and thus even more realistic.
Some of the cloudshapes have really cool overhangs, these contribute to the sense of immense-ness of these clouds :)
Fantastic Frank!
Getting better and better! :)
Wow. This is...BIG. :D
should be big.... took me ~2.5 hours to render this beast. ;D
Cheers,
Frank
Getting there! 8)
Very convincing!
I can see all kinds of shapes and cartoon faces in the latest version, which means it's very realistic 8)
ONLY 2.5 hours?!?! dang, you must have a supercomputer ;)
Those clouds look very nice!
It is getting better and better ... !
It's definitely getting close to the real thing in terms of lighting and cloud shapes but I think the blur is a bit too much in the last version.
One thing to remember about real clouds vs CGI is Dynamic Range, current display technology and that goes for LCD and Plasma not just CRT dose not have the dynamic range to reproduce the kind of bright lighting needed for realistic cloud lighting: this may happen with some future display technology what that is called and when it will be available I have no idea but for now it is not possible.
For example the sun in Terragen if it where the real thing would produce vary intense glare that would be next to impossible to look at if the camera in TG2 where facing it as the intensity of the light would be overwhelming; if you look at clouds near the sun you will see that the side closest to the sun is brighter that then opposite side (Light falls off proportionately to distance) also under these conditions the side closest to the sun will have the so called "Silver Lining" effect where the sun illuminates the clouds edge.
Cloud edges form my own binocular and telescope observations are not as sharply defined as one may think, indeed I find the cloud edges in TG2 to be too sharp for most instances.
Over all then good work here, just drooping in my two cents worth on matters that have not yet come up in this discussion. ;D
Regards to you.
Cyber-Angel
These shapes are the best I've ever seen, matching Luc's setup from his latest image. The lighting still seems like it could go a little farther, but overall this is fantastic :).
Quote from: moodflow on February 10, 2009, 11:25:31 AM
Honestly, we need a bit more sizes for the "bulbs" so there is more variation in shape.
There should be options in the cloud shader to control these things. It would have been a lot easyer.
- Terje
Quote from: Cyber-Angel on February 10, 2009, 09:15:16 PM
One thing to remember about real clouds vs CGI is Dynamic Range, current display technology and that goes for LCD and Plasma not just CRT dose not have the dynamic range to reproduce the kind of bright lighting needed for realistic cloud lighting: this may happen with some future display technology what that is called and when it will be available I have no idea but for now it is not possible.
For example the sun in Terragen if it where the real thing would produce vary intense glare that would be next to impossible to look at if the camera in TG2 where facing it as the intensity of the light would be overwhelming; if you look at clouds near the sun you will see that the side closest to the sun is brighter that then opposite side (Light falls off proportionately to distance) also under these conditions the side closest to the sun will have the so called "Silver Lining" effect where the sun illuminates the clouds edge.
Cloud edges form my own binocular and telescope observations are not as sharply defined as one may think, indeed I find the cloud edges in TG2 to be too sharp for most instances.
Over all then good work here, just drooping in my two cents worth on matters that have not yet come up in this discussion. ;D
Regards to you.
Cyber-Angel
While all of this is certainly true, nonetheless digital photos shown on LCDs, plasmas, and the rest all look perfectly realistic, despite the lack of true dynamic range in the output. In fact we have never had a medium that can output anywhere near the dynamic range of the real world, and that includes printed photos. So while the dynamic range of our displays definitely need improvement, it is really a separate consideration for realism that affects everything and is not unique to TG2 or CGI in general.
P.S. Great work Frank! What are your cloud sample? If it's "only" taking 2.5 hours at this point, I say maybe up the samples a bit, I still see some grain that in these kind of cumulus is distracting IMO.
- Oshyan
Quote from: Oshyan on February 13, 2009, 12:39:38 AM
P.S. Great work Frank! What are your cloud sample? If it's "only" taking 2.5 hours at this point, I say maybe up the samples a bit, I still see some grain that in these kind of cumulus is distracting IMO.
- Oshyan
Thanks Oshyan.
hmm... where are you seeing grain? I can't see no grain. Really. :-)
Cheers,
Frank
Hard to say, but try something crazy and crank the samples to 1024 or something and do a small crop of a representative area, including an edge and interior bit perhaps. I'm curious, honestly, whether it's a sample issue or something else I'm seeing.
- Oshyan
I'll try that perhaps later in the day. My suspicion though is, that you're seeing some small scale rough detail there, slightly influenced by the image compression.
Cheers,
Frank
So how's this one, then? ;D
Personally, I like that one the most.
(note: not only with definitely no grain, but also with a couple of improvements on the shapes)
@Oshyan: yes it became a tad clearer with the sample quality at 1.2 (=1000 samples)
Cheers,
Frank
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They look really great now (pun intended)! :)
Would say they are on par with Luc's from his image, very good!
I also noticed that samples above 1.0 could help sometimes.
Will you add a great landscape underneath the clouds? :P
Quote from: MacGyver on February 13, 2009, 07:22:42 AM
They look really great now (pun intended)! :)
Would say they are on par with Luc's from his image, very good!
I also noticed that samples above 1.0 could help sometimes.
Thanks :-)
QuoteWill you add a great landscape underneath the clouds? :P
No, I'll leave that to you ;-)
Cheers,
Frank
YES! Brilliant!
So who of the two of us was right, you or me? Did it take something out of the box to get it just right like this or not?
Guess you're right...hate to admit that :P lol
Martin
;D
I'm afraid I have to tell you that I was right... aaahhhh sweet victory :P
Thanks,
Frank
Quote from: FrankB on February 13, 2009, 07:58:33 AM
;D
I'm afraid I have to tell you that I was right... aaahhhh sweet victory :P
Thanks,
Frank
lol ;D
Wow. Frank! Is this the one you just updated us to?
Quote from: calico on February 13, 2009, 08:38:31 AM
Wow. Frank! Is this the one you just updated us to?
no, that's one step ahead again. I just had an idea this morning, applied it, and it worked out quite ok.
I will send *this* update over the weekend.
Cheers,
Frank
I'm curious... what was your idea this morning? ??? The shapes are really coming out well :o Did you do something with postwork or is it the new bloom filter?
oh, it's just that I thought about how the cloud parameters have been setup in the previous version, and which of the parameters I could tweak a little more so that the cauliflower look would come out a little better. Really, I have just made extremely minor tweaks compared to the previous version, including increasing the density a little.
Cheers,
Frank
Looks fantastic Frank. Glad those extra little tweaks made the difference. :)
- Oshyan
And, lastly, here's a wide screen render at 1680x1050. Took almost 7 hrs.
Cheers and thanks for all the nice comments!
Frank
Wow, amazing work, Frank :).
Amazing work Frank. Love it.
light and colour are really really great Frank ! congrats !
Incredible, i'd love to see a sunset with those
Amazing evolution towards cloud reality Frank. They remind me of the cloud types seen here in Arizona during our Monsoon season which starts in August through September. So much to work here with Frank - you've shortened the learning curve.
I think, I've got the sixth sense because I can see strange people/monsters in the clouds ;D
Hahah, nice :). Go sky warriors!