Procedural cycles Clouds shader. Staff Pick

  • November 19, 2014
  • 11,218 Downloads
  • 153 Likes
  • Blender 2.7x
  • Render: Cycles
  • Creator: kilbeeu
  • License: CC-0
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Description:

Fully procedural cloud shader for cycles.

Simply apply this shader to convex meshes to generate unique cloud for each object. No UVs needed.

howto: youtube.com/watch?v=Ba18cwDSAsk

Comments:

  • jefftml profile picture
    jefftml

    Great material! I was just looking for something like this.

    Written November 20, 2014
  • 2Theo profile picture
    2Theo

    The best work I've seen so far. Thanks for sharing it.

    I liked very much your youtube channel too.

    Edited November 20, 2014
  • contmike profile picture
    contmike

    Absolutely amazing! Thank you very much for sharing this with us. I've made the clouds with this for this render: http://contmike.deviantart.com/art/Practice-character-fanart-496323826

    Edited November 23, 2014
  • blackdot profile picture
    blackdot

    looks pretty cool, i did your tutorial, found it on BA i think. but i feel with the noise texture in blender, it's still looking more a bit like foam than cloud. i couldnt manage to do it better however.

    Edited November 25, 2014
  • kilbeeu profile picture
    kilbeeu

    yup, this one is pretty much starting point and an idea to improve. one thing you could try is to use more noise layers - for vector manipulation and also for density color substraction. good luck!

    Written January 28, 2015
  • skreider profile picture
    skreider

    Any tips on decreasing render time? I noticed in your youtube video it was working pretty quick. It took about 6 hours to render some clouds on my 16 core server... 64 volume samples and the default 1024 step size.

    Edited December 07, 2014
  • kilbeeu profile picture
    kilbeeu

    well, that's a problem for sure. you say step size, but i understand you meant step count ;) using bigger step size will actually speed up your renders a lot, but will also dramatically reduce details.

    how to improve? couple things you might try: - branched path tracing (wchich i assume you already use, but what many people miss is that you also set bounces and samples per light in the scene); - use clamp setting for direct and indirect rays; - don't use too strong lights, in fact, use only sun for the key lighting (with low size for better details), of course with multiple importance on; and probably background for fill lighting; - use as few glossy, transmission, sss shaders as possible, turn off caustics etc;

    unfortunately i don't know magic tricks for volume rendering ;)

    Edited January 28, 2015
  • Combs profile picture
    Combs

    This is great, thank you

    Edited December 16, 2014
  • Armins54 profile picture
    Armins54

    Looks so realistic!

    Edited January 24, 2015
  • jim-x profile picture
    jim-x

    Is there a way to make them look alive (animate them)?

    Written March 18, 2015
  • kilbeeu profile picture
    kilbeeu

    Of course. Depending on how you randomize the noise. In this example it was based on object's position as far as i remember so you would just add to the vector position of another object (like empty) and animate this empty' position around scene.

    Written July 09, 2015
  • lowlands profile picture
    lowlands

    Great blend! Very nice results and indeed very low on memory ...

    Edited March 18, 2015
  • moby3 profile picture
    moby3

    thanks for releasing this under cc-0, but if we wanted to credit you how would you like us to?

    Edited April 05, 2015
  • kilbeeu profile picture
    kilbeeu

    Well, in that case nickname and youtube link (description) would be the best way, since it shows whole process.

    Edited April 15, 2015
  • ilmyanov profile picture
    ilmyanov

    Thanks for sharing this! Used it as a base to create the clouds in my short film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLgHulH9NFY

    Edited April 27, 2015
  • Hoodboy profile picture
    Hoodboy

    WOW.thats great. I'd love to see the blend Files of the amimated clouds. I tried to achiev sth. simmilar but im totaly stuck. Is it possible to send me the File for learning? Best Regards

    Written June 22, 2017
  • silasr profile picture
    silasr

    Looks very realistic!!! thank you

    Written November 19, 2015
  • Blender276 profile picture
    Blender276

    This is Great! Thanks Kilbeeu

    Written January 06, 2016
  • Tertion profile picture
    Tertion

    Looks very well done ! Thanks !

    Written January 24, 2016
  • zsigamer profile picture
    zsigamer

    CUDA Error.... This video card are very good. Or no?

    Written April 10, 2016
  • Murhh profile picture
    Murhh

    which CUDA error? these tend to have more information attached. out of memory one? more ram on card required to contain complexities of scene. tweak global illumination values.. reduce the amount of geometry.. procedurals are typically computationally heavy and require a lot of ram. Baking back works in many workflows, doubt you could apply here though.

    Written March 30, 2018
  • zsigamer profile picture
    zsigamer

    so beautiful.

    Written April 10, 2016
  • tilmah profile picture
    tilmah

    Thank you for this! Coming to the background of a GIF near you.

    Edited August 15, 2016
  • SVAFnemesis profile picture
    SVAFnemesis

    OMG those nodes are giving me seizure. I'll never be able to make something like that.

    Written September 08, 2016
  • YannD profile picture
    YannD

    Very impressive and very realistic !! Big thanks !!!

    Written September 10, 2016
  • bcgreen24 profile picture
    bcgreen24

    My clouds are coming out dark gray rather than white...is it my lighting? Or is there something I can tweak in the shader to change the cloud color?

    Thanks! Bryan

    Edited December 01, 2016
  • RobMilliken profile picture
    RobMilliken

    bcgreen24 - I had the same issue at first. Look at his example project though. Set your lighting to emission under use nodes (I use sun then hemi to 'tone' them). The person who created this project set the strength to 7. I personally used 10 with the 'tone' colored lighting (a nice orange and yellow look nice!) set to a strength of 3 with great results!

    Written May 06, 2018
  • Murhh profile picture
    Murhh

    I knew exactly what I was after would be here! Thank you very much kind sir! don't worry.. I won't bring silly questions like ^ I"ll just troubleshoot em myself.. (bc.. does the shader contain 'emission shader'?, if so tweak there. yes it's probably your lighting, though it may be your hardware or your current blender version revision. These questions are problematic as they have the reader arrive at multiple avenues to the power of many. Stay awesome everyone!

    Written March 30, 2018
  • asduvw123 profile picture
    asduvw123

    Can't download. It's just a *.html file

    Written June 25, 2018
  • MagmaRedstoner profile picture
    MagmaRedstoner

    any tips on lighting?

    Written September 17, 2018
  • riccardo_pavone profile picture
    riccardo_pavone

    Marvelous! I'm going to use this in my project

    Written January 14, 2019
  • Perceivedshift profile picture
    Perceivedshift

    Awesome, thank you!

    Written February 20, 2019
  • Visva1289 profile picture
    Visva1289

    one of the best clouds I have every seen in cycles, cool, thank you!!!!

    Written July 19, 2020
  • martin_constable profile picture
    martin_constable

    Excellent work!

    Written November 20, 2020