Dynamic skies?

Hello..

I've been experimenting with the different settings for the sky in Torque and have found what I think would be an excellent solution.

For starters, I'm not a fan of skyboxes in general. They just always look.. "sky-boxy"

I'm much more a fan of dynamic skies where you're dealing purely with a solid colored sky - much like in real-life, with layers of clouds scrolling by.. much like they do in real life.

Through my experimentation I've found it very easy to simulate this effect, even including a starry, evening sky. Here's an attached image to show the results of a 15-minute test...

Sample Image

In case it's not immediately obvious (and it probably is), that effect is achieved by simply turning off skybox textures, setting the sky color to a deep blue, turning on the horizon bands and using a tiling starry sky texture as one of the cloud layers - I have the speed set to .0001, so it scrolls by very slowly. I also have one of the fog layers set up to further add to the effect near the horizon. Not too shabby for 15 minutes of work, I think.

I can also set up a second cloud layer to give it more depth. I'm not sure how a sun or moon would be layered in there to make it appear in front of the stars, but behind the clouds.. but that's sorta the point of this post..

I'm wondering how possible it is to set this up where you can dynamically gradiate through the different sky colors to simulate times of day, and weather... Also, can you change the color of the horizon bands from their default white to some other color? Or.. would this have to be done with "strategically" configured fog layers?

Would this be done via scripting? Or, would it have to be done via changing the actual engine code?

I'd like to implement such a system in a game I'm in the R&D stages of, and just want to know what kind of work it's going to entail.

Thanks a bunch!!

Mike