   need cloud effect and sprite emitter...
  I need to make a three dimensional cloud out in space.  The user will pan around it and be able to see it from all angles.  I'm looking for good ideas on how to do this.I was thinking about making a few meshes as the clouds and then give them a transparent texture but unsure about this.  What do you guys think?Also I need to create one of those sprite emitters that cycles thru bitmaps as it changes location and remains normalized to the viewpoint.  Any tuts or such?Thanks in advance,Devin   
  This effect is very commonly sought after, do some googling on it and you'll find a bunch.Gamedev recently had an article on advanced particle systems for shaded cloud effects.  If you don't need shading, it's even simpler.here are a few linkshttp://www.markmark.net/clouds/ Mark Harris' Real Time Cloud Rendering pagehttp://www.gamasutra.com/features/20040114/wang_01.shtml Gamasutra article - what they used in Microsoft Flight Simulatorhttp://www.gamasutra.com/gdc2005/features/20050308/erez_pfv.htm this was actually the first article that came to mind.  It deals with using shaded particle systems to represent (basically) surfaces of volumes.Good luck - I'd check the last one first if I were you!-Michael g.   ;  Something else I recently found is this website:http://www.ofb.net/~niniane/clouds/I haven't tried it yet, but it looks nice enough.   