The developer of the exploration game Around The World shares progress on enhancing sky and cloud visuals. After initial cloud rendering using a POV-Ray lookup table, they remained dissatisfied with the lighting, particularly the dark cloud bases. Suspecting POV-Ray lacked multiple scattering simulation, they built a custom multithreaded recursive Monte Carlo ray tracer in Rust to verify.
The results confirmed POV-Ray did not simulate multiple scattering, as the custom tracer produced more uniform light distribution and brighter cloud undersides. The developer then addressed indirect sky lighting, noting that clouds should scatter ambient sky light to appear more realistic. By adjusting the surface normal in Godot to point upward instead of downward for indirect light sampling, they achieved a subtler, more accurate lighting effect—reducing the metallic look and improving overall smoothness.
These changes collectively improved the integration of sea, sky, and clouds in the game’s visual presentation.
Source: Hacker News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing