---
title: "Sculpted cumulus"
package: "@phaser-ae/backdrop-clouds"
tier: Pro
version: 3.0.0-4
released: 2026-10-14
updated: 2026-10-20
description: "A painted daytime cloudscape drawn entirely in a shader, a cumulus tower over a low bank with sunlit rims and blue self-shadowing."
url: https://phaser.io/packs/backdrop-clouds
site: Phaser - https://phaser.io
---

# Sculpted cumulus

A painted cumulus sky in one layer: a towering cloud over a low bank, with bright sunlit rims and blue shadows. It reads
as clouds with real edges rather than noise, and it paints its own sky behind them.

## What it does

The tower is twenty overlapping lobes, each warped by its own noise so the silhouette is bitten into rather than round.
Under it sit a bank with a shoulder either side, distant side masses and torn fragments up high. Layers of noise inside
the shape make the broad structure, the billows and a fine granule, and `coverage` decides where cloud gives way to
open sky.

The light is the same noise sampled a step toward the sun, which puts a hard rim on the sunward face and shadow in the
pockets. Behind it the layer paints a gradient from `skyTop` to `skyBottom` with a glow round the sun. It is opaque,
pinned to the screen, and drifts slowly on the shader's clock.

## Features

- **A sculpted tower** — twenty warped lobes, placed with `towerX` and raised with `towerHeight`.
- **A bank and fragments** — a low bank set by `bankHeight`, with shoulders, side masses and high wisps.
- **Coverage and detail** — from open blue between the lobes to an overcast mass, with billows as fine as you like.
- **Sunlit rims** — `contrast` sets how hard light rolls into shadow, `light` how bright the rims burn.
- **Drift** — `speed`, in screen widths a second.
- **Its own sky** — two colours for the gradient behind, so nothing is needed underneath.

## Good for

- **Platformers** — a bright daytime sky with weight behind the level.
- **Flight games** — a cloudscape behind the plane.
- **Title screens and menus** — a painted sky with no image files.

## Make it yours

A towering summer storm cloud has `towerHeight` near its 1.4 maximum, high `coverage` and a hard `contrast`. A
fair-weather sky moves the tower aside with `towerX`, lowers `coverage` so blue shows between the lobes, and drifts
slowly. Deepen `skyTop` for a late afternoon.

## A quick look

```ts
const sky = game.backdrop.add('clouds', { towerX: 0.3, coverage: 0.7 }, { skyTop: '#00388f', skyBottom: '#70dcff' });
sky.set('towerHeight', 1.1);       // live
sky.setColor('skyTop', '#001a4d');
```

## Works with

- `backdrops` — the runtime; required.
- `backdrop-sky` — a plain gradient when the clouds are too much.
- `backdrop-environments` — thirteen other complete skies, among them moonlit clouds and a lightning storm.
- `skymax` — volumetric clouds lit by a physical atmosphere behind a 2D game, on WebGPU.

## Good to know

- It is the heaviest backdrop in the set, twenty-five noise calls per pixel (one per lobe and five more): one is a
  whole frame's budget on a weak GPU.
- It is opaque, so anything under it is hidden and anything over it needs alpha of its own.
- One tower and one bank; a second instance simply paints over the first.
- The drift is in the shader, so it does not parallax with the world.

---

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