Real-Time Realistic Cloud Rendering and Lighting

The first comment that springs to mind is there are no screenshots. Yes it sounds picky, and aye, its not helpful if you are looking for comments on the content.

It is important though. Unless the reader is already familiar with techniques in cloud rendering, they probably aren't going to invest nultiple hours getting giving the artcile a go unless they know they are going to end up with something worth while.

-Phil

Screenshots don't illustrate it nearly as well as running the demo and seeing it in realtime.

Having seen some nice real-time cloud rendering stuff in action, I would agree with you Rhino that actually seeing it in motion is the best way to appreciate it and to understand what's going on.

However, I think the first commenter does have a point. A literary critic (as opposed to a technical one) would probably make the case that screenshots are a nice tool by which you can draw in readers who may otherwise think that they aren't interested.

Quote:

Original post by smitty1276 Having seen some nice real-time cloud rendering stuff in action, I would agree with you Rhino that actually seeing it in motion is the best way to appreciate it and to understand what's going on. However, I think the first commenter does have a point. A literary critic (as opposed to a technical one) would probably make the case that screenshots are a nice tool by which you can draw in readers who may otherwise think that they aren't interested.

Yep, thats the message I was getting across.

Also, I didn't even know there was a demo to try out. In order to find that information out, I had to download the source code, which I wouldn't do unless it was superior to the cloud techniques I've seen. See what I'm getting at? The more useful immediate information there is, the better it is for the reader. A reader's time is valuable, and the easier you can make it for them, the better.

- Phil

Definately go ahead and download the source. There's an exe in there and the demo is pretty cool. It pops a bit, but it's quite nice.

Looks like the criticism was constructive[smile].

Forget the constructive criticism [smile]. The article and source are great!

Thanks for the weed function [wink].

_NEil

Excellent article, and nice code !

Thx a bunch

How are cloud data files structured ?

PS: Great demo !

Strange artifacts with a geoforce4 , looks like the impostors have a white band when rendered

This is a nice summary of Harris' paper in terms a graphics programmer could better understand. I would strongly suggest to anyone interested in this to check out his website.

Slaru

Just curious, but is this process really practical for games? Seems a little too intersive to me, especially if your game isn't completly based on clouds. It looks really great though!

Have you ever tried adding so physics behaviour to the clouds? It's probably not to realistic but it'd be neat to be see like a ball or something fly through and scatter the clouds.

Anyway, cool stuff!
Matt

Harris' latest paper "Simulation of Cloud Dynamics on Graphics Hardware" appears to add physical animation to clouds ("entirely" on the GPU). I read the paper a little while ago, but I haven't tried to implement the technique. As an extention to this article, I'd suggest checking it out if you feel like deciphering an academic paper.

Slaru

I haven`t got around to read the articel, just looked over it, but will read it later today. But one thing I discovered was that the link to the download is broken. can you please update it. will like to see how this demo is.

The cottonball cloud approach seems to only look reasonable if you aren't actually getting very close to them, which defeats their purpose in being quasi-three dimensional. There are plenty of 2D techniques that look better from a distance IMHO.

[edit] Though I hope I didn't offend anyone and their research efforts. [/edit]

Download link isn't working

^^ same here, download link isnt working :(

Still not working!! I want to see it in action!

the link to src is broken :(