Sun & sky - with clouds

[Fredrik Averpil]

Here's a funny thought - clouds in the sun & sky system.

We find ourselves with shooting HDR skies and removing the ground, only because the sun and sky system doesn't have clouds in them (adds lots of variations to light, colors which affects the look and feel of everything). Also think about the possibilities if these clouds could be animated.

I'm not talking having the clouds being rendered when you point the camera towards the sky -- since most of us are probably switching out the sky in post anyways (?). It's just something for the reflections and light intensities. Something that's fast to render and adds more realism to how materials behave.

Wouldn't that be nice?

[Neilg]

If you have the vray comptex in maya you can use 360 images of clouds and experiment with blending modes over the vraysky to get what you want.

[Richard7666]

^I guess you still have to fiddle around to get the right intensity with that approach though. Sure you'd have lots of control, but I can see the value in a quick 'preset' cloud setup, with a few adjustable values to generate clouds.

Maybe there are even plugins already that can create an HDRI sky 'on the fly' like that? I've never looked into it.

[Neilg]

but I can see the value in a quick 'preset' cloud setup, with a few adjustable values to generate clouds.

This is way way way more difficult than you're assuming it is.

There is this - http://www.e-onsoftware.com/products/ozone/ozone_6.0/

I wouldnt expect the vray team to be making their own.

[Richard7666]

No no, I figured it would be more complex than it sounds! I imagine if that Ozone plugin is node based, its sky node can be plugged into a Vray dome light?
Says it supports Maya + V-ray. Interesting.

[squintnic]

as far as i know ozone is faulty

[Neilg]

We've had great (stable) experience with the max version, maybe they cleaned it up?

Either way there's a pretty solid trial version available.