Patent Document ID: 7710418
Application ID: 11051318
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for providing a realistic simulation of natural atmospheric lighting phenomenon, the method comprising the steps of: providing by a simulation engine in a simulation environment an image realistically representing a scene of natural atmospheric lighting phenomenon having an atmosphere, atmospheric particles, and light; providing by the simulation engine a viewing position and one or more viewing objects associated with a view of the scene, the one or more viewing objects comprising an element of the image; determining by a shader, in real-time, a color of one or more portions of the image to realistically represent one or more visual effects from the natural atmospheric lighting phenomenon of the scene from: an opacity of atmospheric particles to pass light onto other atmospheric particles determined from a cumulative density comprising an integral of densities of atmospheric particles along a ray from the viewing position to the one or more viewing objects, a change in light, and one or more of the following: the view, the viewing position, one or more viewing objects, atmosphere and atmospheric particles; determining, by the shader in real-time, a color of one or more portions of the image to realistically represent one or more visual effects from the natural atmospheric lighting phenomenon of the scene acting on one or more clouds within the atmosphere based on: a color of the one or more clouds determined from a product of a user-specified cloud color, an attenuation factor determined from a line integral of the atmospheric density along the ray from the viewing position to the one or more clouds, and a summation of ambient light and a sunlight term for lighting of the one or more clouds that is proportional to a color and intensity of sunlight reaching a top layer of the one or more clouds, a phase function simulating scattering within the one or more clouds, and a self-shadowing factor representative of the sunlight attenuated by atmospheric particles within the one or more clouds; and rendering, by a renderer in real-time, images of the scene comprising the color of one or more portions of the image to realistically simulate the one or more visual effects.