.... most of times i don't bother with the real world sizes of the objects i want to use in my scene.
It's like watching a movie - as a viewer you only get to see, what the director "wants" you to see and "wants" you to make believe ...
A lots of action in front of the camera, but you don't get to see the people standing behind and saying cut or action.

That's the way i set up my scenes most of times. Everything that fits my scene and looks the way i want it to, will be positioned and scaled fitting into the picture. If my landscape is 100 meters by 100 meters in Vue measurements in size and i want it look like 10 times this size, well then i will scale down a poser figure and position it into that landscape, so that it will give the impression to the viewer, that it "is" that size. Depending if atmosphere, haze, fog, clouds work in size with the scene i want, so i keep scaling anything i use up or down until it's looking right ...

Since i can see the real world with my very own eyes, i believe i've got a good natural measure in my sight, to tell what looks right or wrong most of times - so original perfect scales in each object is for me just a slow down in my workflow, trying to get everything in scale with each other.

Anything that matters for me, is the outcome of the image - since i don't do animations, the scale is no factor me at all. In animations realistic scales might help - but with one computer to use, animations are for me a no,no anyway ...

Maybe all the info and test images / methods on the following site might help:

www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html

When i get a grainy looking image, the first thing i'll check is the sunlight and it's setting in the top right corner called "Softness". Even a softness setting of 5.00° gives me already a grainy look, so i usually make sure, the value is set at 0.00° for a clear render.

Or there could be trouble in calculating with a texture, that is scaled too small compared to the size of the object/terrain.
Well, at least that's what i believe could be two reasons for a grainy result ...

Thanks Veritas for this link ...

That's looks very interesting - haven't thought of this at all - cool idea definitely !

Direct controlable clouds  is something  that i really  wanted in Vue ...  using the cloudmaterials on spheres isn't doing the job - looks just fake.

I will look into this possibility - well, until the volumetric clouds coming with Vue 6 ...

The clouds seen in FS2004 aren't volumetric clouds, those are 2D layers, crossing each others in the distance and pointing in the direction of the airplane ... that's why FS2004 can keep up the speed and display the cloud system in realtime.
But they did a great job with those clouds, because they look close to reality and this system allows for lots of different cloud versions and weather situations.

Volumetric clouds will be used in the upcoming IL2/Pacifc Fighters follow up "Battle for Britain".

But you're right, the online weather link works pretty good - not realtime - it calls up stored info of weather situations from about 15 min. to 1 hour ago.
It is a cool function and working very well.

Thank you for your real quick reply, Mendy !

I'm able to download the items now.

Checking the email link i can't find an error right now. Maybe there are too many emails coming in or maybe Renderosity got an overcautious spam and virus checker ?! Who knows ;-)

Anyway, it worked with the help of you and this forum.

Best regards,
Götz "GSGALAXY"

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=1137804&Start=1&Artist=GSGALAXY&ByArtist=Yes

Just a little while ago i've tried to set up a waterfall scene (cascade style) myself, completely done in Vue 5 - no postwork - no alpha planes - result see the attached picture - really hard to get close to a real looking waterfall ...
I've just started with Vue 5 in Oct 2005 ... i guess, i have to try the alpha plane idea, too ...