Cloud City
September 7th, 2016

Continuing the Element 3D fun! This started as a desert scene and soon turned into a cloud city! Typical. Part of the fun of these render projects is just creating random stuff and designing without a specific goal. It's actually been really challenging and exciting to try various techniques.

In this scene, I used an aerial cloud photos with some dust stock footage to create a wispy cloud city. The trick was placing dust in front and behind the objects so they pop out a bit. This design was broken into two copies of Element 3D. One for the BG buildings and one for the front pieces. This made it easy to place smoke between the layers.

I also used the E3D Fog and Ambient occlusion to create distance separation. There are probably a bunch of ways I could lay the scene out but the nice thing is once it is setup you can experiment with various arrangements!

Andrew Kramer
POSTED:
10 years ago
55 Comments
tank you.
gooooood.
9 years ago
cool
9 years ago
Look like the smoking city, not cloud city.
Cedric
9 years ago
My cloud city render

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BxGRkLkN9A
9 years ago
On a boring sunday afternoon I tried a Cloud City-render. So I haven't those amazing 3d models I used those from the Star Wars-model-pack. Anyone see the X-Wing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MxyGl8px6c
Gismoxan
9 years ago
A Fight Scene Short Movie ............ https://youtu.be/Ysey8FgjN3U
9 years ago
Great cinematic shot !

Good luck Andrew!

Digiphic Studio
http://www.digiphic.com
Julius C Brown III
9 years ago
This is awesome. Could you do something like a transition from below clouds, through clouds to the top of clouds in a fantasy moonlight kind of way? Ive seen photoshopped images like that, have yet to see anything through after effects.
Anish Ghosh
9 years ago
I tried and setup a compose for Cloud City (Six sec animation). Needs a lot of improvement, but at list I tried it.
Thanks for the awesome guide even in text form.
If you have time check it out - https://youtu.be/vxTUML5G7m4
9 years ago
Funny movements - but it seems the light-settings needs a little bit further ajustment
Creatif Sanju
10 years ago
Awesome AK. u rocked the the city.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NouhWQfF9Ls
10 years ago
WOW , Amazing!
I wonder if i know how to make the Clouds !!!
stephanor Jackson
10 years ago
U guys are just to spacial...i know someday I will get to ur standard.. Love u all.
10 years ago
City after sand storm.
Shirel
10 years ago
My try at creating a cloud city
https://youtu.be/QomYY72L1q4
9 years ago
Amazing - only the clouds look a little static
solaiappan
10 years ago
How to Make like this Clouds. Its look Real. And the lighting Is too Good in the Clouds. Is that Any Third Party Plugin...?
10 years ago
Hi guys!!! I did a new tutorial with Element 3D!!!
Here: http://fr.tuto.com/after-effects/dodge-challenger-avec-element-3d-v2-after-effects,70021.html
My software is in english but I am french!!!
Thanks.
wim
10 years ago
Advertise for tutorial, and have to pay for it
is not cool
D Guy
10 years ago
Although I see for the $15.00 price tag , he also throws in Video copilots free rooftop models and backgrounds , how very gracious. Admin should take this down really. Its' not really in the spirit of the VC community.
Great job
10 years ago
I wish I could understand French, but your tutorial looks great man. The car looks great and the reflections look great. Keep it up. If you by chance speak some english, I'd love to see a free tutorial
MK
10 years ago
What ? Mais pourquoi tu voudrais qu'on paye alors qu'on a la m?me chose ici gratos ? C'est un peu gonfl? de venir faire ta promo ici.
jaseem harry
10 years ago
Looks great.
I created Leo Messi 3D Motion graphics in 3ds Max and After Effects.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pk60D6Dco94
Andrew..You are such an inspiration...Thank you.
10 years ago
YO Andrew, SULLY the movie, is that Kramerica airlines? You know, I mean is that your work? Nice either way, just curious. Adios. Ciao. Thanks, later.
10 years ago
I've said it once and I'll say it again, these weekly posts are part of something bigger...... Well hopefully lol. Time will tell....

Christian Michael
https://vimeo.com/181111812
nooice
10 years ago
Did you create that "wrap plane" video? if so great job man. Nicely edited.
10 years ago
I did Nooice. Filmed and edited. Thank you so much for taking the time and complimenting. It's actually in 3 parts. Working on the actual flight footage now.

