Planetary Cloud Trouble - Wispy

[surrealdan]

Hey Guys, trying to get a soft wispy cloud effect, but having some trouble getting the look correct. If anyone can offer some tips or specific nodes to achieve this, would be appreciated! I attached the reference

[WAS]

It's tough to say without an example of something you are after.

Tips I can offer is lower edge sharpness to like 0.1, and lower contrast in densities to like 0.25 to 0.5.

[surrealdan]

not sure if you see the example I attached there. But yeah I will try that, thanks for the tip.

[Ariel DK]

Hi @surrealdan, thats an interesting looking if you ask me 
Maybe this could be helpful, as i see your trying to achieve some kind of Gas Giant(?
https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,19818

Alternatively, i think WAS also create some stuff like that (Brown Dwarf)

[RogueNZ]

Looking at this reference, several ideas I have:

Create a base planetary cloud fractal (Power fractal shader), with some warping etc (although I don't really like TG's lead-in warp inside the fractal, seems to create noticeable artifacts). Then duplicate the layer, say 3 times, and offset the clouds slightly. Then use fractal warp shader, with large scales, and with slightly different input params.

Fractal warp is the key to get wispy stuff in TG in my opinion. You could also look at doing an altitude offset using a fractal mask, and have the clouds 'fade out' down into a hazy lower atmosphere, that the reference you posted seems to suggest.

Otherwise I would look at creating an image map based on Earth clouds, or look at this that WAS posted the other day: https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,29403.0.html

[RogueNZ]

Quick test attached. You can see stretched patterns on the right hand side, running the full height of the planet. Something to do with the way Terragen interprets 3D fractals onto the sphere? You tend to get stretched patterns at the poles as well.

[surrealdan]

Ah yeah I see how the warp is creating the effect.