Feedback Volumetric Clouds

Is the video being private unintentional? Edit: I see it now

 

[FEEDBACK]
Unless I've greatly overlooked something

One of our frequent mentions in meetings that keeps cropping up is

A visual feedback reference for the direction and strength of the wind.

I'm not sure of the old wind component can be used for this directionally speaking?

Regardless, this did make sense for us as from project perspective in some cases, we have to match different systems directions that may choose different values to represent their rotations, or generally, if we have our cardinal point represented differently we'd also have to adjust this to match quickly.

As for different wind speeds at different heights that was something we explored in other ways

 

So... i saw Unity team are working on the Cloud Layer in Github.
the results are sooooooooo beautiful!
can't wait for it!
Thank you for your hard work!
but i just want to mention some problems about Cloud Layer based on the recent public version in Unity, because i don't think we will have any more chance to have someone in Unity working on Cloud Layer again.

1. the shadows casted by Cloud Layer are not moving as clouds moving.

2.please, let the shadows from Cloud Layer cloud be blended with the shadows from volumetric clouds.

We could only choose one for now.
small cloud shadow is a key to have detailed and beautiful lighting in huge landscape.
the shadows from volumetric clouds are too big as they are physically correct, but it lost details and aesthetic.
we could not use the shadows from Cloud Layer because the shadows from volumetric clouds are important too,
and the shadows from Cloud Layers is just a repeated texture, it looks odd on far huge mountains.

3.please add a distance falloff effect for shadows from Cloud Layer, so we won't have oddly repeated shadows on far huge mountains.

 

Thank you for reply!
for #1, I did some tests again.
It's true the shadows from Cloud Layer were moving.
i noticed the reason i thought the clouds were not moving.
the shadows from Cloud Layer move much slower than it should be.
you have to give it a very fast speed to see some movements of shadows.
you can see the comparison of volumetric clouds shadows and cloud layer shadows.
the Cloud Layer clouds move faster than volumetric clouds,it's very unrealistic already,
but Cloud Layer shadows still move much slower than volumetric clouds shadows.
i guess the best way to fix this is adding a new multiplier for shadow speed.
my unity version is 2022.1.0b8, HDRP is 13.1.5

btw,i'm not sure why did my cloud layer start to jiggle,
it looks like a float precision issue.
i tried to recreate this in new scene, with longer camera clipping planes and bigger mountain and same volume profiles, no luck to recreate it yet.
i will do more research for it later.

 

That's Cloud Layer, got nothing to do with Volumetric Clouds. I'm still waiting for Volumetric Clouds to work the same way. Cloud Layer is superior in that regard. Unless I'm wrong, then please someone show me how that works. Thank you!

 

I talked about how Cloud Layer could help Volumetric Cloud in this thread before, they took it very seriously and the results are super awesome.
for now these two type clouds could be blended perfectly already in the Github version.
https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/Graphics/pull/6828
i guess they will merge these two systems together sooner or later.

 

Nice. So that works actually now? I've always had the problem that the cloud layers were in front of the volumetric ones.

 

Some feedback:

Clouds do not show up at all on Windows 7 with DX11 as the graphics API. I had to set Vulkan as the graphics API in order to see clouds. Might want to look into that and update the documentation to mention that changing the graphics API in the Player settings may be required in order for volumetric clouds to appear.

I haven't tested with OpenGL yet.

Why are there two checkboxes next to "Enable" in the Volume Override settings? The second one (the one on the right) is the one that actually turns the volumetric clouds on and off. The first one doesn't seem to do anything other than allow the second one to become clickable. So why is it even there?

Finding and clicking all of the correct checkboxes is a VERY confusing and tedious process. There should be just one button that enables or disables them across the whole scene. The volumetric clouds override should be attached to the sky and fog volume by default (and that should be where the enable/disable master control is, because it's the most obvious place for it to go).

After several hours of tearing my hair out in frustration and finally figuring out how to change the graphics API in the Player settings, I finally had clouds.

Visually, the results are pretty nice. Messing around with custom settings is a lot of fun. The effect itself is quite good and I haven't found any problems with the visuals.

But the whole thing has the aforementioned glaring usability issues that provide a huge brick wall for which the official documentation is no help whatsoever.

The process of enabling the effect needs to be streamlined and made obvious (a single check box in an obvious location).

It also needs to be clarified in the official documentation that not all graphics APIs support the effect on all platforms, and that changing the graphics API in the Player settings may be required for some users (along with some brief instructions on how to do so).

 

I would love to see volumetric shadows period in 2021.2.12f1, nothing shows up period, clouds show up and work fine just no cloud shadows. I even setup the Y plane to be same as my terrain, no matter what I set anything to, it just doesn't work!

 

I'm trying to create the God Rays effect and followed the steps in this article: https://blog.unity.com/technology/experience-true-volumetric-clouds-with-hdrp-unity-20212

I tried a bunch of settings and it doesn't seem to work.
Any tips on how to get the God Rays effect?

 

If you want to see god rays from volumetric clouds,you have to:
1.turn on shadows for volumetric clouds and set the shadow opacity to 1,the distance is better more than 10000.
2.increase the distance of "Volumetric Fog Distance", at least more than 10000.
3.increase the "Maximum Height" of fog, at least more than 1000.

