Peter Popov wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 23 Mar 1999 13:11:00 +0100, Rem <use### [at] ghost> wrote:
> 
> >Since I do a lot of outdoor scenes I'd like it very much if there were a simple
> >feature like 'atmospheric perspective'. At the moment a horizontal plane will
> >get darker towards the horizon and this is opposite to what you might expect. It
> >should be simple to implement such a thing which simply makes the color get
> >lighter at a bigger distance. At the moment I find myself struggling with fog or
> >media every time and not really getting the right result. Besides fog/media can
> >slow down rendering whereas the other option will make almost no difference.
> >It'd need only one parameter which defines how light (close to white) you want
> >the horizon to be.
> >Is this a stupid idea?
> >
> >Rem
> 
> You can achieve the result you are after with a little post-
> processing. Here's a possible solution:
> 
> 1. Make a copy of your scene. Enclose the whole scene in a union and
> give it a white pigment and ambient 1. Set a black fog so that objects
> get darker with the distance.
> 
> 2. Use the resulting image as a selection in a paint program (say
> PhotoShop) and adjust the saturation/brightness to suit your needs
> 
> or
> 
> 2. If you are a POV snob and/or you are planning to submit the picture
> to the IRTC, you can achieve the same in POV. Render your picture,
> render the black-and-white thing described in 1. and combine them
> using POV's average pigment (as image_maps on a plane or box).
> 
> Hope this helps.
> 
> ---------
> Peter Popov
> ICQ: 15002700

Your reply is the most helpful sofar but still misses the point. What I'm asking
for is not something that can't be done in a different way, it's just meant to
make things easier and isn't that what computer are for (among other things)?
As I tried to explain I have already tried several solutions with fog,
groundfog, combinations of both and media, not getting the result I'd like while
losing a lot of time either coding or rendering.
I'll illustrate my point:
A simple groundfog won't work because everything sticking out above it would
still get darker in the distance. Normal fog would obviously not work because
where'd be the sky on a clear sunny day?
If I'd use fog I'd have to have a ground fog which gets higher when getting
further away, so I tried rotating it but even that didn't work. 
So, I tried media, but after putting in a lot of time and effort I thought:
things could/should be simpler.

Just to make things clear: I'm not worried about just a dark horizon (that's
easy) but about objects on that horizon (buildings, mountains, the Chinese wall
for all I care).

Why shouldn't POV be able to do what Rennaissance-painter already were already
doing every day? Just a bit of simple 'sfumato' to make life easier, shouldn't
be that hard? As far as I can see you'd need only one parameter, perhaps two,
but after what I've seen with the photon-thing that could hardly be an obstacle.

Actually I'm a bit amazed about the negative reactions to this simple thing. 
Well, carry on ;-)

Rem

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