Windlight and weather effects

Hi!

I enjoy the new windlight environments, and all the possibilities to alter the feeling of a place. It is really amazing and eye-candy, but with all these clouds, it was not possible to avoid thinking "What about if these clouds gives rain or snow?" Does anybody know if weather effects will be added in a future? (at least in as a client-side effect)

I was looking around to see if weather effects were possible in Windlight, and I've found this: http://www.windwardmark.net/images/screenshots/windlight/weather1.jpg -- Which looks amazing and it would be neat in SL!... does anybody know if this would be possible in a future? it is because I love weather, and it would be neat to see it in SL as a client-side feature, blending it with the "Blizzard" sky preset

It's less amazing when you're inside a structure and the rain/snow passes right through.

There are particle weather generators in-world though, could be something to look into.

The particle generators go through primitives too, and they don't look very good at all (if you look up, you see the water drips falling horizontally, and some rain generators fall in pieces), and they have somewhere to start, meaning you see the rain particles coming from a point and falling, and also, they are server side, that's why I don't like using the current particle rain generators

i think there's no doubt it'll be added someday, but not for a rather long time. only official word has been "we'd love to, but it's a little more complicated than that!"

Yeah, sadly this is the sentence that defies the pretty stuff.
DAMN DIFFICULTIES! But well, glad to know that I am not the only one who would like it

To get weather generators working with windlight that dont pass through 'solid objects' will require a greater Havok engine than currently employed. It's the same when your arms pass through clothing, and hair that defies nature.

The physics engine capable would probably be greater than Havok 4, the future engine destined for SL, which is primarily being employed for its serverside stability. I believe, that with the open source clientside code being released in some format in the coming year, 3rd parties will host better versions and will therefore be able to offer 'local weather' amongst other 'useful toys'. Unless LL follow suit, their servers/sims will be seen as somewhat basic in comparrision.

Raindrops and snowflakes passing through solid objects is a client-side problem in the same way that light passing through objects is a client-side problem, so the physics engine doesn't really come into play at all.

It does in so much that the data supplied by the serverside is either non existant in a programming sense, or the system couldn't cope with it. That type of function is not disimilar to poofers, only in a much more controlled way.