3d clouds?

[Christopher Glavan]

I don't know if this belongs here, but we don't have a 3d section, so...

I hae been scouring the internet for tutorials on making volumetric clouds like we see in the Dreamworks or Paramount stings. I have access to Blender3d and Cinema 4d. So far I've found one tutorial and it's for 3dsmax, and I believe it's using a 3rd party plugin.

If anyone knows of a good tutorial (or wants to make one) I would love it if you would share!!!

[Shawn McCalip]

Some time ago I came across a short article explaining that the clouds in the Dreamworks logo aren't 3D at all. The clouds in the animation were made by using photos of real clouds treated in Photoshop and then manipulated in After Effects. Of course, I can't recall where exactly I read it, but it seemed the people that designed that logo in particular wanted to give the illusion of 3D clouds without having to go through the trouble.

And good volumetric clouds can be a bit of trouble! Trouble meaning extremely time-consuming to render and challenging to pull off realistically without the help of 3rd party plug-ins. I'm a 3ds max user, but I would think many of the basic principles of 3D modeling would be similar between Max and C4D. Are these clouds supposed to be viewed up close or from a distance? In an effort to perhaps save you from a long render, is it possible to fake it with some photos or some animated fractal noise overlays in After Effects?

As far as tutorials go, here are a couple links for you:
MAXON Computer Cinema 4D Tutorials: Orion Nebula
That's showing you how to make a nebula in space, but the cloud-like shapes are there. You could change the colors of the background and cloud materials to suit your setup.

Tutorial: 3D Clouds with Text using Cinema 4D! | Filmmaking Central - The Process of Filmmaking

This second one shows how to make puffy, cloud-shaped text characters, but once again, you could substitute a shape of your own to reach the desired effect. Hope this helps!

[Mark Keck]

Maybe not what you're after but have a look at these:

Tutorial for creating dreamworks a-like clouds using UltraShockTutorial_f

Beautiful Fluffy Clouds in Photoshop - Christmas Tutorial | Abduzeedo - design inspiration and tutorials

[Christopher Glavan]

Thanks for the replies. Shawn, interesting! That's some great photoshopping if that's accurate. I tried something similar to this in AE, but my results after many hours of tweaking were mediocre at best.

Mark, the Ultrashock tutorial you linked to is one I was so excited to find, but as far as I can tell UltraShock is either a 3rd party plug-in, or exclusive to 3dsmax. That is exactly what I'm looking for, just looking for a more universal method.