Creating Weather Effects

To create a weather effect:

1.	Select Window > Palettes > Resource Browser to open the Resource Browser.

2.	From the Resources menu, select New Resource to display the New Resource menu.

3.	Select RenderWorks Background.

The Create RenderWorks Background dialog box opens.

4.	Enter the name of the new background and select the type of weather to create. Click Options to set specific parameters.

 

Parameter	Description
Fog	Creates a simulation of fog over the layer
Color	Select the fog color
Distance	Specifies the distance to maximum fog density; use a lower distance to increase the effect of the fog
Max. Density	Drag the slider to the right to increase the fog density
Ground Fog	Creates a simulation of ground fog over the layer
Color	Select the fog color
Height	Specifies the height of the ground fog
Distance	Specifies the distance to maximum fog density; use a lower distance to increase the effect of the fog
Max. Density	Drag the slider to the right to increase the fog density
Snow	Creates the illusion of falling snow on the layer
Color	Select the snow color
Amount	Drag the slider to the right for larger and more numerous snowflakes
Max. Density	Drag the slider to the right to decrease the distance between snowflakes
Near Scale	Increases or decreases the size of closer snowflakes
Far Scale	Increases or decreases the size of farther snowflakes
Lit Fog	Creates volumetric lighting effects, such as a shaft or cone of scattered light in fog, haze, or smoke. A light object must be inserted in the drawing, and Lit Fog must be selected in the Object Info palette for the light source object
Color	Select the fog (haze) color
Max. Density	Specifies the fog density; enter a larger value to increase the density of the effect
Receive Shadows	Allows the effect to be blocked by solid objects, creating shadows; for example, when blocking a shaft of light by a table, so that light does not display under the table Use Shadows must also be selected in the rendering options.
Type	Select a method for creating the fog from a list of computational methods
Quality	Select the quality of the lit fog effect; a higher quality effect requires more rendering time
Density Variation	Allows the volumetric lighting effect to vary in density, which creates a realistic smoky or hazy effect, but takes longer to render
Variation Level	Drag the slider to the right to increase the fog variation
Variation Contrast	Drag the slider to the right to increase the fog contrast

5.	Click OK from the Create RenderWorks Background dialog box to create the weather effect resource.

The new resource is listed as a RenderWorks Background in the Resource Browser. It is available in the Layers dialog box (see Applying RenderWorks Backgrounds for more information).

Backgrounds and weather effects can be used together.

Textures and backgrounds that are not used in the drawing file should be purged to reduce file size. See Purging Unused Objects.