GENERATE BETTER CLOUDS

Vikrant J Dalal reveals how to create a realistic cloud-filled sky

Create realistic cloud-filled skies with Vikrant J Dalal’s process

F or this tutorial, we’ll be using Vue xstream to create a sky full of clouds. While you could choose to recreate the look of clouds by using smoke sims, for example Fumefx and the Pheonixfd plug-in for 3ds Max, Vue xstream is great as it has a special section for clouds, with lots of parameters to adjust – that’s why it’s used by many animation and VFX studios.

Vue is based entirely on realworld clouds, so it’s very easy to get up and running in this software because it has many default cloud set-ups to help you understand the parameter settings. These settings also help when you’re making your own clouds.

Before you start working on this kind of effect, you should have a good understanding of what kind of clouds you want to create. You need to know what density you’d like, what the shape of the clouds should be, what height is correct for your chosen type of cloud, how sunlight affects cloud shading, and so forth.

I can’t teach you every parameter of this software, as there are many and this would take a lot of time. Instead, we’ll focus on the key stages and settings you need to know to create a believable cloudy sky.

This is very interesting subject, because you can’t define one fixed process when creating this effect. As much as you will use your creativity and tools, you will create different types of effects every time you approach the subject. Follow my tutorial, and then you can use it as a base to begin experimenting yourself.

Being familiar with software is the key to getting great results. Start by clicking Create New>empty file to launch the software workspace. On the right hand side, you can see Object Properties and Camera Control; inside Camera Control you can see the small render preview. World Browser includes all of the layers, (such as Geometry, Camera, Sun Light and Clouds) so you can add or remove layers easily using this browser.