More volumetric clouds [new video]

Community Showcases
1

Inspired by summer like everyone else I guess, I decided to also implement some volumetric clouds:

Video 1: http://vimeo.com/13502774

Video 2 (movement and dynamic light): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCsgWG59Nw8

These are actually quite simple. Much of the looks has to do with the texture you are using.

Planned features:

  • Support for dynamic light vector. Done.
  • Support for multiple-“cloudlet” textures, for more variation. Will probably use the UV animation support in particle systems. Done.
  • Correct intra-cloud cloudlet occlusion. Done.

350896--12193--$clouds_122.jpg
350896--12194--$clouds2_582.jpg

2

Nice, doing the same thing man 8)

pm’d you

3

So many cloud systems out there, maybe it’s time to add support for snow, rain, storms and lightning bolts :slight_smile:

PS: Is it going to be free?

4

Free? Probably.
Making good progress, but having a technical problem with sorted billboard rendering - the particle array gets shuffled so any persisten state I’m keeping about each individual particle starts to reference the wrong particles when the rendering goes on.

Anyone know how to work around this?

5

There is probably no “nice” solution for that. You may give every particle a slightly different energy.
You have a list of particles, sorted by energy. And during an update, you need to get the particle list from the particle system. Smallest energy in particle system list is the one with the smallest energy in your particle list.
You certainly need to be careful with the energy values, such that still the correct uv is used. Horrible solution, but that is the only way I can think of with Unity’s particle system.

Implementing your own particle system would be an alternative. (That’s what I did to solve that issue.)
I am curious how you implemented dynamic light vector?! No idea how to do that with the Unity’s particle system, except if you made a cg shader.

Edit: Ok, you may be using particle colors as well, which would be the easiest solution I guess :smile:

6

Agree’d!

7

Oooh, looking very nice. Certainly the most consistent looking cloud system I’ve seen on the forums. No weird popping, and the fly-throughs look smooth. :slight_smile:

8

New video with turbulentish movement and dynamic light vector. More popping though, sadly.

9

Greate! Awesome! How did you do it? I’m also trying to make good looking clouds, but it’s really hard and my clouds doesn’t look like clouds at all. Could you write a tutorial(if not very detail, maybe just the main steps)? I really want to make something similar to your clouds.