Realistic Storm Cloud With Lightning Strikes!

Pretty astute observation Dennis, I agree.
It seems that while some "tendrils" do shoot outwards perpendicular from the
main stream, most tend to follow the same general direction of it. Similar to
the roots of a plant.

Mondivirtuali, I'll probably end up posting it as a contribution to the
resource page when I get done playing with it, but its nothing too special.

Very nice, josiah. is it the same you posted for me? btw.. could you help me for my problem :S

The reason different branches stick out like that is because the electrons being discharged from the ground look for the path through the air with the least resistance. However, when a 'branch' encounters too much resistance, it will go back to a path that does make it to the clouds.

Science lesson of the day.

Nice effect too

you should add a flash after it. Pretty impressive though.

This is a sweet effect. I remember trying lighting with models a few years ago, but this looks much better. Plan on releasing the source? I think your cloud method would look great in some environments.

omg this is amazing please release the source... lol

Massive churning clouds with improved lightning and new rain effect.




Demo

Wohow! I love it! Very atmospheric!

Three suggestions:
- the sprits of the clouds shouldn't turn with the player's view, or, at least they should be more round to make it less recognizable.
- when the rain becames more dense you could add white fog to show that.
- the difference between the bright clouds and the dark should be less.

All in all very nice!

looks much better. the flash is a bit too blue though^^

Let me call you "rainman"!
It's very good! Congrats!

mercuryus

Thanks for the nice comments and the crits, maybe its almost "there"?

About the textures turning at certain angles with the camera: I was hoping this
wasnt a noticable problem. There is a solution for it , but it is very code
intensive and in this case would hurt the frame rate, so I left it out. In this
demo, there are about 50 clouds of random proportions at any given time, but
the effect on fps seems to be very minimal on my two machines. I still search
for an easier solution to overcome gimbal lock.

The lightning is the biggest frame killer. Each bolt has an average of 2200
particles that live over two frames. Last night I made a new bolt with which
the branches sometimes have sub branches, but I am not sure it is really
visually noticable during a flash, or worth the extra ~500 particles.

Any critique on the rain effect?

Also, I am very curious about what anyone else is getting as far as frame rate
with this second demo. Is it really slow for anyone? (BTW, It auto adjusts
itself to the current desktop resolution).

Thanks!

I would love to see this in contributions, I can really use that as is as an attack for an rpg i will be working on. how about adding a code to strike enemies onscreen,lol?

The lightning is quite realistic aswell for the rain but offcourse it can still be improved but this is an know issue with each and every thing in a new game I thing you make the rain look abit to "straight", what I mean with this is that you should give it a more random look. The lighting is perfect as it is, I wouldn't change anything more on that matter. One small detail is that you should make the camera movement stop at a sertain angle, I could tilt right under need the player

Cheers

Frazzle

Thanks NeutronBlue. The average particles per bolt is about 2200, but may be
more if the clouds where higher or the number of branches greater. In this
example, I have more strikes going on than you would probably use in a game.

Still working on making it better... I havent heard anyone mention frame rate,
I suppose thats a good thing?

bout that source...
maybe you could spare me at least your rain effect?
that would be awesome^^

Excellent effects for both lightning and the clouds.

With the rain, perhaps add a little fog to the background to give the rain more volume, it might make the rain particles difficult to see though. Also I couldnt hear but is there a sound for the rain? Adding in something like that might make the rain seem more real.

Wow vast improvement from a while back, most impressive, though the links you provided seem to be dead?

Keep up the great work.

Thanks Yu Une, I appreciate the comments, I have to remove it so I had room for
other things on the server. I put it back up for a while if someone wants it. Its about 5 MB.

Do not use this model unless you have a surge protector on your computer