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Thomas ten Cate has updated the sky and cloud rendering in Around The World, an exploration game still in early development. His October 12 report describes a custom ray tracer that revealed a limitation in his earlier cloud-lighting method, along with changes that make clouds brighter and the sky less yellow near the horizon. The developer says one atmospheric-rendering issue remains unexplained.
Developer Thomas ten Cate has revised cloud lighting and atmospheric scattering in Around The World, an exploration game at sea that remains in early development. In a post published October 12, he said the changes make clouds look brighter and more naturally colored, while a revised ray-marching order reduces an unwanted yellow cast near the horizon.
Ten Cate said playtesting left him dissatisfied with how the sea, sky and clouds looked together, despite earlier work that had made the clouds appear passable. To improve their lighting, he generated a comparison lookup table with a small custom, multithreaded Monte Carlo ray tracer written in Rust. The tool models one spherical cloud with uniform density, rather than general cloud formations.
That test supported his suspicion that the Povray-rendered table used in the prior development update did not account for multiple scattering—light bouncing more than once within a cloud. Ten Cate noted that the comparison also involved adjusted parameters and axis scaling, so it was not a perfectly controlled comparison. In his renders, the revised lighting distributed light more evenly, brightened cloud bottoms and removed what he had described as a metallic appearance, especially for thicker clouds.
He also changed how cloud surfaces use indirect environmental light in Godot, the game engine. By adjusting the normals used for cloud lighting to point upward, he found the clouds picked up more color from the sky. He reported a blue tint in daytime scenes and a pinker appearance at sunset, which he attributed to a mix of red direct sunlight and blue indirect sky light. Separately, changing the order of operations in the atmospheric ray march reduced the sky’s yellow appearance near the horizon when the sun was overhead.
Cloud Lighting Shapes the Game World
The update matters as a visible example of how the game’s environment rendering is being developed, not as an announcement of a release or a finished feature. In a game centered on exploration at sea, the appearance of the horizon, weather and changing light can affect how players read the world. Ten Cate’s examples show how adjustments to indirect light and scattering can change the perceived color and depth of clouds without adding a fixed blue tint.
The post also offers a look at the developer’s process: a narrow, custom-built renderer was used to test a specific lighting question, and its output informed changes to the game. The reported results are the developer’s assessment of his own renders; the post does not provide independent testing, performance measurements or a schedule for when players might see these changes in a playable build.
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From Cloud Tests to Sky Changes
Around The World is described by its developer as a game of exploration and discovery at sea. The project is in early development, and the October 12 post is part of an ongoing series documenting its development rather than a launch announcement. Ten Cate’s previous update had focused on getting the clouds to look passable and included the Povray-generated lookup table he later questioned.
The latest work addresses three connected rendering details: how light spreads through clouds, how clouds receive indirect light from the sky, and how the game calculates atmospheric scattering along a view ray. The developer said his understanding of Godot’s environment-lighting process is incomplete, describing it as happening partly under the hood. That caveat applies to his explanation of the engine’s lighting behavior, while the post directly reports the visual changes he saw in his renders.
“The “metallic” look that I mentioned in the last post is now gone; cloud bottoms are brighter, and lighting is smoother overall.”
— Thomas ten Cate, Around The World developer
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Open Questions in the Rendering
Ten Cate said the ray-marching behavior remains unexplained. Reversing the order of attenuation and inscattering improved the horizon color, but he expected the difference to diminish as the number of integration steps increased; he reported that it did not. He suspects another issue remains but did not identify its cause.
The cloud comparison also has limits: its parameters and axis scaling were adjusted, and the custom ray tracer handles only a single idealized spherical cloud. The post does not say how the changes perform across a range of weather, lighting conditions or hardware, whether they will be altered further, or when they will reach a public build. The developer’s visual judgments have not been independently verified.
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Further Work on the Sky
The October 12 post does not give a release date or name a specific next milestone. Ten Cate said the change to the atmospheric ray march would do for now, while acknowledging that the underlying calculation may still contain an error. Readers can expect further information through the developer’s ongoing Around The World development posts, but the timing and scope of the next update are not specified.
For now, the confirmed development is limited to the rendering work described in the post: revised cloud-lighting calculations, altered use of environmental light, and a different order of operations for atmospheric scattering. It remains unclear whether these are final solutions or interim adjustments as development continues.
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Key Questions
What changed in Around The World’s sky rendering?
Developer Thomas ten Cate described changes to cloud light scattering, indirect environmental lighting and the order of atmospheric ray-marching operations. He reported brighter cloud bottoms, smoother lighting and less yellow near the horizon when the sun is overhead.
How did the developer test multiple scattering?
Ten Cate wrote a small, multithreaded Monte Carlo ray tracer in Rust. It models one spherical cloud of uniform density. He said its results supported his suspicion that the previous Povray-generated lookup table did not simulate multiple scattering.
Is Around The World available now?
The source describes the game as being in early development. The October 12 post does not provide a release date or say that the game is available to play publicly.
What issue is still unresolved?
Ten Cate said the revised atmospheric ray-marching order improved the sky color, but the result did not change as he expected when he increased the number of integration steps. He suspects something remains wrong but did not identify the cause.
Source: hn
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