Yes, thanks for the link, works perfectly in Complete 8.4 :)
Also I've purchased your "Cloudscapes" pack a while ago (great stuff!), and though the atmospheres only work in 8 (as they are supposed to), the cloud materials work in 7.4 as well, just in case others may find this interesting.

• Lars "bigbraader"

I really love the result (and speed) (running 8.5 xStream) Hope to see something showing up on Cornucopia soon :)

J-L

Thank you, guys :-)

J-L:  Well, I would like to tell you but since the TOS forbids that I better shut my mouth. Kind of strange situation. I guess I will have to talk about it elswehere.
Glad you like the result. I think it adds something nice to Vue skies.
Yeah right, it`s rendering blazingly fast, despite the complexity of the graph.

Lars: Good you remind us. Thanks. I was told so earlier by someone but then forgot about it.

Shawn: Have uploaded just the cloud layer. maybe you will be able to load it into 8.0. Can you try? Download here

Crashes 7 Complete when trying to load the .vue file and the .mat just cant be read.

Nice work though, looks good :)

Jon

Thanks Jon :-)

Yeah, I was afraid that this was the case, since it has been created in 8.4, not 8.0 (like my previous set).

Hey, it`s nice you guys are still around.

Mats from 8.4 can't be read by 8.0.  Eonite, that last link tries to open as a Microsoft Access file shortcut for some reason.  Will try it later on another computer.

No probs mate :) Anytime

Jon

Ok.  I tried on another computer.  My Vue Infinite 8.0 says it cannot open the MAT file.  The thumbnail of it displays though in the clouds list.

Thanks, Shawn. Now we know at least that it`s not possible. :sad:

Eonite, I just stumbled upon your White Magic in a store close by. Very, very nice, and soooooo fast to render :)
Great product, thanks a lot :)

Hi Abraham and everyone!

Thanks for posting this here 

Did not expect the collection to be released that fast...so I was surprised to read your post.

I am really happy you like the new clouds!

Yeah, they render incredibly fast!!!

Below are the previews...

Where can they be purchased now?

Thanks for all your great work,

Paula

I`m glad you appreciate, Paula

Ok, since you were asking:
http://www.cornucopia3d.com/purchase.php?item_id=9059

Hello folks!

Just noticed that yet another cloud pack "Metaclouds Vol #1 " is available now :-)))

It`s hard to describe these clouds in words, All I can say is that they have little in common with the look and feel of  Metaclouds as we know them.

If you have any questions don`t hesitate to ask :-)

I will try to post a couple of images later today so you can get an impression.
 

Thank you for the head up :)
Got them, and once again very happy. I only have one question for you right now: in the text on cornucopia, they mention two pdf with explanations but apparently they forgot to put them in the archive :) I guess it's faster telling you than contacting them :)

J-L

Thanks a lot Abraham!

Will try to handle it as soon as possible!!!

Sorry for inconvenience...

No problem at all :) It sometimes happen when they prepare the files for download.

Okay, after playing a bit more with this package I have to say once again "THANK YOU" :) I never used metaclouds with more ease than this and like for the "White Magic" package, I find them to render pretty fast (faster than a traditional metacloud for the same level of quality)
Great package, thanks again :)

My pleasure, Abraham! 

**************Important:: What "White Magic" and "Metaclouds Vol. 1" is concerned the docs seem to be missing in both packs! I am afraid that this can`t be handled before next week.  Sorry!
If you wish to get the docs now please PM me.

Ok, below are some renders using Metaclouds from this set.

You will notice that they differ from the typical Metaclouds look...

If you have any questions, please post them here :-)

not surprisingly, I bought yer clouds! ;)
awesome as always, sir!

think I sued your previous clouds ot make this pic, not sure though as I start with one thing and tweak it madly, lol
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2112327

Hi silverblade!

Thank you!!!

Cool picture and nice use of clouds! Not a place for humans, I guess :-)

Just sent you a site mail...

Ta mate! :)
Well, folk who live in that fictional world aren't exactly "normal" :p
taken ages to get such odd skies looking nice, since it's much easier to work on "real" ones, than making a believable but abnormal atmosphere, IMHO

anyways I love your clouds which are much more liek typicla real cloud types :)

Hi folks,

Have been informed by Cornucopia that in the cloud packs "White Magic" and "Metaclouds Vol.1" the documentation is now included. :-)
 Everyone who purchased the packs with missing documentation can simply redownload them.
(The information will help you get a lot more out of those packages!)

 Sorry for that flaw...

Eonite,

I recently bought your cloud packs and am loving using them.  I just wanted to know if you are using a linear workflow for your atmospheres now?  If you are what method are you employing as I believe that in 8.5 the linear workflow does not extend to the atmosphere.  Has it affected you?

Hi Speculart,

Thanks! I am happy to hear that

Well, I tend to use the linear work flow. However this brightens up the sky and clouds considerably. I can`t say for sure but this seems to be the effect of the gamma correction.

 For my taste the sky becomes a bit overly bright especially with a sun high up in the sky. A solution may be to set the exposure to a minus value and/or to tweak the atmosphere settings.

Maybe Abraham has some further advice on this.

Btw. Today I did some tests using the Vue 9 Pre-release using Vue Internal unit=1.

While the set "White Magic" works fine (with not too high AP settings), "Metaclouds Vol.1" seems to not like Unit= 1 too much. Some clouds look different or not so nice as with Unit=0.1. Also with Unit=1 the position of the Metacloud objects needs to be readjusted (they seem very small or are invisible, but this is because they are too far away and too high up in the sky).

