Creating clouds in Houdini

Started by pokoy, August 21, 2019, 09:48:56 AM

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pokoy

Probably everyone knows by now that Houdini has quite an extensive library of tools to create and work with volumes. Here's a very nice tutorial on how to create different types of clouds in it:

https://sergeneren.com/2019/08/21/creating-low-altitude-clouds/

Pretty amazing if you ask me...
I wish TG would take a direction where environment and cloud creation is less dependent on 3d noises only and offer some more advanced and user-friendly ways to create stuff... I mean, I really love TG but it literally couldn't be harder to create anything with actual control over shape and look etc, be it terrain, environment, or clouds. Hopefully something is being done in that regard.

zaxxon

Thanks for the great link. Houdini is a marvelous program and I'm slowly making some progress with the terrain tools, and the cloud creation abilities adds even more motivation to continue on. From an 'Art Direction' perspective these tools look wonderful. Makes me wonder what Matt has 'up his sleeve' in this area for TG?

WAS

#2
I do really like the way Houdini handles cloud creation, but if you notice, it's all random too. Just chaotic fractal noise applied to meta-shapes.

Another issue that always drives me nuts about Houdini, especially when a company decides to use it for Clouds, is they always look  like smoke. Their particle simulator, or however people commonly set it up lacks that "light" cloud like animation and reacts like ground level smoke rising to the atmosphere. This may be why Houdini is often used for Skymaps just like TG without animation.

Matt once played a little joke on us on April fools about what if Land Generation was easy, like drawing almost. I'm a little to keen on development and think that was actually real, and not a joke. I believe he is working on something for terrain, at least.

penboack

In addition, Houdini's built in renderer, Mantra, does not have the ability to render a planetary atmosphere unlike say Octane or of course Terragen or Vue, which I suspect is one reason that you don't see any realistic landscape scenes made in Houdini.

WAS

Quote from: penboack on August 21, 2019, 08:38:13 PMIn addition, Houdini's built in renderer, Mantra, does not have the ability to render a planetary atmosphere unlike say Octane or of course Terragen or Vue, which I suspect is one reason that you don't see any realistic landscape scenes made in Houdini.

Probably further why the clouds look funny in visualizations, cause of the compositing.

Dune

Matt just has to dissect Houdini source files..... 8)

Tangled-Universe

Seems this guy Sergen Eren is among the first who realizes that simulating clouds in Houdini is very similar to simulating a pyro, because for cumulus you cannot simulate without convection/advection effects of fluids. This effect is critical and often lacking completely and has so for many years. Hopefully people will pick up on Sergen's message.
From then on you need a capable renderer, like Octane or Arnold, which is pretty good at rendering volumetric clouds.

I wish TG would have a VDB importer or even easier: an object to vdb converter, so you can make a simple low res model of your desired cloud shape and then augment it with fractal noise for details. Sounds like a winner to me.

zaxxon

Looks like Sidefx is replacing the Mantra renderer with a new one named Karma. 

https://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/68238/