Introducing Our Free Cloud Stock Images Pack for VFX Sky Replacements
Why do I need clouds assets?
90% of the time during production the sky never looks the way the director wants it to, so when it gets to post an ask always comes down the line to change the sky to fit the mood or just make it look more interesting. The first thing I do when these shots come to me is go and look online at my usual spots like Pexels, unsplash, or istock, if there’s any budget for it, but after doing these kinds of shots for so many years you run into the same images again and again, and try to use them in a way that won’t look like a shot from another project.
Key features of our Free Cloud Stock Images Pack:
- Every Resolution you could need
- They are FREE
- Pre-Keyed Alpha transparency
- FREEEE!
- Diverse Cloud shapes
- Who doesn’t like free stuff?
- Free for Personal and commercial use
These were captured all in 8k and some where stitched together to be larger plates at 12k wide.
For the shots of clouds that could provide nice shape and be comped together I went in and used the blue channel to isolate the shapes that way you can choose to keep the blue sky in each still or not. Having the shot with an alpha also helps if you want to just use it as a matte on other stills or solids to create your own shapes.
Every Resolution you need
All 60+ Assets in this pack come in a 1080p, 4k, and 8k Resolution to fit both your creative and computing needs. Not every shot needs to have an 8K asset in it, sometimes some small clouds being scaled down in the back are more than enough and you can save some render time and speed using the lower res version.
Pre-Keyed Alpha transparency
Most of the cloud assets that contain unique shapes and formations have been pre-keyed be removing the blue channel of the sky as a matte so these can be used as Mattes in the colored files or just dropped in to start compositing.
Diverse Cloud Formations and shapes
These are broken up into “Clouds” where most of the stills in the pack contain their counterpart with an Alpha. “Sky texture” has a more general hazy skies that would work great as a base to begin to build a sky scene up. “Sun Rise” is just that, a couple stills that would work as a base for a sun rise or a sunset with some golden color from the sun. Last we have the “Wide” folder these are a couple scenes that have been stitched together so they are enormously wide and the largest in the pack with them being up to 12k pixels wide. These are perfect for long panning and moving shots where the camera may be moving around so much you need the stills to keep extending.
Example shot using this pack
Working on a shot to recreate a scene from the film “Flubber” I used this pack to build up the sky foreground and background elements.
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