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Clouds Panel

The clouds panel is located in the atmosphere panel. To enable clouds, check the check box in the clouds panel header.

Clouds Panel

If you used the Adjust Cycles Settings operator, the viewport step rate will be set to 5 to speed up interactive rendering. This will make clouds look less detailed and also less dense, so it is a good idea to occasionally turn the step rate down to preview what the clouds will look like in the final render.

Volume Settings


Cloud Layers

Cloud layers are 3D and 2D cylindrical or disk domains with cloud shaders. The domains and shaders follow the curvature of the planet, so large that cloudscapes (100s of km wide) can be rendererd.

Moving Clouds

Do not translate the cloud domain in the z axis as this will cause the cloud shader to render incorrectly. When grabbing the cloud domain (G), restrict the translation to the XY plane by pressing Shift+Z. Control altitude using the settings in the cloud panel.

Moving Clouds

Domain & Shader Settings

Cloud layers have separate settings for the domain and cloud shader. The domain is the geometry that Cycles will treat as a volume. The clouds are rendered inside the volume by a cloud shader. The cloud domain settings are decoupled from the shader settings, so you typically need to match the radius, height and altitude of the domain with the shader.


Cloud Layer Types

Simple Clouds

Simple Clouds

This cloud layer can be used to recreate many different types of clouds by altering the parameters. The cloud domain contains the cloud shader medium. It is a cylinder that follows the curvature of the planet when the radius is large enough, meaning clouds may extend over the horizon.

This cloud shader is more suited to softer clouds that don't have billow features, such as stratus and cirrus clouds.

Settings

Domain Radius
Radius of the cylindrical cloud domain.

Domain Height
Height of the cylindrical cloud domain.

Domain Altitude
The altitude of the domain.

Height
Exactly the same as domain height, but this value is fed to the shader instead of the domain geometry. For most purposes, this should match the domain's height.

Altitude
The altitude of the cloud layer in the shader (should be identical to domain altitude).

Radius
The radius in which the cloud layer terminates completely (should match domain radius).

Inner Radius
The radius at which the cloud falloff begins.

Density
The overall scattering density of the cloud layer. Higher values yield thicker, darker looking clouds that let less light through.

Coverage
Controls the amount of cloud in the domain. A lower value produces smaller clouds with more spacing and vice versa for a higher value.

Scale
Controls how large each individual cloud is. Smaller values produce larger looking cloud features.

Base Roughness
Determines how smooth/turbulent the base (lower altitude parts) of the clouds are.

Upper Roughness
Like base roughness, but for the higher altitude part of the clouds. Clouds in nature are typically rougher at the top.

Sharpness
Controls how abrupt the cloud edges are (which also makes the edges more dense).

Edge Darkness
Artificially increases the darkness of the exterior parts of the clouds, giving them a 'powder' look. This effect is more prominent when the step rate decreases, so be careful not to increase it too much or it will make the clouds look dark.

Dark Edge Sharpness
Defines the sharpness of the dark edges. Higher values will make the edges sharper, but also decrease the overall darkness.

Stretch Factor
This parameter stretches the cloud shader domain, causing clouds either to look flatter or taller. Higher values will make the clouds look flatter and vice versa. This can be used to create flatter cirrus or stratus clouds.


Warp Clouds

Warp Clouds

This cloud shader is like simple clouds, but more realistic at the expense of render time. It can be used generically for cumulus and stratus clouds.

Settings

Domain Radius
Radius of the cylindrical cloud domain.

Domain Height
Height of the cylindrical cloud domain.

Domain Altitude
The altitude of the domain.

Height
The overall depth of the cloud layer.

Altitude
The altitude of the cloud layer in the shader (should be identical to domain altitude).

Radius
The radius in which the cloud layer terminates completely (should match domain radius).

Inner Radius
The radius at which the cloud falloff begins.

Density
The overall scattering density of the cloud layer. Higher values yield thicker, darker looking clouds that let less light through.

Coverage
Controls the amount of cloud in the domain. A lower value produces smaller clouds with more spacing and vice versa for a higher value.

Scale
Controls how large each individual cloud is. Smaller values produce larger looking cloud features (excluding height).

Roughness
Controls the smoothness/turbulence of the clouds by increasing the strength of smaller cloud shape variations (also consequently increases coverage slightly).

Primary Billowness
Controls the strength of the billow pattern on the base shape of the cloud. The base shape makes up the large features of the clouds which are later refined with fractal details.

Secondary Billowness
Controls the strength of the billow pattern on the cloud details.

Sharpness
Controls how abrupt the cloud edges are (makes the edges more dense). Higher values will make the clouds a more homogeneous (uniform) density.

Edge Darkness
Artificially increases the darkness of the exterior parts of the clouds, giving them a 'powdery' look. This effect is more prominent when the step rate decreases, so be careful not to increase it too much or it will make the clouds look artificial.

Dark Edge Sharpness
Defines the sharpness of the dark edges. Higher values will make the dark regions on the edges sharper, but also decrease the overall darkness.


Cirrus 2D

High altitude strand-like / wispy clouds. This cloud layer is a 2D approximation which works well at high altitudes.

Settings

Altitude
The altitude of the cloud plane.

Density
Controls the strength of the clouds. Higher values look thicker and scatter more light.

Scale
The overall scale of the cloud shape features. Lower values are larger and higher values are smaller.

Softness
Controls how abrupt the cloud edges are.


Mist Volume

Ground level fog/mist that exponentially decays with altitude. Fog/mist works particularly well in night, dawn or dusk lighting.

Settings

Radius
Radius of the cylindrical mist domain.

Depth
The height of the mist domain. A general guideline is to keep this 4x larger than the exp altitude to hide an abrupt end to the fog.

Density
The sea-level scattering density of the mist.

Exp Altitude
The altitude in which the density is 36.7% that of the sea-level density.

Base Altitude
The altitude that represents the zero height level for the exponential density. Since the exp altitude cannot be negative, if you would like the exp altitude to be lower than sea level, you can set the base altitude to a negative value.

Noise Coverage
Similar to cloud coverage, lower values will create larger regions of no mist.

Noise Scale
The scale of the mist fractal noise (lower values create larger patchy features).

Gobo Layer

The Gobo layer is a 2D disk with a procedural cloud texture that casts cloud shadows onto the terrain. It is much faster at rendering shadows and god rays than using a volumetric cloud layer.

Settings

Altitude
Altitude of the disk cloud plane.

Radius
Radius of the disk cloud plane.

Coverage
Cloud coverage.

Scale
Cloud texture scale factor (smaller scale factor produces larger features).

Softness
Defines the size of the transition at the cloud edges.

Darkness
The opaqueness of the clouds (also effects the darkness of the shadows).

Only Shadows
Either true or false (1 or 0). If true, the cloud layer will not be directly visible, but will cast shadows.

Seed
Random seed for the cloud texture.