Photorealistic Clouds in 10 Lines of Code: Dissecting Shadertoy's 'Tiny Clouds'

Shadertoy's 'Tiny Clouds' shader generates stunningly realistic clouds using a mere 10 lines of code. This article delves into the code's intricacies, explaining its clever reverse ray marching, fractal Brownian motion (FBM) sampling, and alpha blending techniques. It reveals how high-quality cloud rendering is achieved with such concise code. The author also explores interesting code optimizations, such as using macros to reduce length and employing a sine function to add randomness for a more organic look. The analysis highlights the power of efficient coding and clever algorithms in achieving impressive visual results.