Archive notice: This article was originally published on June 10, 2019. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
KumoWorks is free software for the simple generation of individual clouds. The software creates the image of one or more clouds according to a drawn shape. The developers (Dwango) became known primarily for their 2D animation tool “OpenToonz,” which is also free. Once you have started KumoWorks, the general workflow can be summarized in three to five steps:
- Start KumoWorks
- Draw silhouettes
- Press the Enter key
- Adjust settings
- Export
The clouds can be drawn on added layers and separated from one another. For a cloud to be formed, the respective drawing must be closed. If you hold down Ctrl, however, you can also erase parts of the cloud!
The Cloud Generator Settings
Alongside settings for the resolution (1280 x 720 is selected by default) and preview quality, you can play with several sliders for the following areas:
- Sky Settings for camera, sun, rendering the sky and backgrounds
- Cloud Settings to set depth, accuracy, seed, cutoff and cutoff blur
- Shape Settings for adjustments to the radius, intensity and more
- Noise Settings for scaling, rotation, seed and complexity of the noise map
- Render Settings for colors, ray steps, density and reflections!
Export
It is not possible to export the generated cloud as a 3D object/VDBs: KumoWorks is used exclusively to create 2D clouds for illustrations, animations or comps. When clicking “Render” in the upper tab, however, the clouds can be exported with a transparent background and thus used for further work steps!
Depending on the computer and selected settings, the render time can take some time…(in our test in Full HD, it was a maximum of 1 minute)
Go to the Download
Compiled binaries are available for Windows and Mac OS here. The software is free for commercial use. You can find further information on the official GitHub page.
Disney’s AI Learns Cloud Rendering:
The Disney Reserarch Lab in Zurich also devoted itself impressively to the context of “cloud rendering” in a 2017 paper. With the presented technique named “Deep Scattering,” the team searched for an efficient synthesis of rendered clouds through a combination of regular path tracing and neural networks. The method is intended to be a practical solution and also suitable for creating 3D animated content. Alongside a short explanation by Two Minute Papers, you can also view an interactive demo online.
