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View Full Version : Making a realistic Globe

macoy
05-07-2002, 04:47 PM
here's a short animation (flying towards the earth) i did for a video presentation for a museum (a fake one, for my coursework).

It's finished now, but i am still not satisfied with the globe.

I tried first to use gradient shader to control the transparency of the atmosphere, try to make it thin out at the rim, but the shader do things really weird. the range for each color in the gradient is 0 to 1, hower, at 0.2 the color is almost at the rim already. I just cant figure out how to use the gradient shader.


Finally I used volumic effects for that and control the falloff of it. and add glow, it looks better, but not satisfactory. Any suggestion to make it more realistic? like the opening sequence in Final Fantasy while the spaceship is approaching the earth, the color is perfect, u can see it fade out gradually, feel the volume of it.
Monster Jack
05-07-2002, 11:51 PM
Though this tutorial is for Lightwave, you may find it of great use.
http://personal.southern.edu/~dascott//tutorial01/nasa-earth.htm
macoy
05-07-2002, 11:56 PM
thx for the tip, but i've already been there:) the problem is xsi doesn't have ramp, and the gradient cant be controled visually and I just cant figure out how it works, it's acting in a really strange way.
Vic3k
05-08-2002, 03:29 AM
ramp is the gradient. it's the same thing just different name. yah unfortunately XSI doesn't have this ability to see the results in vewports but that will change coz for some reason the code is already there for all the opengl but somehow isn't doing what it should
macoy
05-08-2002, 03:37 AM
it's not just that the gradient cant be controlled visually, the parameters are not performing what they are supposed to do.

like i have 3 colors, each one has a range control from 0 to 1. if i set the 2nd color's range to 0.5, it should be in the middle, but acually it is on the edge, or i cant even see where the hell the color is. really strange.......
Vic3k
05-08-2002, 04:28 AM
use shift and draging the bar. shift makes the bar with 0.00 increments (slower)
macoy
05-08-2002, 04:34 AM
it doesn't matter how accurate i can move the slider. it's just that it's not doing the right thing. color with 0.5 range is supposed to be in the middle of the graident, but it's not, not even somewhere i can see.
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