Modeling and rendering of volumetric clouds in real-time with unreal engine 4

Abstract

Simulation of realistic clouds is a difficult task that graphic designers have been trying to achieve for many years. Clouds are necessary for video games and animated movies with outdoor scenes. Unreal Engine 4, currently one of the most advanced game engines, offers various solutions for implementing such effects. In this paper, we present the effective methods for obtaining realistic real-time clouds in Unreal Engine 4 and provide some new extensions to make the result even better. The methods described are suitable for modeling and rendering both a single cloud and the entire sky filled with clouds. Amongst proposed techniques are modeling clouds by using noise functions, modeling by using a simplified simulation of cloud forming phenomena, rendering by using Ray marching technique and using fluid simulation to allow interaction of clouds with other objects on the scene.