A real-time GPU volumetric clouds renderer via OpenGL, based on the SIGGRAPH 2015 talk The Real-time Volumetric Cloudscapes of Horizon: Zero Dawn by Andrew Schneider.
Only tested on Linux.
- Qt 6: In order to build and run this program, you will need to have Qt 6 installed on your machine. See https://www.qt.io/product/qt6 for more information.
- OpenGL with GLSL 4.3 or higher: Required for GPU rendering and compute shaders/SSBO.
We have included a CMakeList.txt file for building the program. If you already have Qt installed, you can build and run the program by following these steps:
- Launch Qt Creator and click "Open Project"
- Select and open
CMakeLists.txtfrom the root directory of the project - Go to Projects - Run Settings - Run, and change "Working directory" to the root directory of the project
- Click the "Run" button to build and start the program
- Organic clouds shape generation with 3D fractal Worley noise
- Dynamic clouds movement over time by offsetting noise textures
- Physically-based volume rendering with anistropic scattering to account for directional dependence of light scattering within the clouds
- Rendering compatability with solid objects by compositing with depth and color buffers
- Rich customization options to craft your own clouds: control density, coverage, shape, and lighting of the clouds in the GUI
- Realistic sky that varies throughout a day by modeling atmospheric scattering
- Optimized raymarching with adaptive step sizes and backtracking
- GL Compute Shader to efficiently generate 3D Worley noise textures