Volumetric Clouds
Volumetric clouds are a solution to the issues faced in the creation of realistic clouds. They generate clouds by rendering individual points in a volume, and they can add depth and detail to scenes. They are similar to real clouds, which are formed when light hits water particles and bounces back. If you’ve ever looked at a cloud in real life, you’ll be able to relate to the concept.
Volumetric clouds are a fundamental part of atmospheric systems. Their top, bottom, and density all define the type of cloud. Then the texture for the cloud type is generated using fractal Worley noise. The resulting cloud texture can be modulated with the conservative density of the material, which is low in cost and low in accuracy.
Volumetric clouds are enabled by default on baked Reflection Probes. These clouds are rendered at full resolution. However, they do not have any temporal accumulation, and so they don’t appear in ray-traced effects. The resulting clouds are realistic and are an excellent addition to scenes in 3D environments.
The new model supports a greater range of cloud shapes and textures. It can model different types of clouds and combine samples from multiple frames. This provides even more flexibility when creating volumetric clouds. For example, a cloud can be very heavy or very thin, depending on its shape. This new model also allows for the ability to combine multiple clouds into a single cloud.
What Are Volumetric Clouds?
Aside from creating realistic clouds, volumetric clouds can also be used to simulate the effects of local scattering and multi-scattering in a game environment. Because volumetric clouds use more diffuse light than traditional clouds, they can be used in shadow casting situations. However, the quality of volumetric clouds will be affected by the performance of the lighting.
A volumetric cloud is a cloud with a closed volume defined by a grid of points, with the individual points defined by the mesh. The underlying weather map will determine where a cloud can form. This map can be generated by noise or can be drawn by the user. Once this map is generated, it can then be rendered in a shader.
Volumetric clouds generate a cloud-like texture based on user-defined parameters, including size, color, and density. The result of these measurements will be a cloud-like environment that moves around the player. This interaction should mimic the behavior of normal clouds. It should be comparable to other cloud implementations currently in use.
The first step in creating volumetric clouds is to define the material domain for your clouds. This is called a volume texture and it is a 3D texture that is cut into two parts and aligned on a grid. This type of texture is particularly suitable for volumetric effects because it captures the look of light traveling through a volume. After creating your volumetric texture, you can see it in a two-dimensional image view and a three-dimensional volume view.