I just wanted to share some work I've been doing on procedural cloud generation in an OpenGL shader. I love cloud watching and I also love video games that have big dynamic skies. I became inspired to work on something like this when I first heard about the procedural clouds in Horizon Zero Dawn. In fact the implementation I have going right now is heavily based off the one used in Horizon.
The quality is not exactly where I want it to be. There is a lot that can be done to make the clouds more dynamic and realistic, but right now I am doing most of my development on a chromebook so my focus is on speed rather than on beauty.
Looking nearly straight up
Looking towards the horizon
The beginning of a nice procedural sunset
The sun has just dipped below the horizon
Obviously there are lots of things to improve on. But I am fairly happy with the results and how it looks so far.
Let me know if you have any questions or want to see more! I have been toying with the idea of writing a more in-depth article one of these days with more technical aspects on how this works.
They are incredibly good, in my view! Do you intend on providing a tutorial on how you went about doing this? I'm definitely interested in the technique.
I would like to eventually! There is definitely a distinct lack of good tutorials on rendering volumetrics, especially clouds. But the size of a tutorial on this would be huge!
I'm hearing you on that, but if you could break it into smaller bits? I'd certainly be very interested.
Definitely! It is not a question of if, but when. The scope of the work means that it will take me awhile to plan and prepare for a tutorial.