[UDK]Dynamic storm clouds

naked_chicken · Mar 2012

A dynamically editable skybox with storm cloud buildup from the horizon. First video is of the material editor, second is in-game action.

[ame="

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfpHm2RGi7c"]Cloud Editor[/ame]

[ame="

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMU6GON7S8Y"]Cloud In-Game[/ame]

[ame="

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezznWsptCCM"]Cloud Rundown01[/ame]

[ame="

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD_hEAEjHZY"]Cloud Rundown02[/ame]

Cloud Material Capture

Razorb · Mar 2012

that is fooookin cool, this for anything in particular?

naked_chicken · Mar 2012

Trying to make the shift from Environment artist to more technical artist. Been spending a lot of time lately setting up shaders, writing scripts and tools and whatnot.

Macattackk · Mar 2012

niiiiice! reminds me of those timelapse videos of the sky in Planet Earth.

cholden · Mar 2012

cool shtuff homie

nordahl154 · Mar 2012

Wicked awesome.
Lightning doesn't look that realistic but I guess that's irrelevant

njc6425 · Mar 2012

noice

BarnabyJones · Mar 2012

nice I love the way the storm cloud rolls in lightning could use some work here is reference [ame="

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jolmWYJd-FA"]Cool lightning storm - YouTube[/ame]

naked_chicken · Mar 2012

Yeah I'm working on the lightning now. It's all proceduraly generated from two small textures (trying to find a way to generate lightning without having to use a bunch of textures). I'll agree it's not there yet, though. Anyone happen to know of any decent UDK lightning? I've searched and searched and only found a few tutorials all of which just use a few textures and honestly don't look much like lightning either.

ambershee · Mar 2012

It's looking pretty awesome. I've personally never seen a decent lightning in UDK, but I'd have thought it wasn't too difficult (guess I'm wrong there).

naked_chicken · Mar 2012

Switched out the second video with new lightning effect, whatcha think?

Christian Hjerpe · Mar 2012

The lightning looks good! Would be awesome to see how the material shader network looks.

Donavonyoung · Mar 2012

Wow that is really awesome. What a cool shader set up, and please yes post that shader network!!!!

Clark Coots · Mar 2012

nice job. the 2nd video when the clouds were rolling in kinda reminded me a bit of the Matrix sky that you see briefly.

chrisradsby · Mar 2012

Holycrap, that's awesome

Olli. · Mar 2012

that is just stunning. So is it like a cloud texture on top of a blue sky texture with some sort of blend gradient texture used to transfer between them? in any case the result is stunning!

realeyez · Mar 2012

Wow, this looks awesome. Any chance on a tutorial or a rundown of your process for making it?

Snefer · Mar 2012

This is great. Looks like a pretty cheap shader aswell? Good job : ))

naked_chicken · Mar 2012

Thanks guys.

I'm working on a tutorial now but its a stop and go process, hopefully have it up in a bit.

Oranghe · Mar 2012

this is great!

Klash120 · Mar 2012

Tutorial, now Chicken!

naked_chicken · Apr 2012

threw a quick rundown of the material up as well as a large screen capture of the material in its entirety.

Have fun with it!

Razorb · Apr 2012

very kind!

sebi3110 · May 2012

Hey there! Looking super cool

Could you also describe how you did the lightning bolts and stormy feel + rain?
Would be nice to see how you actually did it

marks · May 2012

damn that looks awesome

AlanSMitchell · May 2012

dude thats flipping amazing great job

Makkon · May 2012

That is one of the coolest things I have ever seen

Skummel · May 2012

Wow man that's amazing work! The clouds look so fantastical yet so real. Great job!

Havoc89 · May 2012

I gotta say, that is very impressive. Nicely done.

Gannon · May 2012

nice!

SnaFuBAR · May 2012

haha, this is so good even the bot replied coherently

Wiktor · May 2012

Wow! That is one of the coolest things I've seen in the UDK! Awesome work!

AlanSMitchell · May 2012

Ok so this is probably really basic stuff I understand the 2 UV sets for the skycube. The cylinder for the outer part, and the top down for top down. How do the 2 UV sets transition into one another seamlessly like that?

naked_chicken · May 2012

The cylindrical uv's are for the sky color the top down is for everything else.

AlanSMitchell · May 2012

No way ha! I feel like a noob! thanks for the explanation wow I overcomplicate things in my head hardcore.

naked_chicken · May 2012

yeah when I was first making it I was trying so many complicated methods for getting the perfect masking effect, low and behold the simplest solution was the best.

AlanSMitchell · May 2012

I am seeing that more and more that the simple solution is the best. For some reason I have a lot more fun overcomplicating things.

Junco · May 2012

I am a student working on an exterior space ship scene. Its rough design thumbnails are posted below. The concept is that this ship is able to drop down into super storm cells on various planets and harvests gas while charging its engines on frequent lightning strikes.

The lightning towers are in the scene grab, minus their containment rods. I have also posted some screens from my current sky sphere attempts.

I really have a hard time learning these programs and understanding their features. Finding this has, along with some helpful Eat3d tutorials, been just what i needed to open up this awesome world of UDK materials.

Thank You

I am trying for this scene from mass effect 2, but not exactly and with more intense storm conditions.

This is what i have now, very simple. Four squashed skyDomes with masked materials. It's pretty glitchy and too serene. I haven't started the storm effects, as I don't completely understand them yet. Still learning...

nicafornica · May 2012

ohmazing. I fecking love it.

Junco · May 2012

My Uv channel 1 appears fine in max. When I import into UDK it breaks. Any thoughts would be appreciated?

Cordell Felix · May 2012

Junco, is that the lightmap UV's? you can switch the dropdown to 0 to view your original uv's. If that is the lightmap uvs, its bad to have the uvs touching the borders..it does weird things if they are.

naked_chicken · May 2012

yeah best not to take UV's all the way to the edge and don't forget to relax them so you don't get stretching.

AlanSMitchell · May 2012

thank you for posting up all of this stuff I think I will try it soon

AlanSMitchell · May 2012

http://youtu.be/9R4GxNfBOS0 turns out I don't know how to embed youtube videos. Either way if the recording would have picked up my voice you would hear me giving you mad props. I would like to thank you for posting up your material expression, and this is what I came up with.

naked_chicken · May 2012

Good stuff, glad I could help :P

passerby · May 2012

been spending a while trying to figure this out and recreate what you got there but hit a little snag and am having trouble debugging it.

on 1 side of my skysphere, i got both the stuff going into the diffuse and the custom lighting visible, (image 01), than on the other side i got this little glitch happening.

also i noticed my Cloudwipe parameter is backwards from how, it was operating in your video which makes me believe hte issue is in that section of the shader. so here is a screen, i had to make some assumptions and what vales to use on the panner and rotator, but commented theme in so you can tell what they are.

edit:

figured out i needed my panner in the wipe section to have a X of -1 not one, so now that gets cloud wipe parameter working in the right way.

still havent figured out what is happing with me always getting the lighting effect on one side of the wipe mask, and the pure emmsive texture on the other side.

there is a -1 node in the rimlight that i can bypass that gets me closer to the results, wanted, but, things still dont quite look right without it.

[UDK]Dynamic storm clouds

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