Hi, this is a WIP scene for some coursework. What I want to do is have the sky move between day and night quickly, so the clouds will be moving across the sky quite quickly, the sun will go up and down etc.

The lighting shouldn't be too difficult (I think) it's the actual sky I'm not sure how to do. If it was just going to be a static sky I'd whack a texture on the skydome, but since I'm wanting the clouds and sun/moon to move, I'm not sure how to do it.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm using XSI by the way (this coursework is for an XSI module).


http://www.lupusart.com/Gallery%20Images/Pagoda.jpg - High Res

the two lower floors look very squat

maybe multiple texture layers is the way to go? bottom layer = color layer to scroll from "day" gradient to "night" gradient. second layer = tiling clouds moving quickly (they'd have to be lit somehow)... third layer = additive decals for sun and moon? just a thought, not sure exactly what is possible with XSI.

the architecture looks very nice - agree that the first two stories look a bit squat. In relation to the bridge and sanmon, the whole pagoda seems much too small. maybe an optical illusion due to camera placement? also, since the pagoda is so hi-res, I'd put more polys into the sanmon, especially at the base. but maybe you're planning on doing that already... [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Cheers, I think I'll try the multiple layers and see how that goes.

I saw in Blender a way of having the texture placement controlled by a null, so when you moved the null about, the texture would move with it. Had a thought that if this could be done in XSI then I could make a layer with just the sun in it (and give it an appropriate alpha) and move the null about so the sun would move across the sky exactly where I want.

I'll have to dig around and see if this can be done in XSI (I'm not even sure what the technique is called).

If you have access to the dvds that ship with XSI they show how to link a texture's projection to a control object and animate it.

For the background you can make several sky domes one that has the background color, then several smaller domes that are mapped with alphas and a cloud texture and those would be your clouds. The sun can be made of a texture and a light with a lens flare. Later.

Alex

Hey Lupus I like what you have done so far. I feel that the arch might be a little bit too large - it seems to throw the scale off of the other objects.

What is the polycount so far?