Tutorial for creating dreamworks a-like clouds using UltraShock
- Start 3D Studio Max.
- In File-Preferences set units to ‘centimeters’.
Create a particle system:
- In the Top-view, draw a PCloud-particle-system with length: 200, width: 200 and height: 25.
With Transform type-in set the PCloud at (0, 0, 0).
- In Modify, change ‘Use Total’ to ‘Use Rate’: 14.
Create a camera:
- In the Top-view, make a camera at (0, -100, 0) and the camera-target at (0, 0, 0).
- In the Right-view, move the Camera 30 units up along the Y-axis and the Camera-target 20 units up along the Y-axis.
Create a light:
- In the Top-view, set an UltraShock Omni at (0, 200, 0) (Make sure you don’t select a standard omni !).
- In the Right-view, move the omni 80 units up along the Y-axis.
- Modify the omni’s color to RGB: 180, 180, 190.
Create the UltraShock-helper:
-In the Top-view, create an UltraShock-helper, assign the Pcloud as particle-system.
You should get a scene like shown below.
Adjust UltraShock-settings:
-Under the general UltraShock-roll-out in the modify-panel, select the ‘Puffy Clouds’-shader instead of the standard ‘Circle’-shader.
- Under ‘Particle Age Parameters’:
Under ‘Particle Age’:
change -‘Use Emitter Age’ to ON.
-‘Particle Size’ to 25 (birth and death size identical). The size of the clouds stays the same over time.
Under ‘Particle Shape’:
change -‘Squash Shape’: Squash X: 100, Squash Y:100 and Squash Z: 80 (birth and death size identical). This makes the clouds more horizontal.
- Under ‘ Puffy Clouds’:
change - ‘Noise Scale’ to 1.3 (birth and death size identical). Gives a more fractal look.
- ‘Detail’ to 10. Gives more detail.
- ‘Density’ to 60 (birth and death size identical). Makes the clouds thicker and also renders faster.
- ‘Density Falloff’ to Linear. Makes the clouds “fade” from the center out.
You should get something like shown below.
Create the environment-entry:
- Pick ‘Add Effect’, choose ‘UltraShock- PhantomRay’.
- In the UltraShock-roll-out:
Under ‘UltraShock Shaders’:
-‘Object Volumes’, click ‘Get All’. You only got 1 US-helper in the scene so this lets you select it quickly.
-‘Light Sources’, click ‘Pick’ and then select ‘Atmos Omni01’, if you can not select your omni, it isn’t a US-omni, but a standard omni. You can only select US-lights.
Under ‘PhantomRay Settings’:
Choose: ‘Direct Lighting’ instead of ‘No Shadows’.
‘Shadow Detail’: Perfect (value 1).
‘Raytracing Step Size’: 3.0.
You should get something like shown below.
That’s it ! Render at 640×400 and you got your clouds. Be patient, it can take a while on slower machines.Rendertime on a Dual PII-400 with 256 MB Ram: 03:29 mins(remember UltraShock is multithreaded, so it takes full advantage of dual-processor-systems).
Beneath you can see the final image (I’ve used Nik Foscarini’s VP-filter ‘Starfield Blur’ as background). You can further enhance the image by adding a glowing moon , lensflares,…
