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Create a Realistic Cloud and Atmosphere in Terragen

Updated: Oct 22


The aim of this post is to create a realistic environment sunset scene with believable clouds and atmosphere.

realistic cloud and atmosphere in terragen

* To Create a Realistic Cloud and atmosphere exactly like the cover image, copy our render camera position to your project and follow the steps

camera position in terragen

Position = -34 84 -818

Rotation= 15 20 0


1. Create a Terrain

terrain in terragen

First, open the Terragen, We use Terragen 4.6.31

No need to add a Terrain node in the Graph, Just change the default value.


Double-click on Fractal terrain 01 and change these values to have a better Terrain shape.

Feature scale = 5000

Lead-in scale = 110000

Smallest scale = 0.1

Noise octaves = 22

Set Seed to 61062 if you want the same Terrain look as ours and change the camera position to find your best position.


Then double-click on Fractal wrap shader 01 and change these values

Scale = 2000

Wrap amount = 1

Variation = 1.5

Roughness = 1

Seed = 0


2. Atmosphere

For faster previews of your scene, enable RTP (ray-trace preview)

Then go to the Main tab and change these values


Haze density = 2

Haze horizon colour = 0.3

Bluesky density = 8

Bluesky horizon colour = 0.5

Bluesky additive = 0

Redsky decay = 0

Then go to the Lighting tab and set Haze sun glow amount to 2 and Haze sun glow power to 1.5


Now for a better atmosphere look, go to the Tweaks tab and change values


Ambient = 0.2

Fake dark power = 0.5

Fake dark sharpness = 10

Then click on the blue density colour icon and set Red to 99, Green to 161, and Blue to 234

Redsky decay colour = 0.88

Ozone factor = 0.75


It's time to add a cloud!

3. Cloud

In the Atmosphere tab, Click on Add Cloud Layer and select Mid-level : Altocumulus Castellanus, Large


Now change these values to have a better cloud look

First change Model to TG 3.9.04 Then set Cloud base altitude to 7000 and Cloud depth to 12000, now we have a high level and thicker cloud.

Terragen cloud atmosphere

Now we need to add ground haze, so add Low-level: Generic in your Cloud Layer.

In Main Tab Changes

Cloud altitude to 198, Cloud depth to 400, set center to 2100, 190, 10000, Radius set to 10000, and Edge sharpness to 0.2 to have a softer cloud


Then in the Tweak Tab, increase the Ambient to 0.35 to have a lighter haze

Now we need to change the Pattern shape to have a better cloud looks

So click on Pattern then in the opened window set these parameters

Feature scale = 20

Lead-in scale = 4700

Smallest scale = 60

Noise octaves = 8


After that in the Density Tab increase the Coverage adjust to 0.15 to have more haze and set the Roughness to 2.5


Change Noise flavour to Perlin ridges in The Next tab


In the Wraping Tab set the Lead-in wrap amount to 3

You can change the Seed to have a better look, here we use 50309 for the seed value


4. Lighting

After finishing the cloud system its time to set a sun direction and create a beautifulOnce the cloud system is complete, it's time to set the sun's direction and create a beautiful sunset

In the Lighting Tab select Sunlight 01 and change Heading to 41, Elevation to 10, and Strength to 7

* Notice that values depend on your camera position


5. Render

Rendering is the last step to get a high-quality and clean image


Go to the Renderers tab, select the Quality tab then

Micropoly detail = 0.8 (better terrain quality)

Anti-aliasing = 7


To clean up your render, click on Edit Sampling and set the First sampling level to 1/4 and the Pixel noise threshold to 0.02


It's Done!


realistic cloud and atmosphere in Terragen
High Quality Render


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