No cloud shadows at night?

[upupandaway]

When I was checking out my beautiful new moon I noticed that during night time the clouds will not cast any shadows. This looks a bit weird if at the same time the earths surface shows a rather bright reflection from the moons light.

 

Here are 2 screens to illustrate:

 

 

(here you can see that there actually are some clouds)

[213]

either the intensity of the moonlight isn't high enough to cast cloud shadows or the visual effect would be so minimal as to be a waste of resources.

[upupandaway]

Waste of resources... No offence, but I keep hearing this on the forums and I absolutely don´t concur. ED couldn´t realistacally (and probably doesn´t) make this one of their prime directives. They even added surface reflections to the fuselage of the F-15 models and you can see correct reflections of the clouds in some canopies. Where´s the waste of resources here? Additionally, if they kept thinking like this, they´d pretty soon be lagging behind other products. It´s not just about the flight model, it´s also about the visual immersion (at least to me). Look at night screenshots of x-plane for example...

 

If the surface appears this bright in the game´s engine, I personally think there should be some shadows. Don´t think it can get much brighter at night in the game.

[213]

the reflections use env map, a technology that existed for decades, and is not very resource intensive. cloud shadows at night are nigh invisible and is therefore an unnecessary resource tax.

 

there's a difference between an effective use of resources and an unnecessary one. the latter would qualify as a waste.

[upupandaway]

Ok, you certainly have a point with the enviroment maps, but still you are going to find it in places where nobody is ever going to see it (from the cockpit of the A-10). Wouldn´t that fit the very same definition of a waste of resources?

And if the tax on resources is so great, why do we have cloud shadows during the day in the first place? Would it be such a massive performance killer to have the same feature at night? As far as I know those planar cloud shadows are in fact the simplest way to create shadows and that one´s also been around for more than a decade.

You also have a point with the "nigh invisibility". I wouldn´t even be arguing this, if the lighting of the terrain (with the moon shining) during nighttime wasn´t so strikingly bright (still, although it´s generally darker now, of course). I´m basically saying that only due to these "exaggerated" contrasts it becomes quite apparent.

People want effects for bird strike, better explsions and what not - I think it´s all more or less a justified enrichment.

Edited December 14, 2011 by upupandaway

[Bushmanni]

With full moon there's going to be shadows even during the night. It looks pretty strange to have a moon lit scenery, aircrafts and cockpit and no shadows.