Semi-liquid atmosphere - Atmospheric and Visual Effects

Question 2 of Semiliquid atmosphere - Is my premise/conclusions correct; and will it get the result I want?

2. Atmospheric effects - As mentioned before, I prefer it to be visually very similar to our atmosphere, with a few modifications. Some things I've considered:

   • Atmospheric perspective, for starters; normally, our atmosphere 'retains' the blue light, literally making it a light-source in the day-time, and shifting the sun to yellow/red at the horizons. And at distance, objects increasingly shift in color towards the sky color. (Side note: Basically this has more to do with the Kelvin heat/light scale than the color of water or air; so other sky-colors aren't much of a possibility, barring dust and debris, at which point it's not much of an "˜atmosphere' any more.) If it were true to water, this effect would be vastly increased; in seawater at about 30 feet (I believe) all red/orange wavelengths are cut out, and at double that most of it is blue. The surface is typically pitch-dark. Blegh. Totally different story. So I want it to be transparent.

   • Water also has a fresnel effect at the surface due to surface tension and density differences; meaning that about half of the light is reflected off of the surface, with increased amounts the more oblique the angle becomes; this means that effectively, if you're looking straight up at the surface from underwater, you'll see through a rough circle with a vertical angle of about 40 degrees, but outside of that it'll reflect what's under the surface instead. This also sort of creates a fish-eye effect on the 'window' (so you actually see much more than 80 degrees out of your 'porthole'), and it cuts out the overall illumination very quickly.

     Again, this is not really ideal... even considering it's a huge curved surface above. But I may still include a small surface-skin effect, justifying that at those altitudes, the difference in densities between semi-liquid and air is going to be very small. This might make a shimmery horizon effect in some situations; and with huge waves on top, a shimmery wave effect across the sky; both typically at dusk or dawn.

   • I'd also like to know if stars and other extra-terrestrial objects are as visible; considering how many different densities of 'air' you're looking through. I want the stars to be visible; but maybe a flickery-wave effect might happen? Will it fuzz into bands and concentrations? Or will it mostly just diffuse?

posted over 8 years ago

spicklesandwich‭

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