Blender Cycles test rendering of the Free VDB cloud pack

Off course you would like almost realtime rendering don´t you, and the Unreal VDB import with it´s realtime rendering is Gorgeous.

Though I have yet to install Unreal and try it out, meanwhile, cyclesX can be used of course, sample below, takes a bit of time with a lot of volume bounces…

The number one file in the Free cloudpack here on JangaFX site…but cloned 3 times, work always has to be done within the PBR volume material, setting right density, colors, curves to the right inputs etc…

That’s a really nice render :slight_smile:

Thank´s Nick.

Yeah…I´m starting to getting the hang of shading clouds nicely in blender, of course at the cost of rendertime, but it produces that extra depth that is a bit hard to get with the realtime render in Embergen, though I love some of the shading in there still, perhaps more so for the smoke and fire than for the cloud shading though.

Previously…or mostly I otherwise have been using Lightwave as the main app, but it´s current status is non developed for the moment, and perhaps at it´s end.

And native Lightwave´s VDB can´t produce multiple bounces/scattering of the light inside of the volume, blender can, and it also takes advantage of the GPU which Lightwave doesn´t.

This sample could be even better had I set total bounces much higher, that would have brought forth the white contrasts much more, will have to revisit that.

Otherwise it is transparent bounces, volume bounces at a faily high amount that does the trick, combined with the light paths nodes and absorbtion channels I adress, there´s a little trick there that most people probably don´t know of.

I had this thread over at blenderartist forums trying to reach the disney Hyperion quality in shading with the free Disney VDB asset, it´s a tough one…

Original hyperion render from disney…

my tests in blender, could have rendered out to better quality, but main purpose was to try and acheive cloud powder effect.

For blender users importing VDB´s from Embergen, I made a dummy guide to enhance cloud brightness and volume, always at a render cost of course…

different shading on that disney VDB asset…

Backlit…

Now…I have made some Embergen clouds, but I need a bit more time to do more of that, before I am satisfied, will go through blender as well.

Upcoming projects may also be nebula stuff, which I often like to do in Lightwave, with pure fractal noise on volume items, or it´s native gas solver ( the crude under developed slow fluid system it has)
Looks like something like this, from VPR viewport in lightwave, but takes some time to render with global scattering dispersing the light scatter for extra glow effects, lensflares from lightwave´s default light system.

So this is image of the nebula isn´t Embergen, but lightwaves gas solver, driven by a few particles to serve as velocity force advection on the gas, it has a nice whispy feeling to it with it´s default settings, but it is rather slow to simulate and it´s openGL and performance is just horrible, so i will try and work more with nebula gas movement in embergen, and import to lightwave, because I like the scatter color control for that typical gas color scheme, it´s actually a bit trickier in blender ot acheive that, multiple scattering in cases with nebulas isn´t that necessary as it would be with cumulus clouds…so Lightwave works to some degree here, this sim was to low in voxel resolution though, so quality could be better.

This image with the Moon however, is a blender render of that cloud pack you guys released ( first file), and a sphere with a moon map and emission…inverse distant fallof necessary to have it affect the cloud volume.
But I will soon apply all this on my own made embergen clouds and nebulas…

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