Man, been working on this for 3 weeks now. Got almost all what I wanted, the lights, and the buildings (gotta fix the building on the right, too much glass, but for the heck of my I just cant get the darn clouds to look right. I want to get black clouds on the right side of the image. I have 3 big circles with Black Tires texture, and just come come out looking right. What in the heck can I do there? As U can see from the pics, on the right are 3 circles with the black cloud texture, and on the left are 3 circles with blue textures. Took for this one 3 days to render. Where do I go wrong with these clouds? I can do away with the blue ones, dont care I can patch it up with something else, but I really want the black ones to come out lookin nice. Any suggestions? Thanks...

Here is the wireframe.

The texture and setting used.

You can maybe try editing the scale of the texture on the objects to make it sized better and give a better effect.. By the way, can I ask where you got them textures in that screen shot? ^^;

The screenshot is from Bryce 5.5. It comes with em by default. Upgraded to 5.5 this morning and wanted to see if I can come up with em clouds a little better, so thats what I am working on now, but its a pain.

Ahh cool. I only have ver 5 You can still try scaling the textures down a bit to alter how it shows up. I've had to do that a few times to get clouds like that to look right. not just over all scale, but some times scaling it one side or the other. Over all very nice work there :)

Try setting all of the spheres to "Positive" in the boolean attributes, and then grouping them. This doesn't always work with volumetrics, but often does. Another way to do it would be to convert your spheres to metaballs, increase their size so that the edges meet, and boom... Instant mergification.

Or you just might be better off finding a picture of a brooding sky and then use the image plane method. Might save some stress and look better.

Paul is wise. Although we know it's complex, those rubber clouds really don't look very cloud-like....

@Shaddex, in B5, you'll find all kinds of neat cloud textures in 'Volume', tire smoke, volcanic ash, grey clouds, etc.

Paul, U are right, and I could do that, but I havent yet been able to take a pic of DARKER clouds around here. I took some sky pics for my collection, but not that dark. Hmmm is starting to rain around here, maybe it will get a littl dark, lol. Thankx guys, I will try more and more. I really dont want to give up on this one, cause I like the way it came out. Just gotta fix that darn sky and get more spaceships, lol. THANKX...

Aye, no reason to give up on it at all! Just give it some time and patience, and keep clicking... you'll get it "right" soon enough. Good luck, keep us posted? (Oh! I just checked my email andsaw your newer version. It is coming along much better! Might have to do some Skylab cloudwork, though, to get rid of the unsightly low-level fractal clouds...) Check out AlvinYlaya's cloud presets, they're a great starting point if you need some different cloud backgrounds...

Message edited on: 05/04/2005 08:04

@Zhann I didn't get any such in Bryce 5 O.o

Have you tried simply covering it up with another sphere? You would put it in front of your messup and it would cover up that awkward bright sky background as well... Also you could try switching to another cloud texture, then reducing the Diffusion and Ambience, if you haven't tried this already.

Shinyary2, I tried the second method U said, and just didnt come out right, it was OK, but not GREAT. The first method U said, if what U mean is to put ANOTHER sphere on top of whats in the PIC now, I tried that, but not 1, I tried it with 3 spheres. I just tried to do some PostWork in PS 7.0 with some Cloud Brushes I found around here, and seems that will work very very owesome. The only thing is the Light Rays coming from the left side of the screen. It seems hard not to cover them with the PS brushes. I tried overlay with 2 differnt layers, but seems it goes away quite easily (the rays). I am gonna tinker with it more, and post the final later this week, hopefully it comes out good. THANKS ALL...

Well it looks good thus far. While you're in Photoshop you should consider applying the Smudge tool to your flames; I find that you can greatly enhance the "blasts" in this way. Just a thought. Good luck!

@Shaddex, doesn't your B5 materials lab look like this? Volume has already been opened in this image.....all the mats you see come with B5, including all the categories on the left, of which 'volume' is only one....

Message edited on: 05/04/2005 19:12