Archive republication: This article was originally published on 10 September 2020. It has been translated into English and lightly updated for clarity while preserving the original reporting and context.
3D Flow Maps for Volumetric Clouds
Technical artist Ryan Brucks demonstrated a real-time cloud workflow built around features introduced with Unreal Engine 4.26. Using Curve Assets, he painted density and flow maps that were rendered through the VolumetricCloud component developed by Sebastien Hillaire.
Brucks also used a two-dimensional RGBA map to define the cloud form. The approach shows how authored maps can guide volumetric motion and density while remaining interactive.
Teams should test temporal stability, shadow quality and GPU cost in representative scenes before using volumetric-cloud techniques in production.
Brucks shared development material through his ShaderBits account.
