https://physicaladdons.com/blog/ Recent content on Blog Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Wed, 13 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://physicaladdons.com/blog/post/clouds-01-research/ Wed, 13 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://physicaladdons.com/blog/post/clouds-01-research/ Volumetric Clouds in Atmosphere² - Where We Started One of the long-standing goals for Atmosphere² has been a real-time volumetric cloud system, fully integrated into the world shader instead of relying on the render engine. The challenge was always feasibility: clouds done right are expensive, both in rendering cost and development time. But as work on Atmosphere² ramped up, it became clear they weren’t optional. Believable skies need believable clouds. https://physicaladdons.com/blog/post/debugging-stars-finding-constellations/ Tue, 07 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://physicaladdons.com/blog/post/debugging-stars-finding-constellations/ A more unintended feature is, that Physical Atmosphere² can now show real constellations in the sky. I hear you asking “But why-?”. We had to validate that the stars are actually correctly aligned and properly visible. As seen in the earlier blog post about the stars themselves, the stars look pretty cool, but they should also make sense. Especially, when viewing from the location of a real place on earth. If it does not align, people would notice. https://physicaladdons.com/blog/post/real-orbit-precition/ Tue, 07 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://physicaladdons.com/blog/post/real-orbit-precition/ In the beginning, we tried a simplified approximation using shaders. The movement of celestial objects in the sky worked well but once we checked the accuracy, the system broke down. Our goal was to get realistic results that reflect the exact and real position of objects in the sky at a given time and date. The precision of this system was.. wildly inaccurate, we realized when we cross-checked with predictions of future eclipses. https://physicaladdons.com/blog/post/sharp-stars-at-every-zoom-level/ Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://physicaladdons.com/blog/post/sharp-stars-at-every-zoom-level/ We wanted to share a quick progress update on stars, which have always been an important part of our atmosphere integrations. For Physical Atmosphere², we want to make sure that stars feel better than ever. That means a range of visual improvements and new additions in the backend. The system to distribute the stars was already covered here on a Patreon post, so I won’t go into too much detail about it again here. https://physicaladdons.com/blog/post/001-micro-scratches/ Sat, 12 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://physicaladdons.com/blog/post/001-micro-scratches/ Goal for this experiment is again automotive shader related - I want to achieve realistic microscratching on shiny surfaces. This is my first test. I am not entirely satisfied, but I am getting there eventually. In order to get the anisotropic reflections, you need to calculate the scratch normals. Initially I started with a V shape groove, but a U shape gave me more ‘stable’ results with less sampling. Now only the groove direction towards the light source lights up. https://physicaladdons.com/blog/post/002-polarised-light-and-thin-film-interference/ Fri, 24 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://physicaladdons.com/blog/post/002-polarised-light-and-thin-film-interference/ Last day before I take my time off work and I spent it tinkering with car headlights again! This time I am exploring polarised light and thin-film interference on a transparent body in Blender. Thank you @KarolMiklas for car model! Beautiful work as always. Polarised light and Thin-film interference are not the same in terms of physics. One is caused by injection moulding of the plastic, other - by a very thin layer of material on the surface of another material.