[Bf-funboard] Sky Generator

[Robert Wenzlaff]

On Sunday 07 November 2004 02:12, Mag. Karl Kühberger wrote:
> you won't believe it, but i just wanted to ask the same question!
> a sky generator (as a texture type) would be very usefull
> (there is a cloud texture type, but more often we need partly clouded
> sky or the typical dark-clouded sky before a thunderstorm).
> something like terragen would be fantastic, of course, but maybe
> to complicated.
>
> other texture types i miss in blender are:
>
> - various bricks
> - various stones
> - various woods
> - water (i.e. surface of the sea)
> - various metalls
> - various floors (i.e. asphalt, grass, soil, ...)

Unless there is a need for data that is not available to the plug-in system, I 
suggest that these be done as plug-ins (many probably are already available).

There is already work underway to make scripts and plugins automatically 
appear as native functions of Blender, so you can organize the ones you use 
the way you like.  This way Blender doesn't become a bloated 30MB download.

The feature along these lines that I would like to see is the Library features 
work both ways.  Instead of just being able to append a material _from_ 
another .blend, you should be able to specify a default Library that you can 
save a feature of your current .blend _to_.    

ie; you're working on a file and hit the "perfect" gold.  You can push a copy 
of this material into .blender/lib/material.blend (or whatever) and next time 
you need gold,it will be there.  Now, you either have to remember what .blend 
every material you ever created is in (all my .blends can no longer be backed 
up to even a DVD w/o zipping...) or take a the time to update a library after 
every .blend hoping you remember what all the names of every texture was.

Part of the library "push" should look for blender default names 
(Material.001, etc) and prompt for real ones....  If a name is duplicated in 
a lib, then a "replace, number (.001), cancel" dialog should appear.

The above would of course work for meshes, textures, and everything else 
equally well.


-- 

*************************************************
Robert Wenzlaff       rwenzlaff at soylent-green.com