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Warning! This version of documentation is OUTDATED, as it describes an older SDK version! Please switch to the documentation for the latest SDK version.
Warning! This version of documentation describes an old SDK version which is no longer supported! Please upgrade to the latest SDK version.

Clouds

This section contains settings for clouds.

Clouds Settings

Common#

Enable Clouds Toggles rendering of clouds on and off.
Ground Shadows Toggles rendering of clouds shadows on the ground on and off.
Accurate Layers Sorting Toggles correct sorting of intersecting cloud layers.
Notice
Enabling this feature may reduce ray marching quality as samples shall be distributed among all layers.
Transparent Order Rendering mode for clouds relative to transparent objects (except water).
  • Render Before Transparent — render clouds before all transparent objects (except water).
  • Render After Transparent — render clouds after all transparent objects (except water).
  • Sort Transparent — enable rough sorting for transparent objects relative to clouds (below the lowest cloud layer base -> inside the clouds -> above the highest cloud layer top).
Detail Distortion Texture type to be used for clouds distortion. The following types are available:
  • 2D Texture — more performance-friendly, but may cause an excessive vertical extrusion of clouds.
  • 3D Texture — ensures homogeneous detail distortion and better image quality, but at a higher performance cost.
Soft Intersection Soft intersection distance for clouds, in meters.

Quality#

Clouds quality rendering settings

Preset Clouds quality preset:
  • Low — low quality
  • Medium — medium quality
  • Custom — adjust the quality manually
Notice
Presets override user-defined custom settings. When any preset other than Custom is active, modification of the parameters via API has no effect. The parameter value set via the last API call shall be used only when the Custom preset is active. When checking the current parameter value via API you'll get the corresponding setting stored in the active preset (default or custom one).

Customizable Settings#

The following settings are available when the Custom preset is selected.

Clouds quality custom settings

Clouds Quality Settings
Sampling Quality The number of noise samples used. This parameter affects cloud density. The following values are available:
  • Low — 1 sample, low quality (higher density)
  • Medium — 3 samples, medium quality (by default)
  • High — 5 samples, high quality
  • Ultra — 6 samples, ultra quality (lower density, the clouds are softer)
Notice
Visual difference between low and ultra quality is not significant. Therefore, it is recommended to use low settings, when possible, to gain performance.
Lighting Quality The number of samples used to calculate lighting for clouds. The following values are available:
  • Low — 1 sample, low quality
  • Medium — 3 samples, medium quality (by default)
  • High — 5 samples, high quality
  • Ultra — 6 samples, ultra quality
Notice
This parameter has a significant impact on performance. Therefore, it is recommended to use low settings, when possible.
Samples Count The number of samples used for clouds rendering. The following values are available:
  • Low — 1 sample, low quality
  • Medium — 3 samples, medium quality (by default)
  • High — 5 samples, high quality
  • Ultra — 6 samples, ultra quality
Step Accuracy Toggles accuracy of ray marching steps. Higher values provide more accurate form and less noise, while lower ones gain more performance.
Downsampling Rendering This parameter determines the clouds resolution based on a current screen resolution. The following values are available:
  • Full — full resolution
  • Half — half resolution (by default)
  • Quarter — quarter resolution
Notice
This parameter has a significant impact on performance.
Interleaved Rendering Interleaved rendering mode for clouds. The following values are available:
  • disabled (by default)
  • 2 x 2
  • 4 x 4
  • 8 x 8
Notice
When clouds are viewed from the ground or from above (at significant distance) and the viewer's velocity is less than 200 units per second, enabling this parameter can provide a significant gain in performance.
Depth Based Reconstruction Toggles using the clouds ray-marched depth for upsampling the downsampled clouds without obscuring the geometry and reprojection depending on the cloud depth. Recommended for flying through clouds.
Notice
Works only with Downsampling Rendering set to half and/or Interleaved Rendering set to 2x2.
Interleaved Rendering Temporal Temporal accumulation of noises for the interleaved sampling.
Notice
Works only with Interleaved Rendering value set to 2x2.
Depth Based Reconstruction Threshold Depth threshold value for Depth Based Reconstruction. This value defines the depth difference starting from which the pixels are considered to be related to the different surfaces.
Noise Step The amount of jitter in areas within clouds that is used to reduce banding effect due to an insufficient number of steps.
Noise Iterations The amount of jitter used to reduce banding effect due to insufficient number of steps.
Noise Lighting The amount of jitter for tracing steps of lighting calculation, which is used to reduce banding effect due to insufficient number of steps.
Noise Step Skip The amount of jitter in areas between clouds, which is used to reduce banding effect due to insufficient number of steps.

Lighting#

Lighting Trace Length The maximum length of a sun ray traced inside a cloud, in units.
Lighting Cone Radius Lighting cone sampling radius for clouds lighting.
Notice
Low values may result in unnatural behavior as the position of the sun changes.
Lighting Samples Distribution The samples distribution for the clouds lighting.
Notice
Higher values provide lighting samples closer to the beginning of the range set by Trace Length.

Rounded#

Enable Rounded Toggles visual curving for clouds on and off. This option can be used to make clouds look more natural imitating planet's curvature.

Planet Radius Planet radius to be used for clouds curving, in units.

Dynamic Coverage#

Dynamic Coverage Resolution The quality of dynamic coverage texture for FieldWeather objects. The following values are available:
  • 128 x 128
  • 256 x 256 (by default)
  • 512 x 512
  • 1024 x 1024
  • 2048 x 2048
Higher values make it possible to preserve texture details at high distances.
Notice
Increased resolution significantly affects performance.
Dynamic Coverage Area Visibility distance for coverage of FieldWeather objects, in units.
Notice
In UnigineEditor this area is marked with a bounding box. When the camera is outside this box, the FieldWeather coverage is not visible.
Increasing dynamic coverage area leads to reduction of quality of FieldWeather coverage texture and loss of details. This effect can be mitigated by increasing Dynamic Coverage Resolution.
Last update: 2021-04-29
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