Clouds in T3D

[MilkywayM16]

Are they volumetric clouds?

From my test the cloud layer is not occluding the god ray shader.

 

They are but they aren't. They don't use a true volumetric approach like ray marching or anything and they aren't built in world space so you can't fly up to them anyway, they're locked to the player's camera.

 

@MilkywayM16

That looks good already. Definitely a much better sense of volume. Can you control how much coverage it has? One thing I dislike about the current cloud effects is it's hard to get a totally overcast sky.

Thanks! :D

The coverage is totally controllable. My plan is to make tons of variables controllable in the same fashion as any other scene object in T3D. Currently these clouds grow, shrink, and move procedurally with tons of room for customization.

[JeffR]

That sounds excellent.

It'd be nice if we could get it to project shadows too, but that's a whole different can of worms.

[MilkywayM16]

That sounds excellent.

It'd be nice if we could get it to project shadows too, but that's a whole different can of worms.

I've been thinking about that actually. Conceptually I think it would be really easy with this system. Maybe down the road I'll recruit someone else to help with that aspect as well as occluding god rays.

[Chelaru]

The shadow side will be nice and the god ray to.

Could you do a time laps video? I want to see how they change shape .

[marauder2k9]

the artwork for the cloudlayer is controlled in its alpha channel almost entirely i think

Does this mean that the normal map is unnecessary? Personally I think the addition of the normal map makes the clouds look worse. I think it was originally implemented to give some depth to the cloud layer but, at least with the default asset, it looks off to me.

 

I think the normal map is just to simulate some form of depth in the clouds

Here is a cloud layer with a normal map.

http://imgur.com/cR6EDbJ.jpg

here is the exact same settings without normal data in the texture

http://i.imgur.com/ANh1Z9Z.jpg

[MilkywayM16]

@Chelaru I'll probably make a separate thread dedicated to this little project soon and I'll eventually post a video of it in motion there. I want to work on getting it to a better state first.

@marauder2k9 Thanks, that's what I figured.

[Skipper]

I got the 3d clouds from pacific demo working