Clouds in keyshot

[artmonky]

Hi,

Has anyone tried making clouds in keyshot yet?  I've been using vue for a while to do this but would much prefer to use keyshot.

[Will Gibbons]

You can use a plane set to emissive and apply a cloud .png image texture... If you want a volume, you may need to model it. We now have a cloudy plastic material in KeyShot 7 which is a true volumetric material. This can be applied to a model you create.

And if you really want to be the first to push it... go ahead and create a cube in KeyShot, apply a cloudy plastic material, then texture it with the noise procedural.

[DriesV]

To add to Will's comments...

While the new Cloudy Plastic material in KeyShot 7 has accurate scattering, it does not support non-uniform densities or volumetric shading. I.e. The bounding surfaces of the object (mesh or NURBS) is what is being shaded. This means that a opacity textured Cloudy Plastic cube will result in a hollow cubic cloud. While that can give interesting results, I can see how that may not be ideal.
And since the material is shaded on the surfaces, it is not possible to simulate volumetric effects with varying densities like clouds or fog.

That being said, a true volumetric material with support for non-uniform densities that can be used for clouds is currently in the works for a later release.

Dries

[Will Gibbons]

To add to Will's comments...

While the new Cloudy Plastic material in KeyShot 7 has accurate scattering, it does not support non-uniform densities or volumetric shading. I.e. The bounding surfaces of the object (mesh or NURBS) is what is being shaded. This means that a opacity textured Cloudy Plastic cube will result in a hollow cubic cloud. While that can give interesting results, I can see how that may not be ideal.
And since the material is shaded on the surfaces, it is not possible to simulate volumetric effects with varying densities like clouds or fog.

That being said, a true volumetric material with support for non-uniform densities that can be used for clouds is currently in the works for a later release.

Dries

Good to know details in this Dries! Thanks.

[Matheron]

Finally, Luxion.

For years, we have been wanting true volumetric fog in Keyshot.
It now looks like fog will finally come to pass. No pun intended.

Now go for release.

[Will Gibbons]

Finally, Luxion.

For years, we have been wanting true volumetric fog in Keyshot.
It now looks like fog will finally come to pass. No pun intended.

Now go for release.

It has already been released. KeyShot 7 is currently available 

[Matheron]

I understood Dries V to be saying on August 3rd 2017, after the release of Keyshot 7, that true non-uniform volumetric shading materials are not available in Keyshot?

That being said, a true volumetric material with support for non-uniform densities that can be used for clouds is currently in the works for a later release.

Have non-uniform volumetric shading materials been added since then?

If so, can I please see a quick example render?

[Matheron]

Thank you. I should have expressed my question more clearly. Let's try:

Say you want to fill a scene with a thin light-catching medium that looks like naturally occuring fog, or mist, or steam, or vapor, or smoke, et cetera. You want the foggy medium to interact with incoming light, so that when rays of light shine through it, the medium catches the rays and is illuminated where the rays are, with shadows cast behind objects through the volume of the medium. You also want the medium's density to be controllably non-uniform, so that it can have locally denser and thinner regions.

In short, you want to simulate naturally occuring fog.

Preferably, you do not want to do this by somewhat convoluted workarounds like motion-blurring six moving planes:
https://www.keyshot.com/forum/index.php?topic=13728.0

Instead, you want to do it just by adding a fog-like material to an object encompassing the scene, and tweak the material.

Can this currently be achieved in Keyshot Pro? If so, could we please see some good example renders?

[Will Gibbons]

I understood Dries V to be saying on August 3rd 2017, after the release of Keyshot 7, that true non-uniform volumetric shading materials are not available in Keyshot?

This is correct. Non-uniform vol. shading isn't yet available. I misinterpreted your comment from Sept. 6 (thought you were referring to KS7) 

[Matheron]

Thank you. Dries V says:

a true volumetric material with support for non-uniform densities that can be used for clouds is currently in the works for a later release.

I take it that "a later release" does not mean Keyshot 7.x, but in Keyshot 8, 9 or 10.

I hope that eventually, the fog on this issue is cleared. Or not...