Why would you assume Messiah’s render times would be long? So far they have rendered in just a few minutes. I’m sure when T2 comes out we will be able to do some benchmarks but so far Messiah’s weekness isn’t really speed. Its control. I’m getting closer though. . .
do you intend to fly through the clouds or have them animate?
if not then i dont see a reason why you dont just paint them onto the backplane and use some plates for distant clouds. it will give you the best control. then overlay a bit of your volumetrics in front of those. it would be the fastest and most controllable way imo.
now, this gives me an idea, it would be cool to paint a layer of clouds and then have messiah or a shader populate these strips with volumetrics based on transparency and colors of the layer… hmm.
I’ll be flying around them, through them, look up at them, look down at them. . . The project is all about flying and airplanes. . .
It is for kids though. So it doesn’t have to be super super “real”. Just. . . “cool”.
I’m getting a lot closer.
Not bad Wegg! It’s looking a little cottony if that makes any sense…but if you’re not striving for perfectly realistic then it’s looking good. 
I don’t know how or if this can be applied with Messiah but there was a cool tutorial posted on faking volumetrics in Blender that turned out pretty sweet looking.
Linky: http://salvador.mata.com.mx/blog/index.php/2006/11/30/volumetricos-tutorial-para-blender/
I really like this last one. Stylized - and reads immediately as a cloud.
How does it look in motion? Does it billow at all?
Because if you want massive clouds(as I thought) you have to multiply your little cloud and the rendertime for it with maybe 50?? And if you are going to put alot of airplanes in there, they may need to receive shadows from the clouds?
You will also need good looking motionblur, only that is quite “render-expensive”.
/ Svante
svintaj: I guess the way you worded that was implying that Messiah’s renderer is somehow slower than other solutions. We don’t really get render times for those Terragen stills they have on their website. Yea. . . these procedural clouds will take a long time. BUT. . . rendering it at 720p is only taking 16 minutes a frame. Well within reasonable levels for that resolution. If anything an airplane in the scene blocking the cloud will render faster.
Don’t know how I’m going to deal with motion blur… .
It might not even be an option for me if I stick with Messiah. I really want too. It would give Messiah’s renderer a “Production Proven” stamp.
dobermunk: I’m rendering an animation now. We will see.
pnoland: That technique is exactly how Messiah’s particles work. Its not like Hypervoxels where they are voxels in 3D space. . . its more like a noise mapped onto spheres with edge threshold adjustments. Built for speed.
Ah, okay cool. I wasn’t sure since I havn’t touched Messiah’s particles yet. I’m used to Cinema 4d using Storm Tracer but I’m very interested in trying out the particles in Messiah now.
Even with quick solutions, if you want endless numbers of cloudas you generally have to resort to mapping rerndered planes for those clouds that are farther away from the camera… so I don’t really think render times will be a show-stopper…
D.
Wegg,
Actually, I like the first one.
I like the later ones two, but they have a “painterly” quality which seems not quite John Berkey, but not quite real…if you know what I mean. If you’re doing realistic, I’d tweak the first one. If it’s a “beauty” sot in even a slightly hyper-real or stylized environ, the painterly one is great.
The second image posted seems like I’m watching some game play and the clouds have NO density, ad feels very fake to me. A cloud that size would have “misty” sections, but the center volumes of any specific area would be dense…right?
I love clouds and always hoped we’d have some good solutions. I’m finishing up my Masters, but hope to start on a personal kid’s project, and will probably be doing most clouds on cards, as mentioned above, but will probably also need some volumetric ones.
You’re definitely zeroing in on it!
Best,
Rick
One more thought. Understand that messiah’s shader/render portion has been a mystery to me.
Perhaps what is going on in the last cloud images is that you may have had something in the shader which is creating a more specific drop between value changes in the clouds. Know what I mean? Almost like a Photoshop filter has been applied to posterize it ever so slightly.
Could that be?
Best,
Rick
dobermunk: I think for background clouds I’m going to use the normal maps I can generate in Messiah to give those clouds an extra 3D push. They will still be just images on cards but if I’m smart about it. . . I think I’ll be able to re-light them to my needs on different shots. So I’ll just need a “cloudy sky” template for shots. . . re-arange the lighting for different times of day. . . and render.
I hope.
catizone: My problem with the first one was that it was ALL whispy bits. No real “chunk” to the clouds. There does need to be a balance though.
The particular noise I’m using is fairly high contrast. That does provide for interesting things to happen in the middle but on the edges its just too harsh. I wish we had more noise options. I know I could probably get Darktree into that shader but I’m scared of what that will do with my rendering later on. Darktrees don’t embed into .mpjs and when I start to hand these files out to different places for rendering I don’t want to have to re-configure all their paths just because I used a darktree shader.
I may have too though. 
If it’s procedural noise, could you just render a frame on a flat object, and then play with levels and/or Gaussian blur in Photoshop to soften the transitions? ANd then I guess map it spherically to the cloud? BTW, I thought the first one was the ONLY one that had density, going by the degree of near white and lack of bg color showing thru.
Best,
Rick
Pretty sure that would results in repeating patterns through the cloud if I did that. This procedural approcach ensures that doesn’t happen.
I think I have found a sweet spot.
It renders fast. . . provides me with lots of control over the shape. . . and I think it looks pretty slick. It is for a childrens series. Not to say they aren’t worth the extra effort or anything but you can get away with a bit more freedom in style. No? What do you think?
Very nice…softer blend…(I think even the more painterly one would have worked in the kid’s thing.)
My project is a kid’s thing as well. It needs ocean, sky, and plants of all varieties…
I’m sure I’ll use cards where possible, but will surely mean modeling and other solutions to resolve. Looks like you’ve found a nice way handle the clouds. Is it very difficult to control shape?
One thing I had not yet tackled even thinking about was if there was a way to get those “rolling” edges that add life and beauty to the clouds.
Best,
Rick
My edges should roll. Did you click on the picture for the movie? I think if I were to do a longer test you’d see it more.
I can shape these suckers to be anything I want them to be. Which I think is pretty important. What if the character looks out the window and says “i’m going to fly over there to the cloud that looks like a fish.” Well. . . I’d just build a little fish. . . muck up the pollygons and throw this on it. Fish cloud! They could fly over to it. . . around it. . . under it etc.
I’m pretty happy.
that looks kickass! can you share the settings?
I could see that being useful for some of the motion graphic stuff i do…
