Hi Doug,
> I'd like to render a realistic scene with terrain shaded based on the
> actual sun angle and a Alpha cloud that you can partially see that
> terrain through.
>
> 1) How hard would it be to handle the sun angle effect?
The locations and colors of lights in a DisplayImplJ3D are
controlled by the createSceneGraph() method of its
DisplayRenderer. You could extend DefaultDisplayRendererJ3D
and override this method to create your own lights. The
directions of the default lights are tied to the viewer, so
they are chilren of the root node in the scene graph. To tie
them to the scene, as the sun is, put your light under trans
rather than root.
> 2) Why can't I see a solid surface through an Alpha rendered field? What
> is the potential for this to be corrected?
Because fo the order in which objects are rendered. Try
changing the order in which you addReference() your data
objects to the display.
Please let me know if you have problems with these things.
Cheers,
Bill
----------------------------------------------------------
Bill Hibbard, SSEC, 1225 W. Dayton St., Madison, WI 53706
hibbard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 608-263-4427 fax: 608-263-6738
http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~billh/vis.html
