Hi friends,

I've been desperately searching for a place, where to put my tutorial, wanting not to keep things from you!
A little tutorial about heaven or sky in the background of levels! Its a tutorial using elements out from LBP3, ... yes I know, here
we are in the LBP1 & LBP2 section, but... the techniques can also be used in LBP2.
So finally here it is!

http://i3.lbp.me/img/ft/473706cb9db8a5307c0f9a0501aa8884e7706d2c.jpg

This is a little scene out of my LBP2 project "Do you fear Death?!" a Caribbean island scenery
with blue water and a blue sky. The core of this blue sky is the "blue bubbles" material with its property,
that you get a sky-effect if you put its brightness to 0% (sky on the right side of the picture) For my
Caribbean scenery the color of this "sky material" wasn't fitting, so I put a thin layer of sticker panel
material just before this sky material and fine tuned its color, brightness and opacity til I got the blue
sky on the left side of the picture.

In LBP3 the "blue bubbles" material has the same property, but the sky effect seems to be not that vivid
like in LBP2 but a little more dim.


http://id.lbp.me/img/ft/f2dc85f90f8f6e7f6bdbae6a5ecc7c9a5d1f4f97.jpg

so I thought by myself: why not a little experiment around with it? I tried to add some more cloud
effects. I placed some cloudy structures on some extra sticker panel material (you remember that then its
super-simple to adjust their color, brightness and opacity!)

The cloudy structures here I've made out of the stickers "chalk dust" and "chalk cloud" and "frost".

http://i5.lbp.me/img/ft/385bfbe88988abbeb65838de724d3f5c90a4fcb8.jpg

http://i2.lbp.me/img/ft/7a2268020c553f23ba9394271a9cfee330d18231.jpg

http://ib.lbp.me/img/ft/ccb14fad49f5206d7963f35261dfc2675ea3eb2d.jpg

Trials using the fog machine haven't been satisfying, but I've found some useful effects in the
effects section, especially I liked the "jet stream" clouds.

http://i9.lbp.me/img/ft/1a9298d6c578e8f06481d0b1c98065e060d769b4.jpg

These effects can be regulated only to a limitated size, but thats no problem, because if you put
them on a material and then enlarge this material, then you can also enlarge the size of the effect beyond
its limitation. First I put it on sticker material (you remember? Then its soo easy to adjust its color,
brightness aaaaand...right, its opacity! ).

But the jet-stream effect has also a high animation speed, which may be fitting for a stormy sky scene but
not for a calm one. But there is also help for that. If you put the animated jet-stream effect on also
animated material (I've chosen the waterfall material of LBP2) and change the animation speed of this material,
then you can also change the animation speed of the animated effect put on the material. Here I put the
jet-stream effect on the waterfall material, adjusted the size and tranparency and put the animation speed to
0% and got a stationary cloud veil.

http://i1.lbp.me/img/ft/b61bda6cc34172ddf769a4212970ddbd445ec051.jpg

http://i5.lbp.me/img/ft/a658a8980e7a7e886929ba5d302b84b5bfa4249f.jpg

...adding some additional light for the son behind the cloud veil ...

http://i9.lbp.me/img/ft/ad9d7b0d6c4a124fc0c7b73a8fb1644bd9d54467.jpg

...and voila! Feels like heaven...

and if you prefer it more blue then you simply have to click on the sticker panel material and turn the color
to blue aand..you have the same sky in blue...or in grey...or in pink... super-simple!

Have a lot of fun and many greetings, Jürgen^^

very nice! some useful tips for sure!

Thanks a lot, a second tutorial about sky and clouds is work in progress!

Many greetings, Jürgen^^