Cloudscape Creator Bundle - wow

How do DAZ vendors keep coming up with products I didn't know I wanted but now can't live without?  I watched the preview video and it would have been an instant purchaseexcept... I'm still not seeing prices on any of the new items yett... $##@@*!! 

Comments

  • I'm totally blown away by it, I have no idea how they come up with these ideas let alone make them. I totally feel like an armature when I see this. Claps loudly !!!

  • DripDrip Posts: 1,125

    It's awesome, though I do hope for expansions with even more cloud types.

  • MisselthwaiteMisselthwaite Posts: 958
    edited December 2019

    My first thought when I saw this was, "OMG!  A vital piece of landscape creation has been found!"

    ...and then I saw it was only for iray.  :-(

    If anyone has the opportunity to see if it can be made to work in 3DL, please post.  I'm in the corner of the store, nursing a broken heart...

    Post edited by Misselthwaite on
  • GordigGordig Posts: 9,032

    Aaaarrrgggghhhh......stop.......spending......money.......

  • evacynevacyn Posts: 950

    Well there goes the rest of my gift card... this makes a lot of the HDRIs I have obsolete :P

  • SorelSorel Posts: 1,389

    My first thought when I saw this was, "OMG!  A vital piece of landscape creation has been found!"

    ...and then I saw it was only for iray.  :-(

    If anyone has the opportunity to see if it can be made to work in 3DL, please post.  I'm in the corner of the store, nursing a broken heart...

    Anything can be made to work in any render with shader adjustments.
  • Sorel said:
     

     

    Anything can be made to work in any render with shader adjustments.

    Perhaps, but since I have no idea how to create my own volumetric shaders in 3DL my chances of success are minimal.  Some things work with tweaking, others simply do not.  Volumetrics are far more complicated than a simple surface.

  • My first thought when I saw this was, "OMG!  A vital piece of landscape creation has been found!"

    ...and then I saw it was only for iray.  :-(

    If anyone has the opportunity to see if it can be made to work in 3DL, please post.  I'm in the corner of the store, nursing a broken heart...

    I'm in agreement with you again, as I do way more work with 3DL than with Iray as the latter can often be a pain to work with, plus so much time is wasted on spot rendering when setting up a composition and even more when full rendering. I've still got one Iray composition which I've not been able to finish as I now have a record time length of over 41 hours rendering with the progress bar at only 2%! I estimate at least 72 hours to get it up to a useable standard - it's a very dark image with lots of shadow, detail, texture and mist - but I need my LT for other things and I can't go 3 days without having access to it.

    I have the Iray to 3DL Converter which I've now used on 3 compositions, but not every shader is converted and I've found that the main ground doesn't convert, then when trying 3DL shaders the effect is totally different to the original and looks crap. In one environment the ground of a pathway is lower than the rest and it doesn't convert, so I had to introduce a totally different 3DL ground and then use the Y Transition to lower the environment so that it matched the ground. The final result was good, but has a totally different look and vibe to the pure Iray render. You don't get the same sharp contrast in look when an environment is made for both Iray and 3DL.

  • Sorel said:
     

     

    Anything can be made to work in any render with shader adjustments.

    Perhaps, but since I have no idea how to create my own volumetric shaders in 3DL my chances of success are minimal.  Some things work with tweaking, others simply do not.  Volumetrics are far more complicated than a simple surface.

    well from what I can see this is transmapped, in 3Delight uber you have actual volumetrics, you should be able to do actual clouds amd maybe instance them

  • HavosHavos Posts: 5,294

     

    Sorel said:
     

     

    Anything can be made to work in any render with shader adjustments.

    Perhaps, but since I have no idea how to create my own volumetric shaders in 3DL my chances of success are minimal.  Some things work with tweaking, others simply do not.  Volumetrics are far more complicated than a simple surface.

    I have not bought the product so somebody please say if I am wrong, but to me the clouds themselves look like layered textured files with opacity maps, and so should work in 3DL. The volumetrics are then used to give the render depth, and would not be critical to use this product. The method used looks to be the same as this product: https://www.daz3d.com/iray-clouds which has been on the market for almost 3 years.

     

  • JonnyRayJonnyRay Posts: 1,744
    edited December 2019
    Sorel said:
     

     

    Anything can be made to work in any render with shader adjustments.

    Perhaps, but since I have no idea how to create my own volumetric shaders in 3DL my chances of success are minimal.  Some things work with tweaking, others simply do not.  Volumetrics are far more complicated than a simple surface.

    Iray doesn't have true volumetrics like 3Delight (Renderman) does. What DT managed to do is figure out how to layer a bunch of thin planes together in such a way as to simulate volumetric clouds. If you watch the video it shows some of the limitations. Don't get me wrong, the Cloudscape Creator is a fantastic product that gets around Iray's limitations, but it isn't volumetrics.

    For a similar solution that is designed for 3Delight, I'd take a look at Marishan's products:

    [ Fixed the reference to the creator to Dimension Theory ]

    Post edited by JonnyRay on
  • CybersoxCybersox Posts: 8,745
    JonnyRay said:
     

    Iray doesn't have true volumetrics like 3Delight (Renderman) does. What KA managed to do is figure out how

    DT, not KA, unless you know something I don't know.  But, as they say, the memory is the second thing to go... 

