Update / Edit:
Rephrased the original post to make a distinction between features that use a layer approach and features that require a fully functional volumetric environment.
Intermediate environment options - ray bouncing between layers:
IF you want to create a "realistic" daylight situation every detail matters.
Currently it seems all light rays are just bouncing around in a sphere when using the default daylight environment.
You might achieve a more realistic solution by actually adding
- an infinite ground plane (with a material of your choice)
- an infinite sea level ( with a material of your choice)
- volumetric cloud layers (with a material of your choice)
Only when at least those three layers are present it is possible that the light rays are starting to behave like in real life and bounce back between ground, sea, and a cloud layer.
- - -Instead of having the rays bounce around inside an HDRI environment sphere some other render engines also offer the option to select a dome instead of a sphere.
In that case the dome floor is treated as some kind of infinite plane and this may already yield more realistic results than rays bouncing back from the bottom half of a sphere.
In addition some other render engines offer options to choose the dimensions of the dome / sphere.
The light situation is different when a ray travels 10'000 meters outdoors or 10 meters indoors.
This difference in scale may be even more important when volumes are present in the scene.
Advanced environment options - volume based ray interactions:
The next question then is:
Is Otoy with the volumetric features of OctaneRender 3.xx ready to move on to a more physical environment approach like in e-on vue?
It would be very interesting to have options to simulate environments on a planetary level with
- atmosphere layers
- cloud layers
- haze and fog layers
- infinite ground and sea levels
- - -
