Cloud WIP

[Tangled-Universe]

This may take a while before finishing it.
I still need to improve it, think of a scene to build around it and not losing interest as well...

[pokoy]

Looks great! I have tried to get these kind of clouds and never had the patience to spend days figuring it out. I wouldn't mind a tutorial, even if only to nudge people in the right direction without giving away too much. On the other hand, clouds like this one should be part of official TG tutorials, included assets/node setups or demo scenes.

[Tangled-Universe]

Yes I see and feel what you mean.
It's pretty complex, so making a tutorial on it will be even more complex I'm afraid.
Sharing a complex setup like this without context/explanations/video seems a bit counterproductive to me. I'll think about it.

[WAS]

Sharing a complex setup like this without context/explanations/video seems a bit counterproductive to me. I'll think about it

That's sorta how I've come to feel about sharing now. Unless I've made it a shader (without being an actual node) with settings and such that are fairly easy to understand It's too hard to expect people to understand all a node tree is doing and how one change could make or break it. I also need to make my notes into several note nodes like you have done because of the syntax breakup which has destroyed documentation in my sold shaders and planned shaders. Might as well ship little websites with the info. xD

PS, regardless, I'm curious in the setup myself, but only because I am an avid TG experimenter and tinkering. And complex systems is like my thing, apparently.

PPS This is really good, the plumage is very realistic. Some shaping of the bottom and I think you got a nice meta cloud. Getting these to work procedurally with noise across terrain is always my biggest struggle.

[Tangled-Universe]

In the end it's mostly luck with the fractal seeds.
I wish there was a feature which would allow me to import a model or VDB to which I can add cloud fractals for further detailing.
While this is a semi-art-directable setup, more control would be great to have.

[pokoy]

In the end it's mostly luck with the fractal seeds.
I wish there was a feature which would allow me to import a model or VDB to which I can add cloud fractals for further detailing.
While this is a semi-art-directable setup, more control would be great to have.

Oh yeah, totally can relate to being lucky with fractal seeds. I often have to replicate real world photography, and while atmosphere/fog is super easy, getting same or similar cloud structure is taking up most of my time, sometimes half a day until I find the right settings and then it's mostly not exactly what I was going after.

The thing I would love to know about your setup is the general abstract workflow. How are you using noises (mixing, masking etc), are you plugging the node setup into density only do you also use altitude offset, depth modulator, final density etc, and if yes what for. More like a general description rather than the exact setup. Like I said, I tried this multiple times, stacking noises, masking them etc, but the hardest part was to find the right balance between big and small structure detail, getting a realistic result, the right feel of the cloud's density and a well defined shape without small noise breakups, and keeping render times acceptable of course.