Our latest release of the SilverLining Sky, 3D Cloud, and Weather SDK includes richer lighting effects on our simulated 3D cumulus and stratocumulus clouds. These improvements give the clouds a better sense of depth, with more pronounced highlights from the sun. Large clouds are brightly lit toward the sun, and darker at their bottoms, just as they are in real life.

SilverLining has always lit clouds in this manner, but over time we’ve made the clouds brighter and these subtle lighting effects have been largely washed out. By revisiting the parameters used in our cloud lighting equations, we’ve gotten back to more complex, realistic cloud appearances.

These improvements are specifically for SilverLining’s CUMULUS_CONGESTUS and STRATOCUMULUS_PARTICLES cloud layer types. They are largely changes to SilverLining’s settings in the resources/silverlining.config file, so you may wish to keep a copy of your existing config file if you want to be able to quickly compare the appearance to what you have today.

In addition to clouds appearing more complex and three-dimensional during the day, more dramatic effects at sunrise and sunset are also possible in SilverLining 5.069. Directional, richly-colored light from the rising or setting sun will affect the clouds in a more realistic manner now.

We’ve been focused on improving the underlying functionality of SilverLining for a long time, and it’s exciting to get some visual improvements out the door. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do!