Good looking clouds ?

I’ve tried making a cloud but always ends up a mess, probably because I have no idea what I’m doing and just added random cloud sprites. The following is the nicest I’ve seen. Can someone guide me in the right direction ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ik4n1iz6qY

Looks like that example uses tons of sprites and translucent shadow casting.

You can see a guide on turning on translucent shadow casting here. I wasn’t able to get it working in my current build but I haven’t tried it for a while. maybe somebody else can verify if it works for them?

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Resources/ContentExamples/EffectsGallery/1_H/

I have a weather system coming out soon that uses slice-based volumetrics to achieve decent looking/performing clouds, here’s the thread for it and here’s a video example:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=2la2j_IU7Ac

Nice!!

One thing you can try if you have a more card-based approach is using the RayMarched heightmaps. This can allow the various individually placed cards to have more accurate lighting. We used this a bit for the paragon announce cine and at some point we were using it to bake out groups of cloud sprites in the editor.

I just wrote up a post on a new function for this, RayMarchedHeightmap:

http://shaderbits.com/blog/ray-marched-heightmaps

RayMarchHeightmap.JPG

Node_RayMarchHeightmap.JPG

I’ve been following your blog since the first post and I just saw you posted this today! In fact I just got home and I’m giving it a go now, I’m really, really excited! Thanks so much for sharing, you’re awesome!!!

Hey @RyanB I’m searching for that function in 4.13.1 but I don’t see it, I think I can just plug the code into a custom node but I figured I’d let you know as the blog post says it’s in there, maybe it’s just me though.

Apologies, seems it went in just after the 4.13 cutoff. I have copied it here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k8v91pf6qkdvm73/RayMarchHeightmap.zip?dl=0

Thanks for catching that!

No sweat, just sent a request. Thanks again!

Thanks for the response, shall give it a try.

Found this vid … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JO2hojkv1fc&list=PLB34C2DDCFBBD8699&index=74 … mentions “a cube like texture setup” and have no idea where he’s going with it because it’s UDK and I’m still extremely vague on UE4.

Anyone care to translate it ?

Once again, amazing post. Thanks!