Hey guys
Well I'm trying to make volumetric clouds but I have no idea where to start.. Does anyone know a good tutorial how to make them or suggest a commercial free library that could achieve that more easily with out spending weeks to code it Also I don't want anything too cpu intensive... Just something simple

They don't have to be really realistic or anything but I want to fly thought them, and change how dense they are etc.

I've made simple clouds in OpenGl and they look like this:



I like how they look, i use perlin noise formula to generate them so they are different each time, and I can adjust how dense they are.. the only problem is that it's just a plane..





So I definitely need new approach to this

Well what I am trying in future is weather system, So i could get rain, thunderstorms etc
Thanks so much for your time and help

Hi there. I've been looking into clouds recently, maybe some of the research I've done could guide you towards a solution.

Perhaps the simplest solution is going from 2D to 3D Perlin Noise.

I would suggest using billboard sprites as dpadam450 said. I'd recommend reading two papers, "A Simple, Efficient Method for Realistic Animation of Clouds" by Yoshinori Dobashi (PDF), as he describes a way to represent cloud volumes. The second paper is on the actual billboard sprites, "Real-Time Cloud Rendering" by Mark Harris (PDF).


If you want really nice clouds, try http://wiki.patapom.com/index.php/Clouds. It the most extensive documentation on clouds I've found to date, but it is very complex. Good luck.

Thanks so much for feed back!