There is a little used ‘Air’ tab in the Environment panel in Strata 3D. It allows us to do several things. We’ll add a Fog Shader to the whole scene and explore the options the Fog Shader offers us.
The Air Tab
The ‘Air’ tab is located in the Environment panel (E key). Here we can do several things:
- Add Fog or Mist
- Set the Refraction Index of the air
- Set the Gravity direction and intensity
- Set the Wind direction and intensity
Using the same base scene from the Quick Mountains tutorial, we will explore the Fog shader options.
Base scene – no Fog
Applying a Fog Shader
From the first drop-down menu in the Air tab we select a new Fog shader.
The Air tab
The shader looks like this.
The effect looks like this.
The colors of the fog are as follows:
The base Fog will be all gray.
All gray
Render with all gray Fog
Color
Color in yellow
Direct
Direct in yellow
Ambient
Ambient in yellow
This one is the least noticeable parameter
If we want all colors to be the same, we can click on Link Colors, making all colors the same.
Linked colors
Linear v/s Logarithmic
Linear Fogs are denser. Logarithmic Fogs look more natural.
Linear Fog
Logarithmic Fog
Start Depth
We can control where the fog starts and where it reaches its maximum depth. We’ll see Start Depth as it is the most noticeable parameter.
Start Depth controls where the fog starts. This starting position is from where the camera is.
“Wall of Fog” starting at 200 in. There is no fog before 200 in. from the camera.
Starting at 100 in.
We could animate this parameter to reveal things. That would be cool.
