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onelifecrisis · 09-24-08, 01:41 PM

@snwcrsh
Alright, here's the explanation...

SH3 can't properly do moonlight. What I mean is there is no directional light source attached to the moon. Stock SH3 and GWX both use a sort of "fake moonlight" which I didn't use in OLCE2 because:
(a) The fake moonlight doesn't come from the moon, it comes from under the ocean i.e. everything is lit from underneath; the WO, for example, looks like someone is shining a light under his chin. IMO it looks bad.
(b) The fake moonlight is "always on" whether the moon is out or not. If you assume that the moon is not out 50% of the time and there is cloud cover 50% of the time then that leaves 25% of the time, overall, where the moon is visible. Then factor into the equation the fact that the brightness of a half-moon is only 10% of the brightness of a full moon, IRL, and you're left with roughly one in ten nights, on average, where the moon is out and not obscured by clouds and full enough to provide illumination. Since the fake moonlight in SH3 can only be "always on" or "always off" I opted to have it always off, so that OLCE2 has the correct light levels for 9 out of every 10 nights. On the other 1 out of 10 nights, admittedly, it looks wrong.

As for the reflection, SH3 can do a basic sort of moon reflection but it's nothing like a real moon reflection. It's done differently to the sun reflection. It's just a flat, round, mirror image of the moon (distorted a bit by the water surface). In stock (and GWX) this looks okay-ish but in OLCE2 it looks very bad because I've reduced the size of the moon to the size it is IRL, and also because my reflections work differently.

I should put this in post #1 of my thread, it gets asked quite frequently. :hmm:

@Jim
I'M PERMANENTLY ON DEFCON ZERO!

09-24-08, 01:41 PM	#10
onelifecrisis Maverick Modder Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: England Posts: 3,895 Downloads: 65 Uploads: 3	@snwcrsh Alright, here's the explanation... SH3 can't properly do moonlight. What I mean is there is no directional light source attached to the moon. Stock SH3 and GWX both use a sort of "fake moonlight" which I didn't use in OLCE2 because: (a) The fake moonlight doesn't come from the moon, it comes from under the ocean i.e. everything is lit from underneath; the WO, for example, looks like someone is shining a light under his chin. IMO it looks bad. (b) The fake moonlight is "always on" whether the moon is out or not. If you assume that the moon is not out 50% of the time and there is cloud cover 50% of the time then that leaves 25% of the time, overall, where the moon is visible. Then factor into the equation the fact that the brightness of a half-moon is only 10% of the brightness of a full moon, IRL, and you're left with roughly one in ten nights, on average, where the moon is out and not obscured by clouds and full enough to provide illumination. Since the fake moonlight in SH3 can only be "always on" or "always off" I opted to have it always off, so that OLCE2 has the correct light levels for 9 out of every 10 nights. On the other 1 out of 10 nights, admittedly, it looks wrong. As for the reflection, SH3 can do a basic sort of moon reflection but it's nothing like a real moon reflection. It's done differently to the sun reflection. It's just a flat, round, mirror image of the moon (distorted a bit by the water surface). In stock (and GWX) this looks okay-ish but in OLCE2 it looks very bad because I've reduced the size of the moon to the size it is IRL, and also because my reflections work differently. I should put this in post #1 of my thread, it gets asked quite frequently. :hmm: @Jim I'M PERMANENTLY ON DEFCON ZERO! __________________ Freedom of speech - priceless. For everything else there's Mastercard.