Getting Started
with WCS 6 Part 8B.
Sky & Clouds
41. Now for the clouds. Switch
the Cabin High view back to realtime mode. Open the popup
menu and select View > New Planimetric Camera.
42. The Cabin High view will
be replaced by a Planimetric Camera view.
43. Go to the Scene-At-A-Glance and double-click the empty Cloud Models
category to add a new Component and open its Editor.
44. Rename it Nimbus Flat
and leave the Base Elevation at 5000 meters.
45. Select Set Bounds in a
View and WCS will tell you that the next two points clicked
will become the Cloud Model bounds.
46. Activate the planimetric
view and zoom out a notch. The lake is the green vector here.
To minimize render time, we only place clouds where we can see
them. Left-click once behind the Lake Sky Camera southwest of
the lake. Click again to the northeast. The view will refresh
with a shaded box representing the Cloud Model.
47. Save the project and render
a Lake Sky preview.
48. The clouds don't quite make
it across the sky, so zoom back another notch in the planimetric
view. Set Bounds in a View again and create a larger Cloud
Model area.
49. Save the project and render
a preview.
50. Go to the Aerial Attributes
page. Here we can change the Cloud Presets and preview
the cloud pattern. Evolve makes it easy to animate clouds
with a click of the mouse. Shading controls how dark the
underside of the clouds get. These look a little dark to the
south, so let's decrease the Shading to 35%.
51. Open another Lake Sky
view in place of the planimetric view. Save the project and render
a right preview. That makes the clouds look a little less threatening.
52. Think of Coverage
as Clouds per unit area. Decrease it to 50% to get a preview
of the effect. The maximum value is 100%.
53. Density controls individual
cloud density and size within the texture. Try a value of 500%
to see the effect in the preview.
54. Edit the Density Pattern
texture to see what texture is generating the Nimbus cloud look.
55. Profiles control how the
parameters are changing vertically. Edit Coverage Profile
to open its Vertical Coverage Profile. The horizontal
axis goes from the bottom of the clouds to the top. The vertical
axis value is the amount of the Coverage value. 0 is no Coverage
and 100 is full Coverage, in this case 100%.
56. The Shadows page is
where we control the casting of shadows by Clouds.
57. Receiving of shadows by terrain
and foliage is controlled by Shadow Components. Go to
the lower Scene-At-A-Glance and double-click the Shadows
category to open its only Component.
58. The Receive Shadows
page lets you control what shadows the terrain receives.
59. New to WCS6 is the addition
of volumetric clouds. These are even easier to add then the non-volumetric
ones. Go to the General page and disable the Nimbus
Flat Cloud Model.
60. Add a new default Cloud Model.
61. Name it Nimbus 3D.
62. Go to the Vertical Profile
page and select Volumetric.
63. Open the YNP Atmosphere
from the Scene-At-A-Glance and drag it to the lower right cell. Select the
25X Speed Boost for fastest rendering. This is great for
previewing cloud changes.
64. Save the project and render
a preview. For final renders, lower the Speed Boost settings
until you get the cloud quality you want at the best render time
price.
65. Go to the Aerial Attributes
page and reduce the Shading to 25%. Save the
project and render a preview.
66. If you were keeping track
of render time, you may have noticed that it took less time to
render the volumetric clouds at the 25X Speed Boost setting.
Switch it to Normal and render the right view.
67. Open the popup menu and select
Render Options > Terrain > Terrain
to enable terrain again for rendering.
68. Save the project and render
a preview.
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