Ok, we got girls, millions of 'em, we got men, hundreds of 'em, hair, clothes, we got cars, bikes, airplains, helecoppers, zepplins, buildings (hundereds of types), streets, we got trees, grass, shrubs, kitchens, livingroom, bedrooms, etc... and billions of props...  And we got beautiful lights to render any type of image we want...

Ok, all good and great, we're able to do (and are doing) any exceptional quality renders we want,  But not renders from an airplane on a cloudy day...

We got cloud domes with flat clouds, and they're excellent for rendering from the ground (or a little above the ground), but... I've yet to find any cloud props.

I was looking at DreamlandModels' stuff and run across one of the promos for Movie Set, City Block 6 http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/movie-sets-city-block-six/85233/ and noticed the clouds were mixed with the buildings/zepplin (promo #6) like in real life.  I sitemailed DreamlandModels and asked him where he got it.  He said that render was done in Vue.

Anyone know if there are any prop clouds... "floating around" (lol) anywhere?   I'm pretty sure if you modelers can create trees, then you can create clouds... even with crossing flat textures,   I bought some fogs from Daz3D uhhh... probably about 6 years ago, and they were nice, but they're not shaped like clouds.

I think I'm gonna go copy some clouds & make some trans maps, load them on some plane primatives... criss cross horizon and vertical, see what happens...

...wolfie

BB once mentioned about developing procedural clouds, but, IIRC, renders were quite long.  There may have been other technically problems, but that was long ago.  Nothing posted ever since.

Yep, I figured the long render times have turned people off from such a thing... but, now there are hundereds of trees from DreamlandModels and Flink, that use trans maps and people are rendering them (still a bit long) with their much upgraded computers.  I honestly believe now's the time to think about clouds.

I just created a cloud using 3 primative planes and a cloud/cloud trans texture, gonna render that, and might even throw in some "3D Texture" cloud node, see what happens.

...wolfie

     You could try some subdivided cube primitives with transparency and displacement to give them chaotic shape.  Sort of a manually-arranged particles method.

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Thanks, seachnasaiigh!  I actually thought about cubes, then thought maybe sky domes would work better.  I used DreamlandModel's and Flinks, but, the UV's are backward for what I want for now so I loaded a primative ball (hi res) and it seems to work better.  I'm also using a couple plane primatives for some single clouds.  Got some test renders cookin, things are starting to look good.  Still I like the fact that you can get "cloud" shadows on the ground, but I do think I'm getting somewhere as for what I'm looking for.

Can you show me your settings you got?  For now I created some clouds (copied/pasted/edited Flinks clouds from Sky 2, turned them black/white for both visual and trans maps), haven't started playing with nodes but what you got there (your image) looks excellent!

BTW while the shadows look natural on the building/ground (darkness), I don't like how dark it is on the clouds, I believe you can turn "recieve shadows" off, but is there a way to lighten the effect some?

...wolfie

Post your results and your mat room work. I'm curious on how you are doing this...

Quote - Post your results and your mat room work. I'm curious on how you are doing this...

Almost done rendering, it's not perfect but I'm getting somewhere with this :)

I'll keep a look out!

Oooooo see those clouds running into things and the shadows?  :)

Ok, this was actually simple and only used common sense for someone who know's Poser's material room.  Used two different clouds & their transmaps, one on the sky domes & ball primitive, and one on the 2 plane primitives.,  Used Flink's sky dome (with my cloud setup) & set it to where the clouds are setting in the distance where the hills are climbing, don't know how to reverse the UV and it wouldn't let me double shrink it to where the UV would end up on the outside so I used a ball primative for the clouds on the left intereacting with the "Fisher Warehouse" sign and the building, and a couple plane primatives in the middle.  All the props using the same material settings (will load on the next post, apparently you can only load one image per post).

What really took a long time was the placements of the sky dome and ball primitive, if you're not careful, you'll notice the "round" part of the primitive which is unnatural, also how the distant clouds didn't look right on the ground.

Also threw in a couple hot rods, big back wheels and all :)

This is where I say you don't use only the IDL lights, you want natural shadows from the clouds, it's a good idea to use a sun as well (point light thousands feet in the air)

I'm making progress though, can use some of BB's brain :)

I have quite a few "cloud" pictures that I took last summer, so it could be possible that I just may make a product out of this.  Don't know yet though.

...wolfie

Dang, there is some serious potential here. I am going to have to explore some more of this when I get a bit more down time. I am in the middle of uploading another freebie.

Cool work, wolf! Keep it up!

Thanks a lot friend! :

BB's multi-level cloud thing has got ~750 nodes and is on nested envspheres IIRC, but he ain't distrib. yet. 

Damn that's a lot of nodes, does his nodes write on a plane/sphere/dome (surface) or do they have some kind of majic and "fill" a prop?  No use creating all those nodes for just a surface when you can do it simple and have it still looking good, still I gotta see what they produce tho.

...wolfie

When BB designs his materials, he is doing it to cover several different versions of Poser as well as do several different things. Like he states, he designs them to do EVERYTHING. More than likely, if he is doing this, it's to give us a more realistic sky than a .jpg added to a dome.

Yep, I know what you're saying too... and I know they'll be so real looking (he goes till things are perfect in a lot of situations).  If he's not finished, though, I'm not waiting lol, I'm gonna play with what I have already, even play with displacements.  I already tore a bunch of my "outside country" photos up to get some clouds lol.

It would be nice if I can deform props/primitives or knew how to, then I'd create textures to accompany them in certain ways to trick the eyes thinking they're really clouds.  I don't even know how to play with Poser's deformer, and have no other programs to do anything lol.

I was watching "Planes" last night (produced by producers of "Cars") and seeing them go through clouds and stuff made me really wish Poser was able to do that.  I can bet those programs costs thousands!  I'm not that nuts LOL.

...wolfie

Later today when I have some free time, I'll see if I can model a semi-realistic cloud. If I can pull it off, I'll give it to you to play with.

Dude that sounds sweet!  I forgot you said you were uploading a freebie yesterday and I never thought that you might be able to do something like this :D

Yeah, I uploaded an electric fan! :D

I'll let you know in a few hours. It's 8:41am here in the Philippines and I have some chores to get to. I'll have something for you in a couple hours...

I am going to redo it, and let you do the texturing...

I need an email addy, if you can PM me.

Hey now that looks interesting!!  Just now woke up from a nap, it's 8:58PM here in Montana, America.

Sitemailed you with email addy, gonna be a couple hours before I can do anything, but I can't wait to play with ther :D :D

Cool, I'll check my site mail. I am going to send you the UV mapped .obj file and a template you can use to make your trans maps and what-not.