I'm not KNOCKING VUE's Clouds- they can be very beautiful-
Combined with the right lighting and atmosphere, magic things can happen. But we all know- getting BIG Juicy Cumulus Clouds is NOT something currently available in VUE.

A number of people are using photos for scenes when big puffy cumulus-nimbus are needed...

These clouds are- Screen Grabs from FS2004. I HAVE cranked up the saturation some in Photoshop- but you CAN actually get beautiful sunset skies (and fly through them even at 60 frames per second) in FS2004 with a bit of tweaking...

When I got Vue 5 Infinite I would sometimes play around with
mapping clouds on Camera Facing Billboards- but the results
were NOT particularly great. I had been experimenting with VUE's Cloud Materials- but they appear primarily designed for horizontal sky mapping. (However, I think MORE could be done with them...)

However, in the TEXTURES folder of GMAX are the 16 Cloud Formations and their Transparency Maps used to make ALL the FS 2004 Clouds. These can be loaded in Photoshop---sliced and diced--- and then loaded into VUE for Experimenting.

Attached Link: http://ofb.net/~niniane/clouds-jgt.pdf

NOTE:- This is only for EXPERIMENTATION- as these ARE the property of Microsoft- and they should NOT be sold or even distributed for free! You could get into serious legal trouble- so don't do it. BUT- these same textures could be fairly easily MADE in PHOTOSHOP once anyone examines
how they are made.

I would also like to thank the very cute Lead Software Engineer Niniane Wang who worked at Microsoft from 1998 to 2003-- and who's team developed these wonderful cloud effects. (See atached PDF)

Attached Link: http://ofb.net/~eggplant/clouds/CloudsInGames_NinianeWang.mpg

So... The MAIN POINT of all this is to basically show that VUE is really much more of a candidate for a Flight Simulator 2004 Cloud Technique using vertically mapped planes- because it would fit very neatly into the Camera Facing Bill Boards, Object Scatter Function, and the Eco-Systems "instances" methodology that VUE uses.

Basically- there is no reason why there can't be VUE CLOUD-SYSTEMS that create hundreds of Cloud Instances mapped across not only vertical planes- but in box like shapes that Flight Simulator 2004 uses. As brilliant as the FS 2004 Clouds are, they were not INVENTED by Microsoft, and really are the cumulative work of many researchers over
the years. And even more importantly- VUE doesn't need to worry about 60 Frames Per Second rendering speeds-- as FS 2004 does-- and E-ON could add in more Cloud Rendering Techniques that Microsoft was forced to LEAVE
OUT.

See the attached MPEG Video for a narrated version of her
Siggraph presentation.

Attached Link: http://lucbianco.free.fr/tgd_index.html

Of course Terragen 2 is going to have some very beautiful cloud effects as well. But keep in mind that Terragen is a FRACTAL based software and uses a different rendering engine than VUE. However, CLOUDS are going to be one of the next big WIZ-BANG effects in the "race" between programs like Vue, Terragen and Bryce. Vue can certainly respond quickly, I believe, by making use of its existing Bill Board and Eco-Systems Instances methodology and creating CLOUD-SYSTEMS. (The sooner- the better!)

See this below link for the EARLY BEGINNINGS of Terragen as a DOS based Cloud Generator using Noise Octaves...

http://freespace.virgin.net/hugo.elias/models/m_clouds.htm

Attached Link: http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~schpokj/research/purpl/clouds/

Very interesting thread ... thank you very much for those tests and tips ... I have to experiment with this kind of technique... very useful :-)

For speed and looks, it is hard to beat Terragen skies at the moment IMOA. The fear I have with Vue and if E-on was to work on more realistic clouds, is the render time. Vue's renderer isn't the fastest in the world and I feel it would neeed a great amount of optimisation. A few years back, we all use to moan about Bryce's render speed and now....well, I just think that Vue's renderer needs updating to bring it up to date in technology and speed. Cheers

Agree, Cheers, Vue needs a faster render engine, but I wouldn't compare it to Bryce, though, Bryce is dead slow even without GI and GR, and Vue renders quite ok speed wise when these lighting models are not used. Hope the fact that big studios should be interested in Fusion will force e-on to improve a few things, including their renderer, because studios with deadlines are not gonna wait forever their ecosystems to be rendered.

