Above, Hurricane Douglas in Vue...

With the recent disaster caused by Mega-Hurricane Katrina I thought some out there might be interested in how to get a reasonably decent looking Hurricane into Vue. I had originally been exploring how to get US Weather Data into Vue (the kind you see on TV when they show animated Hurricane models) and stumbled upon a much more simple idea-using Vue's Terrain Editor.

The next problem was WHERE to get good shots of Hurricanes.
Surprisingly, places like NOAA and the US Weather Service had only small black and white photos on their websites- and then they always had white Long-Lat lines, etc. on them.

Attached Link: http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/

...Finally I discovered the really excellent NASA Visible Earth website. No complicated forms and dialogs, etc. You simply go there and download incredibly beautiful and very high resolution photos taken by the NASA Shuttle and various satellites like Landsat.

The image above shows some of the 30 or more Hurricanes I downloaded- many at 4000 x 4000 and some up to 8000 x 8000,
and they are great for importing into Vue's Terrain Editor.

Just SEARCH for "Hurricanes", or "Clouds" and you will have LOTS to choose from...

Here's how to do it.

1. Load a Terrain. Then scale it up higher and SAVE it!
   This will keep Vue from potentially crashing when you get up to 4096 x 4096. You don't have to go that big, but I do all my terrain stuff at that resolution for best results.

2. Load one of the Mega 4K or 8K Hurricane photos and apply it at 100% blend. You might also want to have a water plane under it as it looks better that way.

3. In the Terrain Editor bring up the clipping plane so that it slices off the bottom part- and you get a nice looking Hurricane terrain.

4. For additional special effects, you might even consider loading the same image onto a plane and sandwiching it into the middle of the Hurricane terrain...

Here's how it looks in Vue. Sliding it a little up or down changes the cloud shadows and creates more of a cloud vapor look.

I found using MILK as a material is nearly ideal as it renders fast. Mixing in some Impure Glass, or tweaking the fuzziness can look good too, but it increases render time by almost 10X (not good).

Here's how clouds viewed from near earth orbit look. Tweak in some pink and orange and you have a nice space-sunset scene...

Obviously the Hurricane could be easily animated in Vue just by having it slowly twist around. Make some animations and maybe a TV weather channel or someone making a Hurricane documentary will give you a job.

I'm sure a LOT of people will be making Hurricane documentaries in the near future!

Head on over to the NASA Visible Earth website and collect some hi-rez clouds, hurricanes, etc. The hi-rez terrain imagery of Afganistan, the Brazilian Rain Forest, etc. also make great terrain maps in Vue, once you clean them up a little in your favorite image editing app.

Personally, I recommend editing them all to squares (5K, 6K up to 8K resolution) as they map more easily that way.

What a cool idea! Very clever. That is a cool site.

Great scenes :) Two suggestions : - Did you try with Volumetric or Fuzzy materials to give them a more 'cloudy' look ? - How about making the base of the clouds transparent and displaying a satellite map of the area under the clouds ?

Nevermind the fuzziness... I just noticed in your comments that you gave that a try :)

...Just thought of something that might be worth trying- -Perhaps a slight spin with Motion Blur added. I don't do any animation so I'm going to have to consult the manual first to figure that out and see how it can be made to work as a still image effect.