Sky Creating realistic sky effects.

Sky

You can change the color of the sky, or for greater realism, apply a moving sky texture with clouds or stars.

To change the sky effect

1. Choose the Environment command from the Edit menu.

2. Double-click the Color box to change the background sky color.

3. Select a color which matches the color of the sky texture. To haze or blur the boundaries between the horizon, sky and texture, see Fog and Getting the right effect.

4. Choose the browse button adjacent to the Texture box to select a texture bitmap.
   
   You can create your own textures and add these to the 3D library. The dimensions of texture bitmaps must be a power of 2 e.g. 256x256, 512x512 etc. To minimize the tiling effect, the image should be double-mirrored:

   Cldsmap	Cloudynight
   Starrynight	Sunset

5. Set the Tile Size for the sky texture. This is the dimension of a square tile onto which the bitmap is drawn. The best settings for Tile Size depend on the dimension of your world and the detail of the sky texture. Typical values range from '4000' to '32000'. Experiment with different sizes until you get the effect you want.

6. Set the number of Segments used for the sky texture. This parameter smooths the tiling of the sky. The best settings for Segments depend on the quality of your graphics card. Try a value of '4', then keep doubling the value until the texture is smooth.

7. Set the Speed at which the clouds or stars move across the sky.
   
   The dZ and dX values are the lateral components of speed at which the sky moves in meters or feet per second. Actual cloud speeds can range up to 200 meters per second. Use 1-5 for starry textures and 10-100 for clouds.

You can also

• Add birds and other flying objects to your bitmaps.

• Change the tint, contrast and brightness of your bitmaps with inexpensive photo editing programs like Microsoft Picture-It!®.

	Related Topics
	Lighting Fog Getting the right effect