I’ve been using Vray for about 5 years and Max for about 10, and I’ve yet to find a simple cloud solution in both packages.
Now I know about VRayEnvironmentFog, and yes you can create volumetric clouds with it, it’s still a tedious process and can be quite complicated to get realistic results by balancing your texture maps and fog settings exactly right. It feels more of a complex work around.
Of course there are HDRIs and Environment Maps that I can slap on a Sphere or the background, but that’s not great if you want to animate your clouds or risk tiling. It can also look quiet fake.
A simple cloud system Im looking for is similar to Vue’s clouds or Maya’s Visor. Where in Maya you can draw a spline and a preselected cloud type like cumulus would appear and render as a fully animated, volumetric, and good looking cloud in no time. Vue, just as fast and easy. Is something like this complex to create for max? A system that is programmed to create “clouds”? I would have thought by now a great functioning cloud system would have been created for VRay or Max’s Mental Ray. But i’ve yet to see it. Is it not available because it’s difficult to program?
Yes, but that doesn’t answer my question. Besides, I’ve had quiet a few bug issues when using Vue inside Max. Im just curious as to why it hasn’t become available as a Max or VRay option.
Because it is not, strictly speaking, the job of a renderer to implement cloud systems; we can only implement rendering for them. If/when 3ds Max implements a cloud system, we would be more than willing to support it. Why 3ds Max itself doesn’t have a cloud system - I can’t really answer that I suppose that there have always been plugins for this that do the job. (Yes, it is quite difficult to program it).
I second that cloud tutorial…you can make all kinds of very convincing clouds with Vray Environment Fog once you get the noise and gizmo parameters down. …And the clouds react beautifully with Vray Sun and sky, even in sunset situations. I’ve used Vue and it’s fun, but it’s amazing how much you can do with just Vray.
Afterburn is 3rd party plugin. Which means anyone who uses the Max file will also need Afterburn installed. My question basically revolves around using straight out the box Max + Vray to create volumetric clouds. For easy transfer of Max files to someone who also owns Max + Vray. But as vlado has mentioned, its a limitation with 3D Max. I hope the Max development team would focus on a easier setup for creating clouds. Much like Maya has.
Is that a true quote?? Does Autodesk dislike Chaosgroup? I hope they really didn’t say that. Sounds like they’re getting frustrated with people asking them about support for VRay.
It was at Vismaster in Boston in '08 and they were showing off which ever iteration of Max they had at the time. They were getting a bit annoyed with everyone; some asking when they were going to fix certain issues before adding new features, some were angry that their old fbx files wouldn’t be supported by the new release and some were asking about Vray.
I still need to see examples that show Afterburn is actually good for clouds.
I tried it many times before but it’s not that easy to setup and I never got sucessful results.
You cannot share shadows nor create the feeling of clouds litteraly haging over your landscapes and influencing how the sun cannot reach ground level.
Can someone show me an example of Afterburn or Pyrocluster used for clouds?
I suppose that there have always been plugins for this that do the job. (Yes, it is quite difficult to program it).