Spread cloud effect

[skunk184]

without using a plugin i think the only way to get clouds looking anything like your picture would be to use a particle system.....

i m not 100 percent sure about this but thats how i would attempt to create clouds without plugins!

[tazmanian]

ok..... but i want to do this without Plugin ....... i think some one can help me ........ is there are any MAx experts there ?

Please guide me with this.

[xynaria]

I don't think I've ever seen clouds like that done in Max without plugins and using volumetrics like that would take a very long time to render. If you just want to have the clouds as a moving bg image as opposed to things flying through them (and again you won't quite get them like that).. you might want to try out Terragen,
www.planetside.co.uk/terragen

which is free for non commercial users and does some of the best clouds of the landscape packages. You could then render this out as an avi file to map on to your enviroment (actually doing the rendering will take some time though). :)

[tazmanian]

thanks... a lot ..
but im trying to do in MAX ... any one else ???????????????

[VI2]

One solution is to apply a cloud texture to to a flat plane facing the camera, and using lots of those you can create bunch of flat clouds... dunno if thats what you want...

[tazmanian]

thanx ....
ok... thats not a solution for this problem. i need to animate also ....
shall i apply a boxgizmo (any thing else) and setup like clouds ??? ah..

this is i want ..... a lots of clouds going very speed on top of my camera ..
??

[xynaria]

I would love to be proved wrong but I don't think you are are going to get anything like you are after by using Box Gizmos...you probably stand far more chance by using meshes or particle systems and procedural texture and opacity maps (e.g.smoke.) I have only seen one result done in Max without plugins that came close and that was by a very experienced user and rendered in Mental Ray. I'm not trying to put you off trying at all.. just to say that what you want is something that would challenge most users. You can get close to those type of clouds with Ultrashock and I think Afterburn and Pyrocluster.. but you will probably be thinking of going on holiday while they rendered. :)

[googlo]

I was messing around one day animating maps and materials to understand them and Max better (I'm new to CGI stuff) and realized reading this post that it could very easily be applied in a manner to what you want. This involves materials only that are included with Max. The effect is similar to clouds evolving and dissipating over time.. with a few tweaks, it may work for what you are looking for..

Understand though that the changing color effects and how the material shades out was specific to an effect I was trying to invent for study sake on making an object disappear using only materials and maps that ships with Max 4.0.

Here's a link to a small video (~80K) of it, it was part of a series of test renders I was doing. I didn't want ot post how just yet because a bit involved to create..

Here's the link. the video is in divx format, 4.0 I think

http://pweb.jps.net/~bonavera/Ball2.avi

[skunk184]

hey googlo looks to me like you just change a few settings from a sample scene that comes with the book.....3ds max r* f/x and design......

[googlo]

skunk184:

I came up with that on my own, I've never read that book. I have no reason to copy ideas and claim them as my own, especially amongst a group of anonymous users.. What is the point? I'm not a child. And it's just as pointless to try and prove that to you because I can't except by what I say and what you choose to believe.. So, I won't. I just wish that trying to help someone with my own creative knowledge wouldn't have come under such prejudicial fire.

Thanks for making my first post here a welcome one..

[skunk184]

hey man....chill your boots:cool:i was just saying what it looks like .........no need for you to get offended....as for prejudical fire i think thats a bit off myself , i just said what i thought....nothing prejudiced about my initial post.......

[Ls3D]

Sorry but the best looking clouds I have seen are also done with a plugin - Andy Murdock/Afterburn more specifically;

http://www.lotsofrobots.com/

-Shea

:(

[Gilgamesh]

Hey, don't give up yet. Here are some incredible clouds/smoke with no plugins.
http://216.102.154.195/jeremy/illuminations/Images/DriftingSmoke.jpg

You can download the MAX file at this site:
Psuedo-Volumetric Particles (http://216.102.154.195/jeremy/illuminations/particle.html)

Pretty impressive stuff.

[ashishdantu]

hello everyone ...

I have been also trying to get a similar effect .. but it was a "smoke " kinda feel that i wanted..

i have a small avi file.. pls.. see this: http://210.212.210.11/ash/smoke.avi

If u feel that the smoke is ok , then we can think of changing its colors + textures to look like clouds against a white color and if this is going to work good .. pls.. let me know..

I used a tube and assigned some smoke + dust like textures with low transperancy .. i applied wave + FFD modifiers which were animated .. to get that motion kinda look..

If this helps, let me know.. i would be very happy !!:D:D :o

[Joel Hooks]

jeremey engleman's examples are great. You could certainly adapt that technique to get a decent looking cloud layer.

Afterburn is where it's a though for volumetrics. :D

[tazmanian]

ya ..... these tutorials are very helpfull to me ...thanks
and i cant download the AVI of files of ashishdantu ... i think some codec are missing ....

[Edin]

Best way I found was to use atmospheric fire ad change the colour. Fool around with the settings and you can get fricken AMAZING clouds.

[zkydz]

Well, it took me forever, but I finally located a Tut I downloaded a while back. I couldn't find the actual site, so I had to up the files I had.
Here's a small avi of the file this guy created:
http://www.freewebz.com/zkydz/Tuts/Clouds.avi


and here's the files that you can d'ld to reverse engineer the effect:
http://www.freewebz.com/zkydz/Tuts/wolken2.zip

I wish I could credit the guy who did this.

zkydz

[xynaria]

Nice example zkydz.. that's what I had in mind when I mentioned using procedurals and particle systems. Just done a few quicktests and to my mind it actually works better using the smoke map rather than the noise. A bit of playing around will probably benefit it even further. :)

[tazmanian]

hehe ...
the link is dead ....... any alternative links to the site ...
or can any one mail the ZIP file ????

[zkydz]

The link is fine. Freewebz may not allow direct linking. Try a copy and paste of the url. That's how I make it work.

zkydz

[xynaria]

Works ok with right click...save target as.... as well :)

[tazmanian]

thanks a lot guys ....... thanks for ur Tutorials .....

[R.R]

Ahh......if you don't mind to use plugin for you cloud, here is one for you.....try Afterburn.

[Risibility]

<<Edin is right>>

You could just use a sphere gizmo stretched to your liking and do an environmental "explosion". Just keep the explosions "phase" at the same or very little difference throughout animation and change the colors from firey red and orange to gray and white. Simple enough. And sphere gizmo's, etc, are just as user friendly as far as animating as a normal box/sphere.

If this didn't make sense or you don't know how to do this...

Create Tab > Helpers > Atmospheric Apparatus > Sphere Gizmo
...and once youve made the sphere....
Rendering > Environment > Add > Fire Effect
...now just mess with the colors and pick your gizmo as the sphere gizmo you just created...

Making sure im not full of crap, I went along with my instructions and in about 3 minutes came up with this easily animatable cloud.

[Risibility]

Be sure to set the phase to 1 or above. Otherwise, the cloud will probably not appear because it has not "exploded" yet. The cloud won;t explode during animation though as long as you keep the phase at the same point throught the animation.

[Lois Must Die]

Great simple solution to an otherwise over-complicated task with truely excellent results :applause:

Thank you very much :thumbsup:

Rob

[iART]

zkydz: file not found (for both links)

risibility: thanks, i have been trying to achieve this effect for quite a while. i will try your example out tonight

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