Christian Michael
yoav
10 years ago
you can do in the future a harry potter pack for element?
10 years ago
Looks great! Got inspired for a little render of my own
https://youtu.be/RJz6P6UiK5w
very nice
10 years ago
Very nice, I only have 1 tiny criticism, the audio for the truck doesn't match the movement. The audio is a truck 'racing' by but in the video it's rolling slowly by. Still good job
10 years ago
I am loving these render and random (or seemingly random) project posts. It's motivated me to try some new things with AE and Element3D. I actually spent time just messing around with AE which I haven't done in quite some time.
Thank you so much for these quick posts as well as the tutorials and all the other wonderful things VC does.
andy
10 years ago
hi andrew ,is it possible to arrange particle in a semi-circle
10 years ago
Great!.Tutorial please,,,
Trevor
10 years ago
As of a few days ago he's sick.
Abdirahman Ahmed
10 years ago
Instead of buildings imagine an old Pirate like ship sailing slowly on those clouds!
Abdirahman Ahmed
10 years ago
The one thing the impresses me more then everything else is the clouds, simply awesome!
Brandon
10 years ago
I have trouble with getting the clouds to look as high contrast and vivid as yours. Are there any videos on how to achieve that?
Roger
10 years ago
Really enjoying these, Andrew. May I say, perhaps just a bit less overall secularity and perhaps break it up a bit. It throws the scale off a bit. Keep them coming.
Roger
10 years ago
That should be specularity- on an iPad!
Kevin
10 years ago
I don't get it. Would you use something like this as a matte background/establishing shot?
Daniel
10 years ago
This "desert" looks great! Did you use a World Position Matte to blend the buildings with the clouds?
Tom
10 years ago
I'm really enjoying these "Daily Renders" that you're posting. Get well soon, and I look forward to more tutorials, updates and model packs!
Daniel
10 years ago
Yeah, it's great to see Video Copilot's blog updated almost every day! Keep it up, guys!
Anderson
10 years ago
i would love to see some camera movement!!! great stuff though
mathijn schonk
10 years ago
Sow what the hell man! ITS SOOO COOL!!!!
10 years ago
WOW! amazing!
It's available a old western buildings for Element 3D?
vfxcodex
10 years ago
Am in love with this
vfxcodex
10 years ago
I sense awesome power and grace in your work..Andrew krama i love all your works that i hav seen
wooooooow...tutorialssssss plsssssss
SRV
10 years ago
I'm watched lot of tutorials in internet but you only good to teach vfx and motion graphics.
but you not written tutorial for 3d modeling and texture painting.
plz do tutorial for that ,.
sry for my bad English
Sam
10 years ago
Video Copilot is the best
oshiii
10 years ago
good but we need tutorial for this plzz
nivi
10 years ago
awesome work brother
SPARTACUS
10 years ago
Hi Andrew, now this I love.....not the gore. Good stuff!!!
Sam
10 years ago
no tutorials......?
no intercept.....?
Cmon!
aj
10 years ago
I'm loving how you react to being sick!
Kai
10 years ago
Great renders as always! could you please tell us how you create your chromatic aberration?
Jeff
10 years ago
YES THIS!
mayur
10 years ago
I think he is using z-depth pass for it.As far as i can observe,the RGB split is more visible in the parts that are out-of-focus.
Benjamin
10 years ago
Hey Andrew I say this 2 Hours ago and I got inspired! Still working on the lighting.

http://benjmakesmovies.weebly.com/blog
Harsha Nimantha
10 years ago
Andre all these techniques are awesome. Please be kind enough to publish the tutorials for "Cloud City" & "Arctic Station Progression".
10 years ago
So, Andrew, I am stuck with 2 GB of vram right now, and I'm on a mac, so Element doesn't give me any feedback as to how much vram I'm using. (Except when AE crashes LOL). I see your single model is over 100,000 polygons. What I'm wondering is when you make multiple instances of it does each instance use the same amount of vram again as the first, or is there some "savings" there from using copies?
StevenJ
10 years ago
Dang numbers. There are seven digits in that number of polygons. That means your single model is over a million, not 100,000. I guess I can just try the crash test.
10 years ago
Element 3D v2 is much more powerful than the v1. You can work with up to 3 million polygons with 2GB without any issues, as long as your system is stable. But of course, it's always better to work with a 4GB graphic card if possible.

You must have in consideration the textures, because they are taking a lot of memory too. If your 3D model and your texture maps are optimized, 2 or 3 million polygons shouldn't be a problem.

Yes, you have some "savings" using instances. I'm not sure about how much resources you save with them but definitely a lot.
StevenJ
10 years ago
Thanks for the info! That makes me a little more confident.
10 years ago
I'd be curious to see if all of these shares and screen shots in the last week (minus the piggy in the middle) are for the same big project thats about to hit the internet!

Christian Michael
https://vimeo.com/167804747
Joe
10 years ago
Hey Andrew, what if you made a weekly E3D challenge and selected the top 10 renders?
Trevor
10 years ago
I think that would be a great idea! but not right now. Maybe do that when he's really busy and cant make tuts or blogs.
Christian Michael
10 years ago
LMFAO Trevor!!!!
Benjamin Gilbert-LIf
10 years ago
Thats an amazing idea!
Daniel
10 years ago
It could be very challenging for all of us! Please, just consider that!
10 years ago
That's a good idea, but Andrew will need to tell us a few limitations or rules about it, because if not, everybody will be able to use a former project...

And the quality of the used 3D models would be very important too, so maybe we all should use the same 3D models doing so. Please, give it a thought, Andrew.
Christian Michael
10 years ago
If AK is throwing Cloverfield Lane out there... older projects shouldn't be an issue should this take off....IF it takes off.
10 years ago
No, that's not what I ment, Christian, sorry. I was thinking about a few projects I've being working for a long time in the past, using Element 3D and After Effects.

It wouldn't fair if there is a contest with a period of 10 days, for example, and I (or whoever else) present a render of a project I spent months working on.

That's why I think it would be great to have some rules and some 3D model/models for everybody, with the same possibilities for everyone and no possible cheating.
Luke
10 years ago
Are you almost done with Intercept?
10 years ago
I'm wondering about the same matter every morning...
washington
10 years ago
@luke "Ok ok the clouds are nice,.. but what about Intercept?"... got me LOL