Been a very long time since Ive posted here but I hope to do so more now.

Anywho, I thought Id ask for some opinions of my fellow Blenderers.

Im attempting to simulate a space scene in our local solar system or close by.

My question is how do you guys go about simulating a volumetric environment?

Ive attached a rendered jpg of my current scene. The actual set up is as follows.

Camera
Comet/rock

A Hemi lamp pointing at the camera.
A Sun lamp also pointing in the direction of the camera.
And lastly a spot light with Halo on to give me the volume shadows.

I also have stars and mist activated.

The jpg shows the result of the set up and its not bad I think. However Ill be animating this shortly so

I need to figure out a way to keep this volume effect going.

Id considered setting the Track to constraint for spot lamp so that its always pointed at the camera and while that keeps the volume effect on the camera going it doesnt help my incoming comet (ie the comet will be lacking a volume shadow....I think....).

Has anyone set up a scene such as this?
Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks,

I have a file on my computer at home that does clouds by putting a cloud texture on a bunch of planes each stacked just above the previous one.  I can find out who made it when I get home.  It's a few years old, though, so there may be a better way now.

You can scan through Farsthary's blog to see if anything he's done in volumetrics for Blender is usable for your purposes yet, if you're comfortable with experimental builds.

farsthary.wordpress.com/

Hmm, the fluffy clouds zip file does not have anything with the creator in it, so I can't link you to it.  Basically, though, you can create a plane, then in edit mode duplicate it a few times and raise each new plane just a little bit, then add a material with two textures: a cloud procedural for color and a circular blend material to make it transparent and fuzzy around the edges.

Thanks both of you.

Im aware of farsthays work and cant wait to see something outside of an experimental build. However there are no graphicall builds for linux after November from that trunk.

Halo: Thanks for looking into that. Im not sure however if the planes will get me the effect Im looking for. Im not looking for anything more scifi-ish (nebula clouds, soup o stars, etc.) than what I have already.

The tracking of the lamp to the camera seems to work....I think...Ill post again once I have a test animation set up.

Any advice as to a location where I can upload a test animation?

Think Ill call the lighting on the comet done.

Ill do another test animation to make sure I like the the way the volume is working but for this scene I think just tracking the spot lamp to the camera will work well.

Alrightie......

Comments welcomed. I know its dark but Im actually rather pleased.

http://s300.photobucket.com/albums/nn11/cdi3d/?action=view&current=suncheck0001_0120.flv

second test. sorry for the long delay.
comments welcomed.

http://s300.photobucket.com/albums/nn11/cdi3d/?action=view&current=testcomet_scene10001_0550.flv

That came out VERY nice! Could you toss in some stars in the background?

Tony

Thanks Tony.

About the stars. Im kinda curious about that. The comet is entering the solar system and Im wondering if stars would be visible at that ermmm range....?

HAHA!  Logic might say "no" but it looks really blank out there.

TOny

chuckle True. Kinda scary.

However as you can see in this image.

www.geocities.com/zlipanov/selected_asteroids/433_eros/433_eros-42.jpg

Space really is...bleak.

That image was from a distance of about 200 Km

A colleague of mine suggested it had less to do with the scale of the stellar distance and more with the exposure settings of the camera.