"SGK" <sgk### [at] 3d3com> wrote:
> Hi there,
> I am looking for a program (either in existance or created for me) which can
> allow me to create small photo realistic images (400x270 pixels) of the sky
> with clouds and sun beams on a Linux system on demand and in large quantities.
> I am neither a programmer nor do I understand anything about raytracing apart
> from the very basic principles, but have been told it would be the best method
> to create photo-realistic images.
> This link:
> http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=sky+cloud+sun+beam&s=int
> shows the kind of images I would love to achieve - although without inclusion of
> the earth - this is really only meant to be sky, cloud and sunshine.
> Basically I don't need an interface - just being able to enter some command line
> parameters such as dawn, sunset, blue sky, stormy and a randomizer seed would be
> enough.
> Could anyone help me with this or suggest some solutions?
> I was thinking that may be the Linux version of Povray could be used for this,
> as I have seen some great cloud images, but don't know if this is the case.
> I also don't know how fast this would be, as I would like to generate these
> images on demand on a linux system (Xeon running CentOs)
> Any advice will be more than welcome.
> :)
> sgk

Well, actually Pov would allow you to do that, but as far as I know,
photorealistic renders of clouds would be very slow. You have some examples
here:

http://www.oyonale.com/image.php?lang=en&code=433

These are volumetric clouds, a little bit hard to do and heavy to render...
If you dont need so high quality images you can try something like this:

http://enriquesahagun.es/images/gallery/3d/sunset.jpg
http://enriquesahagun.es/images/gallery/3d/moment.jpg
http://enriquesahagun.es/images/gallery/3d/balin.jpg

which are much more simple to do and have faster renders, they are just textures
with transparency.

A third option is to use images from other programs like Terragen. This image
has been made with Pov and uses a sky done with Terragen:

http://enriquesahagun.es/images/gallery/3d/npcc.jpg

Hope this helps...

-----------------------------------
http://enriquesahagun.es/

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