sun position

[dansan]

Referencing Behes screenshots from "BA model replacements" @ http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.ph ... &start=920
(I don't want to derail that thread to much, so opening new topic.)



Look at shadows of the trees top left and bottom in screenshot and interpolate the suns position. Is it intentional, that the sun is put very near to the map? While the shadows look very nice and make the map atmospheric, the angle seems unrealistic.
(I'm not trolling - I want to understand.)

[jK]

The sun is multiple million km far away. So to simplify the whole math you can assume that the sun has no distance instead it is just a direction. And this SunDir is equal on every spot on the map.

So the sun isn't "near to the map" at all

[luckywaldo7]

Maybe he meant the angle over the horizon? It looks to be about 45┬░, so mid-afternoon?

[jK]

The SunDir is a map property and I don't see it being unrealistic on this map at all ...

Or do you live in Antarctica and never saw 45degree shadows? ^^

[very_bad_soldier]

That shadows indeed seem to not take all the same direction (which is probably what he meant). I think the reason is that the trees are not straight but bend and the shadows therefore get distorted.

[dansan]

Oh... (blushing)... I think it's what v_b_s said: when I look at all the other trees, their shadow are mostly in line... but the trees @top left got my attention, and their shadow lean a lot to the left, what made me interpolate the suns position wrong, and it's prob just that they are not straight... sorry for the noise, and thank you for your answers :)