Quote - Can you create more dramatic lighting effects with this kind of setup (rim-lit clouds)?
In any case, I'm mightily impressed with the render time of just a few minutes with all those nodes.

I think so but it will be tricky as all getout. Right now I'm just trying to get the overall effect to work. I'm not happy with the cloud function itself. I did this with FractalSum because it is the fastest of them all, but it doesn't produce the kind of pattern I want. The cloud boundaries are very diffuse here, even though the FS node is set up to do 24 octaves of noise!

I'm experimenting with fBm. This node is 10 times slower, and cannot be used in 60 layers without serious performance problems, but it has a much nicer detailed pattern to it. But, to use it, I have to solve the sampling artifact problem. I need to get the number of sampling layers down from 30 to around 6 in order to use that node. Unfortunately, the more detailed the cloud is, the more sampling layers you need. With the fBm node in the same setup as I have here, I get much worse sampling artifacts even with 30 layers. But the pattern is much nicer.

Ultimately, I want the shader to pay attention to the main light position. You should be able to move your infinite light, and this will influence 3 things:

1) The clouds will be lit from the right direction. At the moment, they are always lit from directly above.

2) If you are looking at the "sun", there will be a hazy glow around the sun. If there clouds between you and the sun, or even nearby, they will light up in full HDR.

3. If you move the sun to near the horizon, the sky color will change to a full sunset, and the clouds will turn gold or pink or whatever, just as in real life.

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