Light Simulation

Systems and Methods For the Real-time and Realistic Simulation of Natural Atmospheric Lighting Phenomenon. Link to Patent Pending. www.freshpatents.com

"Using the techniques, the present invention can provide images and simulations having visually realistic representations of sunlight at any time of day, including from dawn to twilight, along with accurate shadows. Additionally, the present invention can simulate a visually realistic representation of a wide range of cloud formations, resulting cloud cover over the landscape of a scene, and shadows cast by clouds on elements of the scene. Furthermore, the present invention provides a realistic simulation of the visual effects from light scattering by the cloud cover, and also provides visually realistic simulation of water including accurate reflections, refractions, and turbulence. "-Agent: Choate, Hall & Stewart LLP - Boston, MA, US
Inventor: Matthew P. Fairclough 

Searching for some information on natural atmospheric lighting, I stumbled upon a bit of information which may or may not be useful to me in the near future.  The document I found was a form for a pending patent on some type of system that allows for the realistic creation of atmospheric lighting and "related phenomenon that are visually realistic and that can be computed in real-time to render frames of a scene at real-time frame rates per second. The techniques consider the light scattering effects due to sunlight and ambient light in relation to objects, atmospheric particles and other scene elements represented by the image."  This statement is pretty abstracted, and its difficult to tell whether or not this will be usable for still imagery and moving, but I'm anxious to find out.  I think it would be awesome to have some type of atmosphere generator that can be altered accordingly.  This may just be wishful thinking, but I'm interested in the idea at least.