Sunset sky ... What ya'll think?

[Lexx_Luthor]

As you all know, we lost SunColor added to SkyColor in Enviro. TK says its *poof* gone! SunColor adds only to HorizonColor now, after Patch 2008.

 

So I take the horizon band and blow it up to fill most of the sky, and use that for sky. Currently...

 

[sky]

SkyDistance=1000

SkyPanelCount=9

SkyPanelHeight=2000

 

This allows climbing above most of the horizon band at extreme altitudes...80k feet or so. This [sky] is for CLEAR weather only, and no puffy clouds.

 

Near sunset, the yellow/green SunColor adds to horizon band in the half of the sky near the sun. The horizon band is vertically stretched to fill the sky, and so replaces the older SunColor adding to SkyColor. Otherwise, the horizon band is near the same color as SkyColor. I lose the horizon band for its intended purpose, but I need the sunset/sunrise sky fill.

 

Here I turn off all "twilight lens flare" effects because they model camera lenses only -- they superimpose red light on objects like aircraft which would be a camera artifact. The glow in the sky roundabout the sun is the basic Siberian Sun molding.

 

colours need tweaking...

Edited October 21, 2008 by Lexx_Luthor

[+Dave]

I still think cellinsky's sky mod captures it the best. Yours looks like another planet. No offense, but you did ask what we thought.

[Lexx_Luthor]

Yours looks like another planet.

ROR yea I know. Its all I got left to work with.

 

But the HighAlt feature makes up for it. Man TK did great on this.

[+p10ppy]

have a look at SunRadiance=

 

it can make a large difference mixing the sun colour with the sky and the Horizon

nominally in the suns area but with big enough numbers it starts get fairly large ...

[Lexx_Luthor]

have a look at SunRadiance=

 

it can make a large difference mixing the sun colour with the sky and the Horizon

nominally in the suns area but with big enough numbers it starts get fairly large ...

That's how I always did it. But SunColor is not added to SkyColor now....TK disabled this for some reason. So I came up with this workaround, replacing the old effect by blowing up the horizon band which still responds to SunColor.

[+p10ppy]

yeah...

guess i'm still on FE

 

whoops

 

that is a pity...

[+Wrench]

That's actually looks like a Chesely Bonstall painting!!!

 

Just need a few guys in space suits walking around in the foreground....

 

Wrench

kevin stein

[Lexx_Luthor]

Yea yea keep the pressure suit jokes coming, I need em. This needs alot of work. You know, the Earth's stratosphere is a rather alien environment.

 

Late twilight....from sea level and 20 kilometers...

 

 

[Silverbolt]

nice twilight

[Lexx_Luthor]

That was the easy part as the colours are not too extreme.

 

Below we have an issue. The blue hole in the sky is the top of the vertically stretched horizon band, showing concave here. TK's original SunColor-to-SkyColor was convex, covered fully half the sky in the sun direction, and was far more soft in color transition, all of which combined to make realistic eye candy. That's gone now. Something might be done with the twilight flares and lens flares, but that may take tga knowledge which I don't have. I can't use the red glows everybody uses now because they red out objects...like a camera would. I am going for in-cockpit visual modelling only.

 

 

[GwynO]

That was the easy part as the colours are not too extreme.

 

Below we have an issue. The blue hole in the sky is the top of the vertically stretched horizon band, showing concave here. TK's original SunColor-to-SkyColor was convex, covered fully half the sky in the sun direction, and was far more soft in color transition, all of which combined to make realistic eye candy. That's gone now. Something might be done with the twilight flares and lens flares, but that may take tga knowledge which I don't have. I can't use the red glows everybody uses now because they red out objects...like a camera would. I am going for in-cockpit visual modelling only.

 

 

What are those things under the Buff? I think there's a face in one, and one looks uncannily like a flying badger Good Luck with your ongoing strategic progress man! One day we will get to really make war in that bizillion meter map of yours! :spartak:

[Lexx_Luthor]

Good Luck with your ongoing strategic progress man! One day we will get to really make war in that bizillion meter map of yours!

Yough thanks. The map is yours to tile if you wish. For now I get by with some standin tiles lifted from the real modders' terrains.

 

Here is the stock TwilightHorizonGlow found in Patch2008 but sized up to '8000' with 200km horizon distance. It works great, BUT the glow eats into terrain about 70km distant and that is bad. TK still uses 75km as upper limit for terrain, so nobody sees this. I can't find a way to eliminate or reduce this cutting, and I need 200km terrain distance, or greater for ...hehe...strategic progress! So I turn it off unless I absolutely need this. I don't know whats worse:: eaten terrain or concave sky hole.

 

Note this sky glow is convex, which is what we need.

 

[GwynO]

Putting a Buddhist head on, add no sound unless it improves on silence.. Lexx, your speaking above my intellect by degrees, I would love to contribute something to the community one day but that is a whole lot of tiles bro!! I don't even know what is best, fix the hole in the sky... somehow, or go for a convex sky but come up with a way to solve the terrain clipping.. I thought philosophy was hard but it's nothing compared to modding.

 

And you didn't say, just what are those "things" under your buff in that screenie, am dying to know

[Lexx_Luthor]

Look under your B-52 right after liftoff from runway (that was a liftoff shot if you didn't notice). The weird things vanish soon after, but appear again before landing.

 

The Mystery deepens!!

 

Surprisingly, the 6M map does not have many tiles. Its really impossible to tile that size map the way you really want given lack of deep tools. One example would be an Inclusion Region instead of the current Exclusion Region. An IR feature would have the ER capability as a subset, but go far beyond, and allow some kick butt tiling power.