Basically, I feel they could do much more work with it. Bucket rendering allows for so much optimisation i.e. memory allocation per bucket, the pattern the bucket renderer uses, parts of scene to render first, amount of threads used while rendering. With the current scanline renderer you are not allowed many of the options for this. As for GI and GR; I feel AO would have been a more useful technology to use in Vue...after all it lends itself far better for use in landscapes with none of the render time overheads. I would be very surprised if E-on were not already considering this actually. Hmmmm, Fusion. Well, I admire E-on for developing flexibilty in their product range, but to be honest the current Vue range needs to be made more solid first. Another thing, is when a company creates a new product so it's main app can play well with others, not only are they trying to increase integration (and market share), but also admitting to failings in their main product. Now I'm not expecting Vue to ever have the character animation capabilities of XSI, Maya etc (and there have been processes in the production pipeline for years that would enable you to do that within a "Vue scene" without Fusion), but I really feel E-on should concentrate on Vue alone until at least the core is solid. I'm being critical because I love Vue, in the past having spent whole nights awake (and doing my 9 to 5 job on top of that) in an effort to promote Vue. There is no doubt it is the best in its field...I just think it could be better ;) Cheers

I think I know my project for this afternoon. Thank you so much for your wonderful tutorials and insights into using Vue.

XCheers, I must admit I don't know much about AO, but I think GI applied to landscapes is very interesting the way e-on has sorted it out. Adds so much realism after some fiddling with the shadows. Animations, hmm, haven't bothered trying that yet, it's already pretty slow to render a still at high resolution with GI! Agree e-on should concentrate right now on the current bugs of the stand alone Vue line products before integration, which I think isn't a proof of any failure, e-on is just aware of Vue's capabilities, and is concentrating on what it does best: landscapes. Because if you want to do design, architecture and product visualization, you don't buy Vue. I'm rendering a "desing" image right now, contemporary design with GR, lots of reflections/transparency, etc... and it's way too slow for professionals.

What I did was increase the variation- copied cloud "cells" and pasted them again as Camera Facing Bill Boards. This set here is comprised of Four Groups with about 12 "Cells" per group.

These renders are the same cloud groups- but with different atmospheres- so that you can see how MUCH a different sky-atmosphere affects how the clouds look.

The BEST PART of these clouds is that unlike Fuzzy Materials- these are FLAT- so they render about 10-20 times faster- and look just as good- if not better- than Fuzzy Materials.

What I will be trying next is to create an ECO-CLOUD SYSTEM.
The main problem there is how to make use of the Camera Facing Bill Boards technique- don't know if it will work.

If E-ON were to get onto this method- I am SURE they could make this work PERFECTLY in the Eco-System. They could offer Thunderheads, Tornados, Hurricanes- all kinds of things are possible- and their development time would be very FAST- as they have nearly ALL of the needed technology already. Just add these CLOUD TECHNIQUES!

Pmermino- just watched your video animation. Absolutely WOW! and Fantastic! I just watched a two hour show on the History Channel about famous Air Dogfights (that have been recreated using 3D software) and your animation looked every bit as good as that show! Great work!

Interesting experiments indeed! For early results they are promising. This is no substitute for real volumetric clouds of course, but you don't always need that, and of course the render times for this are much nicer too. Definitely keep us updated! Of course the frustrating thing about this is, if it's as easy as you describe to do this, why didn't E-On ship with some cloud ecosystem examples and presets? It seems like the least they could do to alleviate the conspicuous lack of real volumetric clouds. Btw Vue is largely fractal-based too. Terrains (procedural in particular), any procedural materials, etc. could be termed "fractal based", as much as Terragen is anyway. - Oshyan

Message edited on: 09/17/2005 16:26

Yes- keep those ideas coming! I'll have to go check out the Flaming Pear deal- I've not seen that one before!

Well- E-on certainly won't need to release "Vue 6 Infinite Clouds" - they can maybe just make this a "Vue 5.1 Infinite Cloud Pack Release" and give us a bunch of Cloud Eco-Systems that will make everyone really happy...

Excellent work and research Veritas777! Valuable thread everyone. I guess good clouds will also make good smoke and explosions.

...Also makes nice Flak! (Anti-Aircraft Explosions).

Ditto JC.....Veritas is always fantastic with his discoveries :)..... I have to say thanks as well, as I would have totally forgotten about that filter I had & now have GMAX/clouds to toy around with as well :) as well as having fallen into a "creative" slump, the brain is slowly reviving LOL

I went to Flamingpear's site but could not find that Cumulus or Cumulous filter product. Could anyone please give me a direct link to the product page? Thanks

Orio/Veritas, Cumulous was a freebie out of a magazine. Agentsmith, from the Bryce forum was hosting it for a bit. You might try IM'ing him, I'm sure he'd be glad to send it out :) I'd be glad to, but I'm not sure if it's kosher.

Message edited on: 09/18/2005 09:02

I've emailed them to ask about it. Here's their email address: support@flamingpear.com

I have emailed them too but they didn't reply :-(

I have the cumulus plug in on one of my Computer Arts Cd's that come with the magazine (french edition), it's an old issue, like 2 years old. If you buy the magazine in your country, maybe you also have it. Dunno if it's allowed to send it to you guys.