The clouds are the new Spectral 2 type Big Cumulus.

I know there is probably a lot of factors involved but wondering what is the main setting I should look at ?

One of the most important settings, that helps a lot giving a 3D feeling to clouds, is the "ambient lighting", in the Clouds tab. Try setting that to the lowest possible.

If you still have this effect afterwards, maybe you could post here a screenshot of your atmosphere light settings and cloud settings, so that we can try to figure out what could be improved.

Head over to Cornucopia 3D and check out Bruno's Spectral 2 Clouds.  Clouds are the hardest thing (at least for me) to get dialed in with Vue because there are so many variables.  Using Bruno's stuff as a start is a good way to limit the amount of dial twiddling.

Thanks, Dave!
Kevjon, if for some obscure reason you don't wish to get my pack (...), try a few things.
First do as Rutra says, the ambient lighting of the cloud can create this all white look. Reduce it to the max, or remove it completely.
Then you can tweak the density and opacity, but be careful not to change the cloud shape in the process.
Changing the detail slider won't help with Spectral2 clouds, it will only change the cloud shape if you overdo it.
Also check that the altitude variation is low, this parameter can make clouds look flat when seen from above when it's set very high.
But in this render, the main culprit imho is the sun altitude, it is too high, and floods the whole scene with light. Lower it to the camera's altitude, and then move it back up by tiny increments to check the max altitude possible vs cloud detail.

@Rutra
Thanks Rutra. My ambient lighting setting in the clouds tab was already at 0 in the above render, so that isn't it.

@dburdick
I've just checked out Bruno's Spectral 2 Clouds and all the images have the sun at low angle. I also get good details in the clouds when I do this but I want to render a bright sunny day with high sun and what I get is shown above. Even when I start a new scene and chose an atmosphere and move the camera above the clouds they are all washed out as shown in the above image as well.

There seems to be a lot of variables to control the sunlight level. Just a matter of figuring out which ones work.

Like I said before, do post some screenshots of both the light settings and clouds settings. There are too many settings and problematic combinations. The most efficient is to discuss it based on some screenshots.

Thanks for your tips, there is some really good ones there. I loaded another atmosphere & lowered the sun a bit and am getting better results.

I used the North Carolina one in this latest render which worked better than the one I chose previously.

@Rutra
I think I'm Ok now. Its turns out it was just a matter of choosing different atmospheres, some work better when rendered above the clouds than others.

Quote - "Its turns out it was just a matter of choosing different atmospheres, some work better when rendered above the clouds than others."

Yes, but do you know why?... :-) It could be useful to know why, for the next time.

If I may, I think the clouds look too sharp, too solid.

@Rutra

Yep, they certainly look really bad at the moment. I'll keep playing with the cloud settings to see how much they can be improved.

*Quote - Yes, but do you know why?...

• Not really there seems to be a miriad of settings that play a factor in the light levels in a scene. Its a complicated business getting it right for sure. Its probably easiest for the users to try different atmospheres and tweak from there, thats what I found anyway. Eventually I'll come to understand all the variables that make a good aerial perspective scene.

My interest in this is for aviation art purposes so need to learn a lot more to make it somewhat realistic looking. ATM I'm far from that.

Try these settings ... it's a Vue 7 Pioneer Atmosphere - save in your Atmospheres folder and load it up into Vue 7. This is the atm. I used for my gallery image (link) ... my early attempts looked more like the screenshots you posted so I worked the settings to get them looking better.

Download atmosphere

Place the camera somewhere above the cloud layer and render. They are pretty fast to render.

Thanks
Richard

Quote - ...This is the atm. I used for my gallery image (link) ...
Download atmosphere

Place the camera somewhere above the cloud layer and render. They are pretty fast to render.

Thanks
Richard

Richard, I downloaded your atmosphere... you are a Godsend. I cannot thank you enough for your generosity! I saw the image you linked to a week or 2 ago... And my mouth dropped at your beautiful scene, and those stunning clouds!

MANY, many thanks for sharing your atmosphere!

That is one sweet atmosphere.  Thanks very much!

Quote - Richard, I downloaded your atmosphere... you are a Godsend. I cannot thank you enough for your generosity! I saw the image you linked to a week or 2 ago... And my mouth dropped at your beautiful scene, and those stunning clouds!

MANY, many thanks for sharing your atmosphere!

You're welcome ... enjoy. Let's see some more great cloudscapes!

A little tip I discovered - I messed around with the fractal function that generated the clouds and it really slowed down rendering a huge amount - I returned to the simple Perlin noise one and worked the main cloud settings and that's what I got, and also a fast render speed even at Superior rendering it only took about 1015 mins.

Thanks
Richard

Thanks very much for posting your atmosphere settings. It makes for a good starting point. When I use your atmosphere, raise the sun a bit and reduce the cloud coverage from 100% to 60% I get the attached image. Definitely an improvement over my previous post.

From my preliminary studies of Vue it appears it is not much good at rendering believable looking clouds unless you are close the top of the cloud layer with your camera and the sun is very low.

I still haven't found a good way to make the clouds look any good. Is there a a way to fuzzy up the bottom edges of the clouds. The standard cloud settings don't seem to do it but was wondering if there is more indepth way of doing it.

Playing around with the clouds and cameras. :) Beautiful stuff, craftycurate!
My first render made me think of a mouth in the clouds. It is now so named. lol

kevjon, you made me want to see what very high points of view would look like. ;)

AnyHOO, if you click the thumbs, they will open images in new windows (or tabs).

Lookin' good!