How do I create realistic clouds in Blender?

How do I create realistic clouds in Blender?

3 Likes

This tutorial doesn´t guide you to "Realistic cloud, the image of the Disney VDB asset is misleading, since that is not At all what is used in the tutorial either.

for the tutorial I would say it is a basic simple cloud generation tutorial, but to get realistic clouds, there must be more effort put in to the main shape, detail and cloud noise as well as shading.
So there is so much more that could/should be done when modeling the cloud shape initially.

The best results is probably if you simulate your cloud first with fluids, it takes time to simulate and get that right, then save out vdb sequences or copy single frames to work with, reload as VDB and render.

You can also fluid simulate out parts, reload as mentioned, then conver the volume to mesh, with that mesh, you can then reduce resolution, or copy and clone and sculpt on it, once you have changed that shape to your desire, convert back to a volume with mesh to volume and add finer noise with volume displace.

Mantaflow is however just too slow for me to be patient with, they did update it so it now updates properly when moving the mesh or changing forces, but so darn slow.
And since I have Embergen, it makes no sense to use mantaflow for cloud simulations.

2 Likes

And for shading of clouds, it takes a bit of work with the nodes to get certain effects, preferably tested on the Disney VDB asset as I did in this thread, sample image not the same light scatter, but it can be tweked endlessly, so imagine the Embergen cloud simulation in to blender and shaded there with the same shader as I have on the Disney asset, it´s a matter of time just for me and priority of what I want to do :slight_smile:

VDB-WDA disney Cloud scattering tests - Artwork / Blender Tests - Blender Artists Community

2 Likes

Yep, and I´ll post the link here as embedded to Samuel Krugers excellent video tutorial on how to shade clouds the best, I use some of it but not all and a bit different, but he really seem to know what he´s doing.
Since there´s been a couple of threads about how to make realistic clouds in various posts, there is some cross posting with this video.