I was playing around with domes and thought about a night time sky. Look close at the stars - Does the sky look too dark? too much twilight? Venus? Don't worry about the terrain being too dark or too simple, I'll work with that later.

thanks for any comments or suguestions,

• TJ

Just beautiful blue....Sharen :-)

Is that meant to be venus just above the land on the left (my left, facing the picture)? I just ask out of curiosity, it looks good to me. Is the sky meant to be smudgy? I'm getting a faint finger-paint effect, although it could be my monitor. I think the fade effect of bright to dark looks good. I'm not getting up early to compare it with a real dawn, though. ;)

Sharen, Thank you. You always say such nice things. Isstrout, hmm smudgy yes. I didn't see that when I posted the pict. Do you mean where the light blue 'twilight' is? that must be the light reflecting off the 'sky' dome wierdly. Thank you, I'll try to work on that. The transition effect and Venus (which you correctly identified) are still WIP. What most concerns me right now is the look of the starfield. Does the starfield itself look ok to you? - TJ

Isstrout, It turns out that the original was o.k. the JPG on my computer is ok too. It must be the JFIF compressor method translating to the net or something like that. I know that JPEG is a lossy format so that may also have something to do with it. I wish I knew more about how to use the JPEG options. - TJ

sky looks good to me. Looks like very early morning sunrise how the light blue fades into the darker. I am up vey early in the morning and it is comparable to a "real" sky.:)

I had another look at the starfield and I really get a feeling of depth out of it. I think you are good to go on this. Can't help on the jpeg conversion either, but if you are happy with the original, I wouldn't stress about it too much. "The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. " Job xxxviii. 7. I love Bartlett's Quotations Lin

TJ, the sky seems a bit busy, no wait, not busy but...Hmmm...stars are usually in clusters, only because light from the brightest reach us here on earth, so only a few will really stand out. Ok, if you live in an area that's outside of the city luminescense, you'll be able to see what I mean. This pic is simplified (2color) but it might help. Also, you have an enormous resource in the library (as in public) to reference stuff like this. I'm lucky, I live in a rural area at a high altitutde, so the Milky Way looks close enough to touch on a really cool clear night :) I like the twilight effect...

Yes I can see what I need to change now. I that think the concept of what I've done so far is valid, but the scale, intensity and contrast need work. I also need to work with the transistion zone a little by making it less abrupt somehow and the color of the dark blue sky could be a little darker. Thank you all for your help, - TJ

Try the twilight zone (no pun intended) closer to the horizon line and the top a blacker blue. Everything looks great, just needs some tweaking. Can't wait to see the mountains done...=>