wasn’t sure where to post this…
Me and my whole family honestly did see this, but unfortunately we didn’t have a camera.
This morning, the sun was about halfway above the horizon, with a un-holed layer of stratus clouds above. The sun literally had a crown of small cumulous clouds ringed around near it’s top, all white as snow. But what was most amazing, was beams of light coming from the sun going straight up, and to either side. Just a shaft of light the size of the sun coming directly from it, fading away after a certain length. Clouds fascinate me, and I know quite a bit about them, besides staring at them all the time, and I am POSITIVE this was a cloud layer, not just a freakily tall cloud. I don’t think I have enough skill to create this image in blender, but I will make a rough image for basis for whoever would be kind enough to make me this image because I really want to see it again. Expect another posting soon I will get to work on it right away.
Its funny how computer software like Blender can have an impact on your life to change your perspective on things and give you a new profound insite into observing the world as it is. Right?
yuppers 
here is the picture, below it is brief info. Do you think you can do this?
the green obviously is the ground, the grey is just blender background because I was just doing this really fast, the yellow obviously is the beams of light and while hardly visible, the sun is right in the middle of there. the black above is the cloud layer, though really this went ALMOST all the way to the horizon, I’d say about 3 sun lengths above it. Please Please Please make this!
interesting challenge, but damn is it a hard one…
btw. why not share that .blend file, its simple, but might be nice of you to share with those who might be interested in this.
it’s not worth the trouble objects aren’t even lined up I just did it from that one view really quick so some are really far back and some are here and some are there… it will be easier for someone to just do it from scratch.
I wonder if you were seeing sundogs or maybe sun pillars. We see these here in Minnesota when there are ice crystals in the air (like just this morning when it was -20 C.)
Here is a photo of a nice sun pillar:
omg that is beautiful! It’s close, but not quite. First, the one looks like it could be more just the sun being blocked by a cloud and the sun is filtering off the sides, whereas this was just a pillar of light, even more defined, and for no apparent reason. there wasn’t any funneling as far as I could tell, nothing it was just shining around, and also they may be common in Minnesota but no one in my family has ever seen one here in Michigan. But either way I think thats a great reference pic
that’s the basic idea… the beams were almost perfectly pronounced, like in jurth… and like I said there were a few VERY tiny clouds around the sun, as in smaller than it by far, the only big cloud was a huge cloud cover covering half the sky.
unfortunately I lost my quick throw-together of it, but it had perfect beams of light going from the sun, straight up and straight left/right as far as the eye can see… it didn’t go forever going up, but it did go a good way
Thanks for accepting my request!
zordan, how did you make that??
ya forgot to ask that lol how did you?
Spotlights.
Yep the sun is a combination out of halos and one spot light covered by one big cloud. The coloring is created with nodes and the rest are planes with a displace modifier.
blend
ok thanks
the sun was clearly visible aside from about a quarter of it being below the ground, thought I said that earlier guess I didn’t though.
you’re getting there the beam above should just be a straight beam, not fanning out, there shouldn’t be a beam going down, and the beams going left and right should be more visible. I like your picturesque land scape it’s certainly not what I was looking at but it’s nice again, thanks a million for doing this
I think i now have an idea what you want
It’s exam time here so i won’t work alot with blender thus it might take a bit, be patient.
>again, thanks a million for doing this
Don’t worry it’s fun enough 
ok I can wait
… again, thanks a million for doing this! 
I’ve worked a bit and i have found my motiv. It’s a lighthouse in michigan city (i know it’s in indiana 
), search for “michigan city east lighthouse” and you’ll see.
Insane color setup i know but i like it. It gives the image a painted feeling.
There’s still alot of work to be done but this version is representetiv where i want this image to go.
lipton_lover could you paint somekind of a line into the image, so i know where the cloud layer ended? And tell me if the sunrays are ok.
Attachments
AWESOME! Great work, i love the water