With Vue 9 and Unit=0.1 things work as expected.

For those interested Michel Rondberg has published reviews of the two cloud sets on his website.

http://www.michelrondberg.com/2010/11/01/vue-clouds-by-dick-sherzinger-review-part-1/

http://www.michelrondberg.com/2010/11/02/vue-clouds-by-dick-scherzinger-review-part-2/

I have been multiplying all my rgb values by .4545 for sky color, cloud color, decay...everything.  It seems to help alot.  I was getting very frustrated with the over exposure in the skies.  Have you messed around with a similar method?

I heard my name :)

I have to agree it's tricky to use any existing atmosphere preset (and non textured material prests) with gamma enabled (but it's also very hard to get a correcting lighting without gamma when you are used to "gamma aware" render engines).

The .4545 technic is a good one, but it works a lot better when the color values are exprimed in float (like in mental ray for example) than in the 0-255 range (you can find the correct formula for the 0-255 range here http://www.happy-digital.com/freebies/tip_gamma.html) and I really hope in a future version of vue, we will have the option to choose between integer and float for colors.

Another problem is the way the sky is actually calculated. It is fairly easy to get the blue right with some experiments (and then save this as a very precious preset :P) but it's a bit harder to find the right decay color (a degamma of the existing color isn't enough). There is quiet a bit of math happening in the blending between sky and decay color and of course color math isn't transferable between color space.

It gets even trickier when you add the materials to the equation. If you only have texture maps, all is fine and depending on your preference settings, vue will fix them for you. But when you start to have color swatch applied, then it gets dirty. Presets were created by hand, color were choosen to look good once rendered, and of course, when the render engine change its output (for the best here) then all colors start to be wrong. With a very simple material, it's easy to add a gamma node near the output, but for a more complex one it doesn't always work so well.

What I did for the sky ? I gave up trying to adjust "scientifically" (by that I mean, using math on the existing values) and I started working with "what I want to achieve" on one monitor and vue on the other. Once you managed to get a couple of realistic color schemes for various situation it get easier.

Luckily, the two cloud sets work very well with any kind of gamma since clouds are basically "gamma" neutral (I leave out the "scale problem" introduced with vue 8.5 scale change

Vue 9 xStream pre-release

Gamma 2.2

Sky mean altitude: 6km

Sky color: R0 G9 B29

Decay amount 46%

Decay mean altitude 5km

Decay color: R183 G110 B4

Thanks for the settings Abraham.

What a fuss.  This should have been thought about!

mmmm whitegold magic.

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You are very welcome :) One other thing I noticed when playing with the sky: if you choose a realistic sky mean altitude (something between 6 and 7 km) you can use a very dark color for your sky and get an excellent result (something as dark as R0 G4 B20 can give you a very deep blue while still looking realistic)

@Speculart: No I have not tried this method (yet).

@Ambraham: Thanks a lot for the info. I hoped you would be around when your help was needed :-)

Beautifully set sky!

I tend to prefer the non scientific tweaking method as well :-)

Quote - (I leave out the "scale problem" introduced with vue 8.5 scale change

Indeed this is a problem, at least for Metaclouds objects like the ones from the set.

And even with Unit=0.1 the Metaclouds clouds look a bit different (They seem to not have the level of detail they had in previous versions). Will try to sort that out with E-ON.

Was going through some renders I did with Gamma correction (and made some new ones today). Indeed there are some renders where the sky is somewhat too bright. But I also found others where I was using the physical atmosphere and I found them really nice the way they were, even with Gamma correction. Maybe it has to do with the camera angle which points to the sky. Also the camera height was sometimes not at sea level but a couple of hundred meters higher , which darkens the sky.

Below are a couple of examples where find that despite gamma correction the sky looks natural to me. Judge yourself :-)

All three pics are rendered in Vue 9. The rocks btw. are all Metablobs with displacement applied (There are some Vue 9 issues with displacement too. For instance when you rotate a displaced Metablob you get artifacts. This can be avoided by "unblobbing", then rotate, then re-create the Metablob).

True, some of the presets do work out of the box, and some don't really need a color change but simply an adjustement of the "sky mean altitude parameter".

BTW, very, very nice rocks, I hope some day you will consider selling some presets :)

Quote - True, some of the presets do work out of the box, and some don't really need a color change but simply an adjustement of the "sky mean altitude parameter".

I think that the atmospheres from the Physical collection might work best to start with since they are (as far as I  understand it) physically accurate, while the others are probably made to look right with no gamma correction (this is just what I assume).

Quote - BTW, very, very nice rocks, I hope some day you will consider selling some presets :)

Thanks Abraham :-) Have been a experimenting quite a lot with displacement throughout the year and was able to come up with some convincing stuff.

However I dont feel its the right moment for such a pack because there are currently some issues related to displacement in Vue 9. Have mentioned one point further above (artifacts when displaced objects are rotated).

The other point is that I can`t make displaced procedural terrains look right in Vue 9 (was much better in Vue 8.5).

This does not mean that you cannot get nice displacements with Vue 9. As long as a Metablob is not rotated after having been "metablobbed" you can get great result with no artifacts. Also in Vue 9 there seems to be an improved  population of ecosystem instances.

A good example is Wabes`s moss. I really like it now in Vue 9. In earlier versions I  had the problem that it populated the instances in lines, when I tried go apply it on displaced Metablobs. Now it looks as beautiful as I always hoped it would look :-)