Even in photography atmosphere on a given day can drastically change the impact an image has. The same is true in computer generated art. It is also important that these atmospheric effects mimic as close as possible the real life lighting situations to give realistic results. This exhibit showcases three works that each focus on distinct aspects of atmospheric settings. The first, Atmosphere, focuses on regular sky and cloud lighting. The second, The Arrival, looks at how planetary atmospheric effects are needed for outer space scenes. Finally, Dreamland, shows what happens when it all comes crashing down, and you have clouds or fog along the ground.
A celebration of flight. Atmosphere is one of the rare compositions that features no ground, providing a purely sky view. The backlighting on the clouds highlights the varying cloud densities and light transmission through the clouds.
The Arrival is a showcase of planetary atmospherics in Vue. Most scenes are at or near ground level. In creating such scenes, the environment is flat and extends to infinity. That flat perspective does not work when you want to pull back and show the planet and outer space. The planetary configuration changes things so ground terrain is adapted to a large spherical surface, and atmospheric effects like the blue glow fading to black on the horizon are included.
Dreamland is currently my latest and final render. It is a homage to the ground fog produced by fog machines in classic horror pictures, minus the gravestones, skeletons, and zombies of course. There are two ways to add fog to a scene, one is to adjust fog properties by elevation change. The second, employed here is to add a cloud layer that matches the surrounding terrain. This second method makes the fog more localized and specific to the landscape.