  • Ah, I quickly read the description for Cloud Cover, "while the volumetric atmosphere takes renders to the next level." and assumed it was all volumetric.  Hmm.  Thank you for correcting my misapprehension!  I do have Above the Clouds - Nimbostratus, but the texture of the clouds didn't satisfy me - too smooth, no fluffy wisps - and there were no morphs.

    Morphing planes I can work with.

     

    JonnyRay said:

    Iray doesn't have true volumetrics like 3Delight (Renderman) does. What KA managed to do is figure out how to layer a bunch of thin planes together in such a way as to simulate volumetric clouds. If you watch the video it shows some of the limitations. Don't get me wrong, the Cloudscape Creator is a fantastic product that gets around Iray's limitations, but it isn't volumetrics.

    For a similar solution that is designed for 3Delight, I'd take a look at Marishan's products:

     

  • Functionally these can work in 3DL for sure, it's just that in my experience this amount of transparency with alpha maps REALLY makes 3DL chug and they need costly effects like SSS.  If I can get them looking good and rendering fast enough I'll make some material presets.

    I do have some expansions started that I was hoping to get back to after seeing how well these did.  I'll put some work into 3DL support in the meantime!

  • NathNath Posts: 2,713
    evacyn said:

    Well there goes the rest of my gift card... this makes a lot of the HDRIs I have obsolete :P

    They may not look as good on ones with clouds, but you can use the clouds on other HDRIs...

  • Functionally these can work in 3DL for sure, it's just that in my experience this amount of transparency with alpha maps REALLY makes 3DL chug and they need costly effects like SSS.  If I can get them looking good and rendering fast enough I'll make some material presets.

    I do have some expansions started that I was hoping to get back to after seeing how well these did.  I'll put some work into 3DL support in the meantime!

    Good enough for me.  Into the cart!

  • plasma_ringplasma_ring Posts: 1,018

    This set is stunning. I was just mentioning over in the "what do you wish was more popular" thread that I'd love to see more skies that are very dramatic and painterly, and this is exactly what I was hoping for. I wasn't going to spend any more money this month but I think I'm going to have to pick it up tonight. 

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 40,517

    ..so is this a set of HDRIs or a volumetric cloud generator can be used with the normal Sun/Sky setting in Iray?

    Will the clouds also cast shadows on the ground plane?

  • DripDrip Posts: 1,125

    The clouds are objects, so technically, they should cast shadows, though I didn't test that. There are some HDRIs in one of the packs, but you could combine it with your own HDRIs. (note to self: do test renders with artsy non-sky HDRIs, just to see what happens) But, if you do that, I wouldn't combine them with HDRIs that already have lots of clouds, I figure you'll quickly find there can be such a thing as too many clouds.

  • CybersoxCybersox Posts: 8,745
    kyoto kid said:

    ..so is this a set of HDRIs or a volumetric cloud generator can be used with the normal Sun/Sky setting in Iray?

    Will the clouds also cast shadows on the ground plane?

    It uses either the sun/sky setting or HDRIs, with 30 clear sky HDRIs included in the HDRI expansion module.  As noted above, you can't do true volumetrics in Iray, so this uses a huge number of morphing planes and other tricks.   As to the shadows, the product illustrations show both the hero and cloud cover clouds casting shadows on the ground.  It's not the PERFECT sky solution, but it's the closest I've seen yet for Iray.   

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 40,517
    edited December 2019

    ...I already have the entire IBL Skies bundle by Denki Gaka so not sure I need any moire IBLs.

    Wondering if this could be used to create certain cloud shapes like contrails (which could be morphed form thin to spread out), "wall" and shelf clouds (like a storm front produces) and other shapes like lenticular and Mammatus. 

    Old contrails.

    Wall/and Shelf cloud:

    Lenticular cloud

    Mammatus cloud

    Post edited by kyoto kid on
  • AllenArtAllenArt Posts: 7,140
    kyoto kid said:

    ...I already have the entire IBL Skies bundle by Denki Gakaso not sure I need any moire IBLs.

    Wondering if this could be used to create certain cloud shapes like contrails (which could be morphed form thin to spread out), "wall" and shelf clouds (like a storm front produces) and other shapes like lenticular and Mammatus. 

    Old contrails.

    Wall/and Shelf cloud:

    Lenticular cloud

    Mammatus cloud

    I think asking for clouds like these might be a bit much, but who knows what DT is working on? ;)

    Laurie

  • Thunderheads.  Hurricanes?

  • DimensionTheoryDimensionTheory Posts: 434
    edited December 2019

    I haven't had too much time to refine these but here are a few renders in 3DL.  UberEnvironment was giving me trouble so I put together a custom IBL setup.  These all only use 1 of 5 cloud layers to reduce the amount of transparency.

    The 1080p render took 3 hours on a 16 core Threadripper at 3.8 GHz.

    RenderA.jpg
    1920 x 1080 - 131K
    RenderB.jpg
    480 x 270 - 47K
    RenderC.jpg
    480 x 270 - 44K
    Post edited by DimensionTheory on
  • evacynevacyn Posts: 950
    edited December 2019

    Edit: Nevermind - it seems to work now that I've uninstalled and reinstalled it.

    Post edited by evacyn on
  • Thanks for this robust solution DT! I picked up the bundle and used it in an environment I am building for my current project with some simple quick set and hdri and was very happy with the results right out of the box. I am going to test with the volumetric atmosphere this weekend to see what I can achieve from it. I can't wait to see what you do with water for the rain add-on that you must surely be working on bts?! Very nice work!

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