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TG InfinitePlane Cloud |
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PARAMETERS |
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These points immediately illustrate several advantages to this shader. First, poly counts are kept low as you can use any shape you like. Second, it becomes easier to manage the scene, in part because the size of the sky object makes no difference (and also because it can sometimes be hard to judge just when a sky sphere was large enough to encompass those mountains without them sticking through the edges.....a lot easier with a cube). Third, it used to be that if you scaled or stretched the sky object, the noise pattern could well scale or stretch with it - not so with this shader, since your clouds are viewed on the virtual infinite plane, and the sky object only acts as the “window” through which you view this plane. Stretch it in any way you like, and the noise pattern remains consistent. |
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Range : -100 to 100 for each sub-parameter The clouds are artificially lit by several light sources. This parameter controls the direction that the sunlight effect is coming from, by setting the point in world space that the light is pointing toward - simply imagine that the sunlight is an infinite light positioned at the origin in the scene (in world space), and is pointing at the position set by this parameter. The sample scenes below use extreme values in the x direction to show the results - the light is pointing toward the left in the leftmost image, so the right hand edges of the clouds are illuminated, whereas the light is pointing toward the right in the rightmost image, so that the left hand edges of the clouds are illuminated. Note that in both cases the light is pointing upward slightly, with a z of 0.1. The cloud simulation is the more accurately the simulation of the base of the clouds, as if they were displaced from the surface of the infinite plane, and so illumination from above (a negative z value for the Sunlight Vector) will not necessarily show up very well - as always, however, experimentation is the order of the day! |
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Two rather extreme settings for the Sunlight Vector |
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Range : -320 to 320 Adjust the height of the virtual infinite plane. This controls the appearance of the sky by setting how high up the clouds are, which has several effects. First, the frequency of the clouds appears to alter, as the higher the cloud plane, then the smaller and more dense the clouds appear, and the lower the cloud plane, then the larger the clouds are nearby (they still scale to small in the distance, of course). Second, the horizon appears to change, as the fade distance will alter, becoming harsher or more spread out depending. Note that this is a real setting - in animations, when the camera moves, as the z of the camera nears the cloud plane height, so the frequency of the clouds will change, and when the camera exceeds the cloud plane height, the clouds will appear BELOW the camera rather than above. Similarly, setting a negative cloud plane height (or one which is lower than the camera’s z position anyway) will result in clouds appearing beneath the camera, like an infinite sea or ground plane. |
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End Fade Distance set to 2000 (everything else default), showing just how far the infinite plane stretches! |
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Range : -20 to 20 It’s all very well having an infinite plane at a set height, but sometimes when you have the clouds looking just the way you want, and the fade points just so, you’ll find that the horizon is too high or too low for your scene - it may well be “accurate” as to where the horizon would appear, but you still want a quick and easy way of adjusting the apparent height of the horizon line (when the sky fades entirely to the haze colour), in order to get it to match your scene set up. This parameter lets you do that by “cheating” the effect of the shader. A negative value will lower the horizon line, while a positive value will raise it. Note that values should lie between -1 and 1; values outside of this range have been permitted for unusual effects. The further this parameter is from 0, the more distortions you will see in the horizon line and in the noise pattern (the horizon will become more circular or rounded, rather than straight). At values of greater than 1 or less than negative 1, the clouds will cease to appear as a flat horizontal plane, but look more like an angled or even a vertical plane, stretching in unusual ways (not so useful for making skies and backgrounds, but could generate some interesting noise patterns, which is why the values have been permitted). Bear in mind that keeping this value close to 0 is probably best if you are after “sensible” results...! |
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