Cloud lighting/rendering changes between Blender 2.83 and 3.1

Question Materials and Textures
posted to: Cloudscape

Idk if anyone has tried this lately but I just cannot get my cirrus clouds to look that wispy. When I try to make them "wispier" like you do, mine just break up into super tiny pieces instead of elongating and getting that wispiness. It's like the nodes aren't acting the same anymore. Can't really get any of the settings to do that. 

  • Kent Trammell replied

    I haven't made clouds in a while but when I open the cloudscape source file with Blender 3.1, the cirrus "whispiness" appears to be more or less the same to me:

    However something has definitely changed with the overall color. I believe color ramps have changed in recent Blender versions. I know they altered my Abe Lincoln hair material (and this thread)

    So since I used color ramps frequently with these cloud materials it's likely they are at least slightly different.

  • spikeyxxx replied

    @theluthier Colorramps have not changed, it is a pure remapping like the Map Range Node and 'that math doesn't change':

    Colorramp1.png

    However some procedural Textures have changed:

    Colorramp2.png

    Interestingly,  the Fac of the Noise Texture (which is just the red channel of the noise texture) is still the same, but the Color has changed.

    There is also a change in colorspace, so the same RGB values will have different HSV values (well, the Hue stays the same, obviously...), to make things more complicated.

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  • Adrian Bellworthy replied

    Interesting spikeyxxx,

    So in conclusion, by opening the file from 2.8 in 3.1, there would be little change

    but anyone following the course using 3.1 will need to adjust the texture node and possibly the color ramp as well.

  • spikeyxxx replied

     @adrian2301  by opening the file from 2.8 in 3.1, there would be little change

    There would be a difference depending on what procedural tecture nodes are used. For instance, the same file, just a Noise Texture with default values, made in 2.8 and opened in 3.2 and 2.8 compared:

    Versions.png


    The Voronoi Texture Node is also different.

    You can either stick to the version used in the tutorial, or use values only as guidelines (they usually won't be that far off) and trust your eyes to adjust them (which is always a good idea, even if you use the same version).

    I mentioned the difference in colorspace mainly because there were several people struggling with getting colors right in the Rocket Course (where explicit HSV values are mentioned).

  • Adrian Bellworthy replied

    I totally agree, use values only as guidelines.

  • Kent Trammell replied

    spikeyxxx What do you think is causing the change in these renders?

  • spikeyxxx replied

    @theluthier there are some changes in the Voronoi and Noise, but nothing essential (change in pattern, but not in 'feel').

    They have changed the Light Strength values for Eevee considerably though:

    Diff2.png

    (as a side note, there is some weird behavior when zooming in 3.2.....could be a bug:

    Diff3.png

    There is also a change (improvement) in the Volumetric Lighting and Shadows, but the main difference in this File appears to be the Light.

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  • Kent Trammell replied

    spikeyxxx that's a great point about the light strength values. Surely that's a big part of why the cloud's shading looks so different.

    I'm still not completely convinced that there weren't changes to the color ramp. This vertical slice of the sky texture (right side of the frame in both renders) is very different:

    Light strength isn't doing that. Maybe the gradient node has changed?

  • spikeyxxx replied

    @theluthier are they actual renders, or Viewport renders?

    The World uses Window Coordinates (not too familiar with those, sorry)

    Please ignore the following; must have been a bug in my (computer) system! I can no longer reproduce it.

    and that behaves different in the Viewport when zooming in or out in 3.2, but is constant in 2.83.

    Like I already showed above, thinking it was a bug, but maybe it is expected behavior. For instance in 2.93:

    2.93.png

    vs:

    2.93_zoom.png

    But that doesn't appear to affect the actual Render.

  • spikeyxxx replied

    @theluthier okay, I'm pretty sure that was a bug, back then; looking through the Camera didn't use the Window, but the Camera as a size in 2.83 (at least in the version I have, maybe they fixed it later as this is a LTS):

    Window.png

    while it should be like this:

    Window1.png

  • spikeyxxx replied

    Did a test to determine the light difference; I only rendered the World and found that the Sunlight Strength should be multiplied by 7,

    when compared to 2.83:

    Light.png

  • spikeyxxx replied

    Rendered in 3.2 with the Light Strength 'corrected' gives:

    Comp.png

    Apart from slight pattern changes, the main difference left is due to changed Volumetric Shadows in Eevee since 2.93:

    Eevee.png

  • Kent Trammell replied

    spikeyxxx Thanks a ton for diving into the weeds of this thread. Very interesting to see the nuances of subtle changes along with big changes, like Eevee volumetric updates.

    To answer your question, my 3.1 render was a proper render (not viewport) and the 2.83 was a screenshot of the render in the video.

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