Hi Stuart, > I'd really like the 3D cloud infrastructure to be used for all the > clouds, so > if there are features missing we should address them. > > Would it be possible to modify the 3D clouds so that they can be used for > the rain texture as well? For example, I could provide a sprite > distribution > on the surface of a cylinder rather than a sphere if that would help.
Just a short answer to this part: All these objects (rain textures, Cirrus clouds,...) do not use the 3d cloud infrastructure because they are not 3d clouds. Cirrus and Cirrocumulus clouds are textures projected on a non-rotated but cruved surface (a bit like a saddle) - I see no straightforward way to get that with a shader, and I've never made any attempt work to render them as true 3d objects. (Technically, the reason is that they show fine detail with large variation, so cloudlets need to be large, and a preferred direction for the feathers - so whenever you rotate them, it shows immediately). Also in the literature, I haven't seen anyone who claimed to have generated true, rotating 3d Cirrus clouds). Cirrostratus and the larger Cirrocumulus don't have that problem, as they don't show preferred direction and have less fine detail - for those I needed z-scaling. Rain doesn't use a 3d but a 2d cylinder billboard rotation - I suppose that can be adapted to use with the shader easily enough by passing a parameter that tells which rotation is to be used if we want to do that. * Thorsten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Using storage to extend the benefits of virtualization and iSCSI Virtualization increases hardware utilization and delivers a new level of agility. Learn what those decisions are and how to modernize your storage and backup environments for virtualization. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfnl/114/51434361/ _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
