Clouds and Lighting: Tips to get something similar to this

manontour

This picture picture comes from this set (https://www.daz3d.com/hd-volumetric-clouds), which I have and I also have the 20 8k HDRI Skies listed in the additional products section.

The clouds pack comes with different Shader Options that I tried but somehow my clouds look less "solid" and defined than this picture, even after applying some of those HDRI skies and/or adding lights (spotlight, point light) the result not even close.

I think I might be missing something in the clouds or lighting settings but I went through most of them with disappointing results. Maybe someone here recognizes this kind of setup and could provide some suggestions!

markusmatern

Have you scaled the clouds in any way?

I had problems with a different VDB product when I scaled the object to 10% of its original size. I ended up scaling my figure up, instead of scaling the VDB volume down.
Also you may check the surface properties of your cloud. There is a setting called Density Relative To Size Maybe play around with the settings and also Density Multiplier

manontour

markusmatern said:

Have you scaled the clouds in any way?

I had problems with a different VDB product when I scaled the object to 10% of its original size. I ended up scaling my figure up, instead of scaling the VDB volume down.
Also you may check the surface properties of your cloud. There is a setting called Density Relative To Size Maybe play around with the settings and also Density Multiplier

Thanks for the reply! Yes, I scaled the cloud to size it similary to what you see in the picture I posted, but I also tried with the original size and didn't notice any differences. I see no "density relative to size" or "density multiplier" in surface tab, do you mean in the section I show in the screenshot? I looked through them all but there is not!

 

Fishtales

I used the Volumetric Clouds in this image.

2022-11-09 13:13:43.105 Total Rendering Time: 6 hours 10 minutes 5.76 seconds

Click on image for full size.

markusmatern

manontour said:

markusmatern said:

Have you scaled the clouds in any way?

I had problems with a different VDB product when I scaled the object to 10% of its original size. I ended up scaling my figure up, instead of scaling the VDB volume down.
Also you may check the surface properties of your cloud. There is a setting called Density Relative To Size Maybe play around with the settings and also Density Multiplier

Thanks for the reply! Yes, I scaled the cloud to size it similary to what you see in the picture I posted, but I also tried with the original size and didn't notice any differences. I see no "density relative to size" or "density multiplier" in surface tab, do you mean in the section I show in the screenshot? I looked through them all but there is not!

 

 It seems to me that something with the shader is wrong. I have used a different product, but in any case my VDB fom the VDB Cloud Collection for Iray use a shader called Simple OpenVDB MDL Volume (MDL)

Gordig

There seems to be a miscommunication: the product the OP is using doesn't mention VDBs in the product page or the readme, so I think they're just mesh clouds. Some of Marshian's cloud products have been updated to include VDBs, but not all of them.

Fishtales

Gordig said:

There seems to be a miscommunication: the product the OP is using doesn't mention VDBs in the product page or the readme, so I think they're just mesh clouds. Some of Marshian's cloud products have been updated to include VDBs, but not all of them.

They are mesh clouds as you say and the Surface/Volume settings have to be played with to get the settings right. I also had to turn SSL Mode to Chromatic to get the clouds to look the way they are in my render.