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lino cloud technique

Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2020 2:00 pm
by crackfox
hi.

i have been trying to get some procedural whispy clouds in blender.
linos vid looks like the ticket but 10 seconds in am already getting into trouble:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=816EfdTvcBQ

the emitter does not behave the same as in the video. in my case it stays a white box even after i add the smoke sim. the settings are a bit different in this version but whatever i am using it remains a solid white box.
even if i add the volume material it stays white.

i generally am having these volume troubles cant get them to act as i am used to with c4d and unreal engine.
seems i would need some hand holding, so any help is appreciated.

Re: lino cloud technique

Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2020 8:51 am
by linograndiotoy
Mantaflow works differently than the Smoke FX I used in the video.
I've created a VDB container using Sculptron. Try to use it as a VDB Volume instead of the smoke simulation.
Domain_Clouds_03.rar
(4.86 MiB) Downloaded 187 times

Re: lino cloud technique

Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2020 11:53 am
by crackfox
hi lino,

i appreciate the fast reply and the file.
i have some of my own vdb´s but was actually interested in having a procedural smoke to fine tune more.

that aside, i still have the same issues.
for example.

attached is the cloud with the density 0.002 and 0.0015.
even such a minute difference in values cases a massive difference in look, and that is something i get often - like a hard dropoff point for some settings.
the second issue is how slow the fog is being sampled. the rendertime seems crazy long.

honestly with unreal engine i have had better results but there is a different show stopping problem with displacement maps being converted to 8bit for some reason.

Re: lino cloud technique

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2020 8:39 am
by linograndiotoy
Can you send your scene/VDB so I can take a look?
Density should be quite predictable, as long as other settings are "right".

Re: lino cloud technique

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2020 2:40 pm
by crackfox
thanks lino,

i will continue on this scene in unreal. i had displacement banding of the terrain in UE but that is work around by using imported orbx terrain as opposed to a displacement texture. chris pinpointed the bug apparently will be fixed.
it seems i can get faster renders in unreal, especially with volumes of any kind.

i could upload the scene with the plane, no displacement or the mechs.