Cloud Mesa

[nvseal]

The clouds are made from an altered clip file from FankB. There are some things which I think I could have been altered a bit further but I'm happy with this for now.



Full Size: http://fc06.deviantart.com/fs32/f/2008/189/e/d/Cloud_Mesa_by_nvseal.jpg

[Blonderator]

Nice clouds.

Looks like a distribution shader with a max y-value altitude.

My only suggestion is make one cloud layer above the cut-off point. Like one cloud layer with a flat top, but another above it. It looks kinda unnatural to have a severe cutoff point like that, since air-density normally varies.

I like the density and edge sharpness though, great job.

[nvseal]

Nice clouds.

Looks like a distribution shader with a max y-value altitude.

My only suggestion is make one cloud layer above the cut-off point. Like one cloud layer with a flat top, but another above it. It looks kinda unnatural to have a severe cutoff point like that, since air-density normally varies.

I like the density and edge sharpness though, great job.

Thanks. I went back and forth with myself trying to decide if I wanted to do that very thing. I'll probably look at some options and if I come with anything that helps, I'll do a new render.

[moodflow]

Other than the cutoff problem, these are some of the best clouds I've seen out of TG2.

In fact, the clouds in the middle ARE the best I've seen out of TG2.  If you could dial those in a bit, you'd have an amazing cloud setup going there!   

[lightning]

TGD please!!!!
this looks great man the clouds are so realistic i  can see why you have called it mesa with the abrupt cutoff did you do that on purpose? 

[nvseal]

TGD please!!!!
this looks great man the clouds are so realistic i  can see why you have called it mesa with the abrupt cutoff did you do that on purpose? 

The cut off is a problem with the fractal. In order to get these clouds the buoyancy needs to be raised (in this case, to 1.5). This makes solid white areas in the fractal, thus creating the flat tops. I'm trying to find a way to fix this without adding another cloud layer. Or at least I think that is the problem, it could be the coverage adjust in the cloud layers.

[Blonderator]

Oh wow, you did that with bouyancy. The cutoff is so abrupt it looks like you stuck a distribution shader into the blending shader input of the cloud layer.

I do that sometimes if I want really really flat bottoms on my clouds.


The actual clouds themselves are incredibly realistic, though. Again, great job.

[moodflow]

As stated, these clouds are incredible.  I can't wait until we all finally dial it in.  Many thanks for posting this progress NVSeal...

[Phylloxera]

pretty air sight, beautiful clouds!

[Tangled-Universe]

TGD please!!!!
this looks great man the clouds are so realistic i  can see why you have called it mesa with the abrupt cutoff did you do that on purpose? 

The cut off is a problem with the fractal. In order to get these clouds the buoyancy needs to be raised (in this case, to 1.5). This makes solid white areas in the fractal, thus creating the flat tops. I'm trying to find a way to fix this without adding another cloud layer. Or at least I think that is the problem, it could be the coverage adjust in the cloud layers.

Ah right, I first thought it was due to the "invert profile" setting in the cloudnode.

These are indeed nice clouds Stephen! Especially in the middle, the ones on the right do look quite different and also less good to my taste.
I don't know your lighting settings, but I often use Light propagation and mix at 1.75 and 0.35 resp. Don't know if it works for this scene but it lightens up the shadowed areas on the clouds without losing too much detail.
Just see if it useful. Good work, keep it up!

Martin

[rcallicotte]

Great clouds.  We could use your expertise on the other site to create a bomb of a package. 

[Zylot]

Other then the cutoff at the top those clouds are gold.  Though, I can see a whole world above the cutoff, like castles, rivers, etc...

[Matt]

Something that I think would make these great clouds look even better...

Clouds in TG2 are often a compromise between a fractal roughness that works well for the large scale features and one that gives it the right sort of wispiness at very small scales. This usually results in clouds that look too smooth where they fade at the edges. I've got some good results by mixing in (very slightly) a second fractal that is very rough and has very small features. Maybe you or Frank are already doing something like this here, but I think another very small contribution which could tear up those cloud edges very finely would take this to the next level. I think it would work best if you could give it a stronger contribution on the lower clouds. You could do that by blending the fractal by a Distribution Shader that uses an altitude constraint.

(I've been planning to build this kind of thing into the cloud layer as an adjustable parameter, which would avoid allow it to bypass some of the other density changing effects which work best for the large scale features, such softer base).

Matt

[rcallicotte]

Ooooh.  Aaaah.  Blimey!

Something that I think would make these great clouds look even better...

Clouds in TG2 are often a compromise between a fractal roughness that works well for the large scale features and one that gives it the right sort of wispiness at very small scales. This usually results in clouds that look too smooth where they fade at the edges. I've got some good results by mixing in (very slightly) a second fractal that is very rough and has very small features. Maybe you or Frank are already doing something like this here, but I think another very small contribution which could tear up those cloud edges very finely would take this to the next level. I think it would work best if you could give it a stronger contribution on the lower clouds. You could do that by blending the fractal by a Distribution Shader that uses an altitude constraint.

(I've been planning to build this kind of thing into the cloud layer as an adjustable parameter, which would avoid allow it to bypass some of the other density changing effects which work best for the large scale features, such softer base).

Matt

[nvseal]

Something that I think would make these great clouds look even better...

Clouds in TG2 are often a compromise between a fractal roughness that works well for the large scale features and one that gives it the right sort of wispiness at very small scales. This usually results in clouds that look too smooth where they fade at the edges. I've got some good results by mixing in (very slightly) a second fractal that is very rough and has very small features. Maybe you or Frank are already doing something like this here, but I think another very small contribution which could tear up those cloud edges very finely would take this to the next level. I think it would work best if you could give it a stronger contribution on the lower clouds. You could do that by blending the fractal by a Distribution Shader that uses an altitude constraint.

(I've been planning to build this kind of thing into the cloud layer as an adjustable parameter, which would avoid allow it to bypass some of the other density changing effects which work best for the large scale features, such softer base).

Matt

Hmmm, I'll have to look into that. Thanks Matt.