Hurricane/tornado

Mr_Lamppost · February 12, 2008, 06:31:14 PM

From whipped cream to abstract sculpture

These shapes have me intrigued, I did have other things in mind to do tonight but I am away to experiment $:-\$

Matt · February 13, 2008, 03:02:40 AM

The Cloud Layer varies the bias that it applies to the density function with height, so at the top and bottom of the cloud the density function has to be much higher than in the middle to create positive cloud density. One effect of this variation is to change the apparent depth or height of the cloud as you change the density function. But it's not a linear relationship. If it were, it would be too easy to create clouds that get cut off sharply at the top level of the cloud. As you can see in some of your tests, you can get a sharp edge at the top of the cloud but the density function has to be very high to get that. The profiles built into the Cloud Layer are designed to give reasonable cloud shapes considering it has no prior knowledge of the functions you choose to input. You can make some simple changes to those profiles with the "invert profile" and "flatter base" options.

Matt

j meyer · February 13, 2008, 10:19:20 AM

Thanks Matt,going to play with that now.

Mr_L.: From whipped cream...

that's exactly it!

Looking forward to see your results.

calico:no problem

sonshine777: at least one

.In case you're interested to try
that rainbow i'll be glad to provide the file as a starting point.

sonshine777 · February 13, 2008, 11:46:26 AM

Quote from: j meyer on February 13, 2008, 10:19:20 AM
sonshine777: at least one .In case you're interested to try
that rainbow i'll be glad to provide the file as a starting point.

Sure I 'll give it a go.

j meyer · February 13, 2008, 04:55:24 PM

sonshine777:i'll post the file in an hour or so,it'on another machine.

Meanwhile i tested "Flatter Base" and "Invert Profile",but for most
of the cone and pyramid files there was almost no visible effect.
On the other hand "Invert Profile" showed some effect on the
hurricane.A quick low quality crop is attached.The size of the
hurricane was set to 2500 and cloud depth changed to 8192
with "Invert Profile" checked.

Edit:replaced the pic with a better one.

rcallicotte · February 13, 2008, 06:01:31 PM

Oooh, this looks promising. Can I have a look at that file as well?

Mr_Lamppost · February 13, 2008, 06:18:09 PM

Big Nose with a baseball cap on HeHe

I am putting together some geometric cloud examples I will post them when they are finished.

j meyer · February 13, 2008, 06:22:22 PM

Here is the starter file for the rainbow.(if you want a single arch
just replace the modulo node with a subtract scalar)
Good luck!

calico:it's still Mr_L's file,unaltered except for the above mentioned
changes.Size in the fall off section from 10000 to 2500 and you
know where to find cloud depth and Invert Profile i guess,anything
else remained the same.But if you still want it i can post it tomorrow.

Mr_L.:

just noticed your post and i'm eager to see those.

j meyer · February 14, 2008, 10:40:01 AM

Just in case.

Mr_Lamppost · February 14, 2008, 08:01:59 PM

I have had a bit of a play and here are the results:

I had found the effects of the variation of the density function with altitude by a process of trial and error. The first image shows the cloud settings, 256 samples.

Following are several examples along with screen grabs of the node networks. Disabled in all but the sphere there is a Subtract Vector, this is used to transform the position of the geometric cloud.

JimB · February 15, 2008, 07:31:58 AM

You realise that this could be the best way to create snow, if it could be made to distribute on a terrain properly.

Tangled-Universe · February 15, 2008, 08:21:43 AM

Quote from: JimB on February 15, 2008, 07:31:58 AM
You realise that this could be the best way to create snow, if it could be made to distribute on a terrain properly.

D*mn, was about to post the exact same comment/idea

It would be great if we could generate terrain driven clouds for this purpose or for making clouds climb up hills for examples.
Nonetheless very interesting experiments, keep it up!

Martin

j meyer · February 15, 2008, 09:26:52 AM

Mr_Lamppost you da man!!!

Thanks,J.

rcallicotte · February 15, 2008, 11:50:12 AM

You guys are brilliant. This is awesome.

Mr_Lamppost · February 15, 2008, 08:11:16 PM

Quote from: JimB on February 15, 2008, 07:31:58 AM
You realise that this could be the best way to create snow, if it could be made to distribute on a terrain properly.

Curiously enough I had a similar thought "Those clouds look like snow" after missing out the decimal point when entering the density value, making it something insanely high.

Mapping clouds to the terrain has been mentioned before, I don't think it was ever solved or even worked on very much, it was a long time ago when most people, myself included, were staying well away from "The SCARY blue boxes".