Procedural Clouds plugs into Blender as a volumetric sky builder aimed at Cycles, letting you rough in atmosphere during lookdev before lighting turns everything into a science project.

How?

Procedural Clouds exposes its controls in the N-panel, so you can steer the setup without opening node graphs. That matters in production because fewer accidental edits land in the wrong graph at 2 a.m.

Solid Preview is the key switch for fast iteration. Turn it on and the clouds show up in Solid mode. There is also an auto mode that watches viewport shading and toggles Solid Preview for you, keeping it off in Rendered mode and on in Solid mode.

The add-on also includes a Pin system that locks the UI to a target object so the controls keep talking to the right volume even when selection gets messy. Pin Auto Switch exists as a preference and is enabled by default, letting the pinned target follow the currently selected supported object. Turn it off and the pin stays glued to the original target.

Scene tweaks you should notice before they bite

Some features can automatically adjust Blender scene settings during use, including volume bounces, step count, and clip distance. If you want your scene settings left untouched, you need to disable those options in the add-on preferences or dial them back.

Clip Start and Clip End are specifically called out for Solid Preview artifacts. If the volume looks sliced or flickers, raise Clip Start. If the cloud gets cut off in the distance, raise Clip End. You also need to set matching Clip Start and Clip End values on the scene camera.

Made by Suzanne studio, the docs also flag that Blender 5.0 changed the algorithm for Voronoi Texture, so presets can look slightly different between Blender 4.5 and 5.0 even when the cloud remains the same and the seed changes.

Scaling rules that keep the look consistent

The scaling behavior is split by mode. Scale in Object Mode and the object changes size without changing internal settings, so the effect parameters stay the same and the visual result stays consistent. Scale in Edit Mode and you change the underlying volume or mesh size, extending the existing content while keeping internal settings and detail density stable.

The recommended starting point is a cloud object around 2 meters, then resizing in Object Mode. After extreme scaling, you may need to adjust Density to get the result back to where you want it, especially if your cluod suddenly looks like it went on a diet.

Knobs that trade detail for speed

Three controls define the look to cost relationship. Point Density controls how full the cloud is. Higher values produce thicker and more detailed clouds, while lower values produce lighter clouds and faster performance. Point Size Min and Max control variation in the cloud shapes. Higher values push softer and puffier shapes. Lower values push finer structure. Volume Resolution controls the final detail of the volume. Higher values sharpen detail but slow things down. Lower values render faster with a softer result. That resolution knob is also where perofrmance usually goes to negotiate for lunch.

Keeping your scene clean while you iterate

Make Unique creates an independent copy of a selected object so changes do not affect others. It is built for the classic moment when you duplicate a cloud, tweak it, and discover you just changed every cloud in the shot.

There is also a note about removing a Boolean Empty cleanly. Deleting the Empty in the viewport may leave it in the scene, so removal can require deleting it from the add-on panel or deleting it in the Outliner.

New tools and innovations should be tested before use in production, especially when they can touch scene settings and when shot continuity depends on repeatable volumetrics.

https://superhivemarket.com/products/procedural-clouds/

https://www.youtube.com/@suzanne_studio3d

Licensing and tiers

Pricing is tiered into three licenses, all of which include creator support and future updates.

The Personal tier costs $25 and is for personal or non-profit projects.
The Commercial tier costs $45 and is for commercial projects.
The Studio tier costs $110 and is a multi-seat license. It also lists custom features request alongside creator support and future updates.

The post Procedural Clouds with Cycles focus first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

For those who don’t know: Compositing Academy (Alex Hanneman – LinkedIn | IMDB) is a training and development hub created by professional compositors for compositors. The studio produces practical tools and VFX courses focused on real production use rather than theory.

A True Volume, Not a Trick

Compositing Academy has released Volumetric Noise, a fully three-dimensional procedural noise engine for Nuke. The plugin raymarches genuine 3D volumes in Nuke’s viewer, eliminating the need for 2D cheats to fake atmosphere, fog, or cloud layers. It runs on Windows and supports Nuke 16.0v6 through 17, with limited fallback for 15 if the Vectorise CPU option is disabled in the Blink node.

Raymarching is a rendering technique that steps a virtual camera through a 3D field to calculate light, density, and colour at each point, supposedly allowing realistic fog, smoke, and cloud depth.

Unlike card-based noise projections, Volumetric Noise works as a native volumetric renderer. It allows full control over shapes, erosion, and motion, functioning like a simplified 3D render engine embedded in Nuke. The plugin is aimed at compositors who want realistic parallax, light scattering, and shadowing without round-tripping to Houdini or another 3D package.

Real Depth, Real Shadows

The plugin supports one directional light source, providing reactive lighting, shading, and shadow steps for density control. Shadows can be biased and jittered for fine-tuning. Lighting intensity and scattering parameters emulate volumetric fall off, enabling backlit frog and soft illumination effects.

Density, gain, and gamma settings define softness and depth, while erosion and distortion layers introduce non-repetitive structure. These features enable art-directing density variation, wispy edges, and natural cloud breakup, effects usually reserved for full 3D simulations.

Occlusion and Parallax in Comp

Volumetric Noise supports Z-depth and P-pass occlusion. Volumes can be masked against 3D geometry or plate-derived depth data, enabling integration with live-action environments. Although the tool does not support deep compositing, it provides bias and contour softness controls to reduce aliasing in Z or P data.

Alex states that this approach covers around 60 to 70 per cent of typical atmospheric compositing tasks. Deep compositing remains necessary for complex holdouts, heavy motion blur, or fine geometry such as vegetation. Camera parallax and real 3D movement are fully supported. Artists can fly through volumes and preview them as point clouds in Nuke’s 3D viewer, which aids precise placement and occlusion alignment.

Lightweight and Fast

The developer reports near-real-time playback and rendering speeds of about 1 second per frame, depending on sampling and scene density. Built-in optimisation features include slicing, space skipping, and a heatmap visualiser showing where calculations occur in the volume. Empty space is automatically skipped, improving render efficiency. Motion blur is achieved by exporting motion vectors that combine camera and noise movement for use with Nuke’s VectorBlur node. Internal defocus is not supported; instead, users can split volumes and defocus externally.

Designed by a Compositor

Alex positions the plugin as an artist-friendly tool, just the controls you need, nothing more. Presets include base clouds, ground fog, backlit fog, wispy volumes, and world-space scalable cloudscapes. The developer emphasises that Volumetric Noise is procedural, not a pre-baked VDB loader, and aims to offer infinite variety for shot-specific art direction.

Pricing and Availability

Volumetric Noise is available now from Compositing Academy for USD 99. A free watermarked version is offered for testing, labelled as BETA. The plugin requires Nuke Indie or Nuke Commercial and is compatible with Windows systems. Future minor compatibility fixes are planned. A potential version 2 update may involve an upgrade fee. As with all new tools, users are advised to test the plugin in their own production environments before deployment.

The post No More 2D Smoke and Mirrors: Volumetric Noise for Nuke first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.