Thoughts on how to create rolling storm clouds?

[stevegh]

Hey guys,

Been trying for the past week to get something as close to the attached image as possible. I've tried using temperature sims, but they end up more wispy then bulgy. Smoke sims get close, but I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on getting close to the image? I was also wondering how I might use the emission controls to get the light pouring through the cracks rather than using a V-Ray area light, because the emission has a nice sub surface effect going on but I couldn't figure out how to utilize one of the channels properly.

Any help is much appreciated!

[Ivaylo Katev]

very interesting challenge
i made some short tests, similar effect happens when we have two layers, one moving and one standing with smoke between them. the curls appears from the side of the standing layer. smoke or temperature is not important, if temperature is used, you have to select "uniform density" and to switch off the gravity. zero vorticity gives better result, the curls will appear anyway.

[stevegh]

Interesting idea! Just to clarify, you said two layers with smoke between them, is this then 3 layers? Also how do you setup a standing layer? Do you have any example files/renders of the effect that is created?

Thanks!

[Ivaylo Katev]

i initialise the grid using script, tomorrow will attach the scene. of course it is far far away from the picture, especially in the rendering settings, but can be used as starting point.

[stevegh]

Awesome, thanks Ivaylo!

[Ivaylo Katev]

ah, almost forgot, here is the scene
btw, i found a bug in the light cache rendering this scene.