Hello, i am currently working on a demo project for an animation of a probe
landing on an alien planet and finding strange lifeforms. the animation is made
to be impressive and not necessarily realistic.

added the link to download the scene at the end of the post.

The goal is to present the project @ REVISION 2013 easterparty 30/31 march.
it makes me quite enthusiastic since I believe POV-Ray is quite fun to use for
these kind of endeavors.

I rate myself as an intermediate user of Pov-ray that still has a lot to learn.
I hope i will make the project as neat as possible with your help, and maybe we
could present the project as a team. I already found a lot of snippets and
advices on the web to make this humble project a reality. thanks everyone !

The fact is i started the project very late (1 week ago) and i'll need 5 days
 of rendering (i have at hand three servers to distribute the rendering load)

So i have just today and tomorrow and maybe sunday to add the final touches and
correct the last glitches.
The code is marginally elegant but i commented a lot to make it easily readable
and understandable.

Basically, i would like to correct the following problems and add features :

PROBLEMS:

-heat shield separation trajectory to tune to make it start around clock 90/100
and make it go in a forward/downward motion relative to the probe/camera. the
equations of motions are a bit complex and do not represent realistic motion but
it has a good feeling, but i have some trouble with the heat shield thing

-atmosphere media sphere using density color_map is a bit ugly because the edge
is too sharp when seen from outside, once the camera is inside it is quite ok
however. i thought of several tricks but i'd like to see your advices.

-terrain and ocean isosurfaces overlap in a manner that make the probe land on
water wherever it hits the surface. it is a bug of mine, but actually it is
quite an interesting artefact and i think i will keep it, but i'd like to
understand this behaviour.

-make the stars of the starfield disappear from view when the probe is deep into
the atmosphere at day.

-problem with the trace function returning partially opposite coordinates when
testing ocean/ground isosurfaces

FEATURES i am working on and where i'd like some advice or participation :

light :

-add a sun as a sphere + media + optical flares on the camera that shine
powerfully when seen from space, maybe we could use more features of lightsys in
the scene ?

-add bright spot lights attached to the probe and make it land during the night,
turn on the spotlights during descent at some 150 m from the ground.

-add diffuse lightning (pulse of lights illuminating the clouds, not full
lightnings) from thunderstorms when the probe is in space and at night

-add glowing red plasma media to model reentry heating

motion :

-add some vibration/buffeting to simulate reentry drag forces (i have an idea,
using sin/cos functions to make the descent trajectory a bit more "bumpy"

MISC :

-possibility to write telemetry data in the frames instead of messages console.
I'll use green glowing 3D text as flat as possible floating at a fixed point in
front of the camera. if not possible i will use post rendering effects with
video editing software and telemetry data outputted to a file by povray.

-optimize rendering time dynamically increasing the isosurfaces
accuracies/gradients when the probe is closing to the surface.

-any other quick&dirty improvements / ideas that give great benefit for little
render overhead and complexity.

THANK YOU SO MUCH and i will not forget to add you in the credits of the demo !
long live to Pov-ray and demoscene.

THE SCENE is available in the following post :

<web.514b9982f418f05d5d50475e0@news.povray.org>

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Hi again.
I tackled the night lightning seen from orbit effects macro.

I will use a state file storing random data with the following ranges :

t altitude from planet center between cloudsphere1 and 5.0


c1 clock start
d duration of lightning
m max lightning intensity, such that m attained @ (c1 + d/2) and intensity = 0
at c1 and (c1 + d). function of intensity of sine type.

color will be static, a nice electric blue. :)

in case of problem with the macro i will come back for help.

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