Space Dust

[WAS]

If you haven't noticed, I like to ask questions.... Lol Sorry, definitely a noob but learning so much from you all sharing your experience over the years.

Anyways, I'm not sure if this is addressed anywhere, I tried various searches and turned up nothing. How might you add 'haze' to space? For example. I want to be working on a asteroid belt scene, and I am not working from within a planet (which is removed) or atmosphere to create lighting effects. However, in space, there is dust particles which capture light and provide us the glares we see in space, which are in fact more prominent then in the atmosphere of Terra.

[Kadri]

You could use clouds. Use a planet with "Render surface" unchecked.

[WAS]

Damn. Yeah both require a lot of memory consumption for a field of other planets with intense fractalizations making up a asteroid field. I don't want to be using a planet at all. I wish there was shader/function/scope for the 'space' in-between planets and the background which you could plug a atmosphere into, for space dust.

[Dune]

I'd try making the main planet (you still need one for haze/clouds) as big as the background sphere, or a bit smaller, and use only the atmosphere with a low (perhaps even negative) height, or clouds under the invisible planet's surface. Then you'd have very distant haze. You'd need huge numbers for dispersal/size.

[WAS]

Indeed, I have to use a planet for the space dust. Such is a incredibly depressing considering the nature of the program. We definitely need a way to shade the space in the scene. For 3D nebula based on clouds, space dust, etc. I can't imagein it'd be hard to create a 'space' node which fills all the space in the scene besides a planets atmosphere (if it has one, if not, go for it lol)

Here is what I have managed



My only issue is, 'receive shadows from terrain' does not work in this instance, so I get no casted shadows from the asteroids.

[Oshyan]

The back-side of your asteroid is illuminated for some reason, so that may be affecting shadows. Also, where you enable "receive shadows" depends on whether you're using atmosphere or cloud to get the glow. Both have options for getting shadows. If you're using Planet objects for your asteroids, you may not even need it...

- Oshyan

[WAS]

The back-side of your asteroid is illuminated for some reason, so that may be affecting shadows. Also, where you enable "receive shadows" depends on whether you're using atmosphere or cloud to get the glow. Both have options for getting shadows. If you're using Planet objects for your asteroids, you may not even need it...

- Oshyan

there are two suns for ambient light I was going to use to incorporate a nebula. But they're at 0.2 strength. Maybe if I disable  light in atmosphere for ambient subs? I didn't want to lose all detail from the back of the asteroids. Receive shadows is set in the atmosphere which is all that I'd enabled for lightning effects and dust haze. 

[Oshyan]

Then I'm wondering whether there's enough atmosphere density in the area of the asteroids to cause shadows. I'm pretty sure it should work *in theory*.

- Oshyan

[WAS]

Then I'm wondering whether there's enough atmosphere density in the area of the asteroids to cause shadows. I'm pretty sure it should work *in theory*.

- Oshyan

That is probably the case. It is in fact very thin and the camera is sitting at the edge of the haze limit I believe for the most part.