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Part 5: Learnng from the Winners, Example 2 : "Golden October"

Now 3D clouds are not always desired. Also, the settings from Force Majeu aren't always applicable per se. The lighting of the scenery seems to be the largest problem in many cases, especially when the sky should be cloudy all over. This time we're not discussing a picture which has participated in any constest. The following picture received much praise though, in various forums and galleries and had only best rankings at renderosity.dom. Here it is:
Golden October (c) 2001 Brunker, Kleiner & Basinski



golden october (c) 2001 Brunker, Kleiner, Basinski

This piece of artwork was jointly developed by three artists, Peter Kleiner, Martin Brunker and myself. Peter Kleiner is responsible for terrain and water, Martin Brunker for the design of the surface map and I did the sky and athmosphere.

Looking more closely at the sky - with regards to the settings discussed above - you may wonder how the scenery is lighted that well anyhow. Well, in sceneries like this, you will need to settle for a compromise with Terragen: you refrain from using volumetric lighting. The option "clouds cast shadows" must be switched off. Unfortunately, Terragen only allows for weither volumetric OR ambient light.

It's not really bad, though. But in no cases you would see any sunbeam, then

But in regards to the clouds there's still some more things to discuss. How dod you do the effect of golden glowing clouds, but still remain dark in some part? How do you simulate the dark-blue reflection of the atmosphere in the clouds? How do we achieve the mighty coming out of structures in the clouds?

Let's do it the way we did in the previous example. Here are the settings:

Clouds Dialogbox

Sky size	10000
Altitude	650
3D	checked
Depth/Thickness	8
Cloud color	171, 98, 24
Darkening	55%
Density Contrast	18
Density Shift	39
Persistence	50
Largest Cloud Size	largest setting

Atmosphere Dialogbox:

Haze	85%, 81m
Atmospheric Blue	10%, 1552m
Color of Atmospheric Blue	32, 74, 192
Decay	30%, 3691m
Decay Color	218, 171, 71

Lighting Conditions:

Terrain Casts Shadows	checked
Shadows in Atmosphere	checked
Clouds Cast Shadows	unchecked
Direct Sunlight Tab:
sunlight Strengh	600%
Effect of Atmosphere	100%
Realistic Sunlight P. System	checked
Background Light Tab:
Multi-directional Shadow Lighting	checked
Shadow Lightness	21.16
Diffuse Sunlight	78, 57, 32 (braun)
Light from Above	33, 50, 93 (Tiefblaßblau)
Reverse Light	68, 80, 80 (blasses blaugrau)
Sun’s Appearance Tab
Disc Diameter	0
Corona Size	0
Lighting of Atmosphere Tab:
Glow Amount	54%
Glow Power	84%