Povray

see also http://ghoulsblade.schattenkind.net/files/pov/

see also http://www.ogre3d.org/wiki/index.php/POVRay_Skyboxes

see also http://www.ogre3d.org/wiki/index.php/POVRay_Explosions

skybox

• http://ghoulsblade.schattenkind.net/files/pov/skybox1.pov
• http://ghoulsblade.schattenkind.net/files/pov/renderskybox.php.txt (optional, execute using php to generate all six faces with one command)

placing a camera inside an explosion and maybe cutting out the interior gives nice skyboxes for spacegames (like http://sfz.schattenkind.net)

i suggest rendering stars onto the skybox ingame using dots or tiny billboards, this way they will look sharp even if the skybox is not ultra-highres.

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texture generation

• todo : search .pov files for this
• todo : camouflage texture...
• also interesting : kwerkzeug (google)

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explosion

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http://ghoulsblade.schattenkind.net/files/pov/explosion01.pov

random explosion generation

i made a php script that would generated random colormaps and some random turbulence parameters and let it render all night long, producing one explosion image after another, and keeping the sources for later high-detail rendering of the good ones.

this is kind of bruteforcing artwork with enough processor power =)

also there are a few php scripts in there for comfortable viewing and marking the good ones, but you'll have to adjust them a bit.

here are a few samples :

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and here's the code :

http://ghoulsblade.schattenkind.net/files/pov/exploder.zip

warning ! requires quite a bit of harddisk space if you keep it running for a long time....

i give no warranty that your computer will not explode during the process ;)

you can also create nice skyboxes from these, see above