Winter is coming and the nights get darker.. Allowing the chance to spot some aurora!
Be sure to watch this little mood-video in HD!

The aurora is made using a mesh with scrolling textures as a base shape and a particle system with animated textures for a disordered look. It's definitely a work in progress and there is lots more to do..
I'm also continually adding more small objects to my asset library and that's slowly making the scene more interesting.

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Many thanks to the good people at http://www.crydev.net for featuring my work! 
I feel very honored and it does wonders to the ol' spirit :)

The kind article is among many showing the power of CryEngine. 
Check it out!  

I love CryEngine's day/night cycle. Here is a chilly late summer morning, looking north towards the beacon of Torsberget under a veil of aurora borealis. I grew up enjoying these dancing lights, mostly in the dark time of year though. 
Right now the aurora is a texture on several extruded splines that drape around each other. It looks alright on a still image, but I want them to dance and have a life cycle in realtime.. I think particles could do it. 

My other experiment last week was with fire. Until now, I've used a simple placeholder, a 16-frame texture that comes with the free SDK that I looped on a single particle. 
At night fires will really pop in the environment so it should look right. I want more than random-sized particles drifting upwards uniformly, I want volatile tendrils that flutter and dance before they rip away and die. In western society we don't spend enough time taming fire and we get mesmerized when we see it, so my gauge is that when I don't want to look away from it anymore I'm on the right track. 
I like what I have so far so I can start tweaking it from here. It is also very customizable so I can make anything from a small twig-fire to a scorching hot pyre without losing the character of the flames.
 

I'm excited about the possibilities of making large-scale fires since the hill forts from this time are located so that beacons could have acted as long-range signal systems. Kind of like those in Return of the King, so delicious..

Would love to hear any thoughts or questions, I'll try to make some tutorials and breakdowns too. 
Stay tuned for more updates and videos soon!