 

Hello
I love working with the new cloud system

one suggestion for improvement is more about the directional light, during cloud design we try to make very colorful and its great.. however, we start to find trouble with vegetation material that uses diffusion profiles as it gets influence from diffuse color / intensity

In directional light we do have a toggle “Affect diffuse” however it is only on/off. Searching thru shader code (Lit) I don’t find anyway easy way to deal with this locally within a custom shader as shader feature.

my suggestion is can we add a bias control for “Affect diffuse” rather than a simple toggle

or even better have a way to add a local bias control in material and diffusion profiles, the goal would be to strongly influence clouds but not blow out diffusion profiles

 

i will send you a test project in private you can use a as a playground to see different influence from sky color into diffusion profiles

yes agree its not a simple solution and may could need more discussion with different teams
i just like to draw the attention now to the relationship from sky color and diffusion profile for vegetation and think about how to solve more easily

 

if the scene i sent link for in private is a problem you could use any scene that has trees and vegetation with diffusion profiles

this is a free one from unity
https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/environments/unity-terrain-hdrp-demo-scene-213198

 

ok i will get something up later today

chasing a odd bug related to some fog assets for windows 11 users at the moment that seam to get fog sorting issues from scene camera dynamic clipping in api 12.1.5

 

Hi,

@pierred_unity @auzaiffe

I've got similar feedback as @DragonRider regarding Windows 7 frome one person. Clouds are not visible in build on Windows 7 SP1 and DirectX11 (Nvidia GTX1660 Ti) (Unity 2021.2.0f1). Clouds are visible when forcing Vulkan at launch. Here is part of the log from simple scene created just for testing the clouds:

The second error is spammed many times so it's probably related to the issue.

EDIT: I've sent another build with GPU jobs disabled for testing. The 'ShaderProgram is unsupported...' error is gone but clouds are still not visible.

 

BTW. While checking Win7 screenshots that I've got as a feedback (from test scenes that I made to test the clouds) I've noticed that PBS Sky looks different on Windows 7 than on Windows 10. Left one is Win10, the right one is Win7. It's the same build and same scene (fog and clouds are disabled here).

Looks like Windows 7 uses DirectX level 11.0 while Windows 10 uses level 11.1. Maybe there are some functions/features missing in level 11.0 that cause those differences and prevent clouds from working?

Of course Windows 7 is not widely used at the moment but Unity still says that it's supported and some people still use it so I'm posting the gathered feedback here.

 

Hello
I asked this before a few months ago perhaps it was missed
do clouds have a global texture we could grab for the shadows to use in shaders
I would like to use it as a mask in our custom shaders for rain and other effects

 

Hi,

I do this effect directly on the shader, for both those shader based volumetric clouds and the fully volumetric image effect ones in Sky Master ULTIMATE and ORION in top video, a compute shader is not required for this effect.

 

I know u guys are also working on water system but when should we expect this???

 

What is the best way to implement a day/night cycle (moving directional light) when you are rendering to large resolutions? Currently when I change the angle of the directional light every update, I get this result for a screen resolution of 3440 x 1440 on 2022.1.0b13:


On the left with static directional light. 11 ms difference in total.
Updating every x frames gives laggy spikes. Updating every second or so would be acceptable, but only if you don't move the light much, so that the shadows don't jump much. But it would be nice to have a bit shorter than real life days

 

What is the ratio of "Shape Offset" to regular (metric) units? Tried some numbers but couldn't match it well. Would it be a setting-dependent formula? Need it for a (fairly basic, ground level only) floating origin implementation.

 

I think I have it close to default settings. Might have to check, if I messed up something. But the bounces are at 3. Clouds Primary Steps 128 and Light Steps 6.

Yeah, I was wondering, if it's possible without DLSS. It's not a big issue though. I made it optional for the moment.

That's what I am doing with it btw:



It's a sim of some of the new SpaceX stuff. It shows a cam that is flying up with the rocket on a display while the player is still on the ground looking at the display. I noticed that there is sometimes flickering on the clouds when flying high with both cameras on. But I didn't investigate it further yet, as it not important to fly high.

Here is also a video where you can see it flying through the clouds around the 9 minute mark:

The clouds look pretty good so far overall. Thanks! Can't wait for further updates!

 

Hey guys, just want to know, if "Planet Center Position" unification for atmosphere. clouds and water is coming in 2022?

 

I asked something similar a while back, haven't noticed an answer yet.

 

Clouds disappear when I press play. The come back when I restart Unity. I thought it's a time-thing, but setting wind speed to 99999 and waiting does not fix it. Also there doesn't seem to be a general "time offset" for the wind? Or is that directly bound to the time?

 

Can we expect some kind of point-light support?
I would like to simulate some proper thunderstorms, but lightnings need point lights in order to look reasonably good.

 

Unity 2021.3.1f1
HDRP 12.1.6

 

Another Thought:
Is the Volume Framework the best way to offer Volumetric Clouds? Clouds are probably always a global Volume.
Wouldn't it be better to introduce it as a new "Cloud Shadergraph Material Type"? Like SubsurfaceScattering or the new Water type? The "Cloud Material" would be rendered behind everything and be applied to a sky-quad or sphere.

The big advantage would be: I could create nice shapes and use my own noise-functions (3D Perlin Noise etc.) and even use the "twirl" Node to generate stunning shapes, easily blend cloud formations etc.



Are there any plans to combine the new Volumetric Clouds with Shadergraph in a way?

 

I think they are already working on something like this https://portal.productboard.com/uni.../c/1431-volumetric-material-with-shader-graph

 

The other approach is leveraging the volume framework.
Since this could integrate into bigger systems like, TOD /seasons and weather.

 

Having shader/shader graph support would be great.

I know there is work going on for a volume shader for the shader graph.
I don't know if this will also open the gates for it to be implemented with the volumetric clouds as well.
There are custom clouds mentioned in the description but I think that's just for single objects/volumes of a cloud, to art direct a shot.

Maybe we can ask for it there?

https://portal.productboard.com/8uf.../c/1431-volumetric-material-with-shader-graph