Planetside Software Forums

General => Terragen Discussion => Topic started by: BooKara on March 14, 2017, 08:11:35 PM

Title: Clouds Intersecting Problem
Post by: BooKara on March 14, 2017, 08:11:35 PM
Clouds Intersecting issues

I'm running into an issue with my clouds that I could really use some help on. I'm still new to Terragen and I'm racking my brain trying to figure this one out.

Basically I have a looping animation with one set of clouds that fades out as another transitions in but when my clouds overlap I'm getting strange color mismatching or shadow problems.

In the image you can see what's going on. One cloud is brighter and the other darker. This is not what I want. The two clouds are copies and are exactly the same other than one slightly lower with less coverage.

Can anyone help me out on this.

Thanks.
Title: Re: Clouds Intersecting Problem
Post by: Kevin F on March 16, 2017, 05:53:26 AM
Well presumably the two layers of clouds will have some areas at different heights,and hence you're getting shadows being cast.
Move the position of the sun to see if the light/dark areas change accordingly. Do you have "receive shadows from surfaces" enabled for either layer? If so turn it off.
Title: Re: Clouds Intersecting Problem
Post by: BooKara on March 16, 2017, 03:45:51 PM
Kevin...thanks for the suggestion. I double checked if "receive shadows from surface" was disabled and it was. As for the light/dark issue, I understand that the shadows would be cast from the clouds above onto the clouds below but that should make the lower clouds darker not lighter. In the image the lighter clouds are lower and darker higher and I usually only see this strange behavior with clouds that are intersecting one another especially as I fade one out and the other transitions in.
Title: Re: Clouds Intersecting Problem
Post by: cyphyr on March 16, 2017, 04:10:18 PM
Are you using Cloud layer V2 or V3/ Easy clouds (it will say at the top of the cloud node)?
They calculate light transmission in very different ways.
If you're using V3 try re-creating the scene with V2 and see if the effect is still present. Alternatively if you want to use the V3 cloud layer you could try going to the Optimisation tab and changing the Millions of voxels  up to 100 or maybe 200 or even 300. If you'using Easy Clouds then all I can suggest is upping the Millions of Voxels in the optimisation tab.
Hope this helps ...
Can you post the tdg? There may be other stuff going on.

Title: Re: Clouds Intersecting Problem
Post by: BooKara on March 16, 2017, 05:41:12 PM
I'm using Cloud layer v3. but I did notice that the voxels in both cloud nods were different. Seems odd since I copied one from the other but might that be the problem?

I will try to recreate the V3 into V2 and see if that helps.

Thanks for the suggestions.