Artistic Side: this was inspired by many trips I have made across the continent, getting ready to camp at the end of a long day, watching the late afternoon sun peek through the clouds, casting the glow of sunbeams like heaven itself. I keep thinking "the skies of paradise must look like this". Technical Side: done entirely in pov-ray, this is my unfinished experiment in volumetric clouds with sunbeams. Even the blue in the atmosphere is volumetric, a 3d volume scattering the blue light and tinting the sunlight yellowish. The ground is a simple sphere, there mainly to verify that the clouds are indeed casting shadows, and the cube is just there for reference, to help me gauge size, location, orientation and lighting. It's actually floating in midair. That's why the cube doesn't seem to cast a showdow--it does but it's offscreen. Next I plan to put in mountains and a forest, to go with the sky. Might take me a while. *smile*