Realistic planetary lighting and Eclipse shadows

[Rdivine]

Hey guys!

My suggestion is that realistic lighting on planetary bodies be implemented.

I am talking about eclipse shadowing, atmospheric scattering on the moon(lunar eclipse).

Also, in real life, the brightness of the sun on the planet decreases with distance. E.g. Moho has a brighter surface than eeloo.

Plus, eclipse shadows would allow for darkness in areas darkened by the planetary body. Also, a partial eclipse would darken the ground slightly, but not completely.

Such realistic lighting would be favored in the game. Thanks!

[thereaverofdarkness]

I believe they already have lighting by distance, but they seem to have intentionally gone with a weaker reduction than the realistic square function. You can see this with photovoltaic panels, even at Jool they are around half effectiveness (I don't remember the exact value). They should be at about 4% effectiveness assuming their yield remains at the same light efficiency even out to Jool.

[Vaporo]

I believe they already have lighting by distance, but they seem to have intentionally gone with a weaker reduction than the realistic square function. You can see this with photovoltaic panels, even at Jool they are around half effectiveness (I don't remember the exact value). They should be at about 4% effectiveness assuming their yield remains at the same light efficiency even out to Jool.

I don't think so. Solar panels reduce in power output when you move away from the sun, but the visible light stays the same. If you hyperedit something an arbitrarily large distance from the Sun, it appears no darker than if it were right next to it.

EDIT: Though the Planetshine mod does make the light extremely bright when near the sun.

Edited December 23, 2014 by Vaporo

[thereaverofdarkness]

Maybe it's just my imagination then, but I felt like Eeloo was considerably darker than Moho, despite having a much higher albedo.

[Whirligig Girl]

Eclipses happen quite often in Kerbal Space Program, but there's one thing I don't understand. Why is there no shadows that fall on the planets that are being eclipsed? Often times I have a drop of solar power and I have no idea why, until I look up and find the Mun right above the Sun. I don't know how hard it would be to implement shadows, but I hope it's not too difficult.

No, Africa does not have a burnt spot. That's our Moon's shadow.

[Gimbal]

Although it is a good idea, I wouldn't want it to be implemented into the game because for example, the mun has in inclination of 0°, which would result in a solar eclipse and a munar eclipse every orbit.

[Anquietas314]

which would result in a solar eclipse and a munar eclipse every orbit.

Why's that a bad thing? It would be a pretty rare occurrence (once every few Kerbin days for a few minutes). Solar panels are already affected by that anyway.

As for eclipse shadows, I do want them but shadows are quite an expensive thing to render, especially if you take the shape of the object into account. I suppose you could just use a big circle for the shadow though and that'd work pretty well

Edited December 30, 2014 by armagheddonsgw

[Vaporo]

I think that we don't have interplanetary shadows yet because Unity's lighting system doesn't work all that well at extremely long. In fact, I think that one of the planned features is a custom-designed lighting system.

EDIT: Better lighting is in the Wiki's planned features list, but with a "citation needed" tag.

Edited December 30, 2014 by Vaporo

[Zeoffin]

Hello fellow kerbals!

So I was playing Kerbal Space Program the other day, and for the first time I saw a solar eclipse in KSP. Heres a picture:

It of course looks nice, but what dissapointed me, was the fact, there was no shadow casted on the Kerbin. It made all this solar eclipse little not so cool

Same thing with Laythe. When its behind the Jool, its still bright day on it. Its just not right. Sun is all blocked by giant gas planet, but Laythe is still a little, bright planet, even behind giant gas planet.

I would suggest to make actual shadows when the eclipse occors or, at least, make the Laythe go in dark, when light is blocked by Jool.

What are your thought?

(Sorry for bad english anyway).

[Wallygator]

Sunlight is "functionally" blocked by planetary bodies already (you can check your solar panel status when you are on the dark side of your orbit) but you are correct that there is no graphical representation of the effects on a planetary surface.

It would be really cool to see in game, but I can't see any added benefit to gameplay.

So, I support your idea but would suggest it has a much lower implementation priority compared to other essential features that are still required.

And more importantly... Welcome to the Forum!!!!

[Zeoffin]

Of course, squad already has tons of things to deal with, its just a little thing that wold be nice.

Thank you!

Cant wait for the 1.0 release.

[Guest]

Is it possible to add this to the game? It will look more realistic.

[Hobbes Novakoff]

The black spot, or the weird black lines on the top half, or what?

[Guest]

The black spot, or the weird black lines on the top half, or what?

Obviously the black spot.

[Unfawkable]

''The weird looking lines are also shadows'', from the saturn-like ring. I'd like to see this, though I don't think lighting can be handled in unity like this right now. Maybe in we'll see it in 1.1 in unity 5.

[Guest]

''The weird looking lines are also shadows'', from the saturn-like ring. I'd like to see this, though I don't think lighting can be handled in unity like this right now. Maybe in we'll see it in 1.1 in unity 5.

I hope so.

[Wjolcz]

I think I remember the eclipse shadows being in game long ago. There was only one problem: they were only present in the rendering boundries. You would basically get about 4km-wide shadow. It looked bad and that's probably why they got rid of it.

[Rdivine]

I think I remember the eclipse shadows being in game long ago. There was only one problem: they were only present in the rendering boundries. You would basically get about 4km-wide shadow. It looked bad and that's probably why they got rid of it.

And constantly rendering shadows on planets while matching the relative speed of the object would mean alot of work required/generate tons of lag.

Furthermore the contour of the land would result in weird texture clippings.

[bpw823]

I think there should be a way of actually changing the look of the area on a celestial surface during an eclipse. Normally on Kerbin, during a solar eclipse, the ground you are on still feels like daytime, but in real life it looks like dusk. There should also be lunar eclipses, when Kerbin passes in front of the Mun and sun, and the Mun would turn red. Realistically, any other body in KSP should have this event if the sizes and distances are correct, and possibly varying effects on the planets. Just a suggestion that would be a cool and realistic feeling to KSP.

In that image, the vehicle and the ground area that should have been shadowed are still bright as normal. Theoretically, the same thing should happen as when orbiting vehicles are on the night side of planets... they go dark. This should happen as well with the surfaces of planetary bodies (in select areas) and vehicles in those areas.

[simon56modder]

Should be rare to see, but really nice though.

[Master Tao]

Merged threads suggesting eclipse shadows and more realistic lighting.

If you're looking to adjust the atmospheric lighting, take a look at Scatterer, though that's primarily supported on DX9.