Night Settings

Night Sky

The Night Sky feature in True-Sky allows you to create realistic and captivating night-time atmospheres for your scenes. With a range of controls, you can adjust various aspects of the night sky to achieve the desired look and feel.

Sky Settings

Day-to-Night Transition

The Night Sky includes a transition feature that simulates the gradual shift from the day shader to the night shader. This allows you to seamlessly switch from a daylight environment to a night-time setting, creating a realistic time progression.

Day-to-Night Controls

The Night Sky provides the following controls:

Strength: Controls the overall strength or intensity of the night sky. Increasing the strength value enhances the visibility and brightness of the night sky elements, such as stars and the moon.

Brightness: Adjusts the brightness of the night sky. Use this control to control the overall luminosity of the night sky including the stars.

Rotation X/Y/Z: These controls enable you to rotate the night sky along the X, Y, and Z axes. By adjusting these values, you can change the orientation and position of the night sky in your scene. This feature is particularly useful for creating dynamic and varied night sky compositions.

These controls provide flexibility and customization options to create realistic night sky effects, allowing you to adjust the appearance and position of the night sky elements according to your specific requirements.

Nebula

The Nebula feature in True-Sky allows you to generate stunning and customizable nebula effects for your scenes. With a variety of controls, you can create unique and captivating nebula formations.

Nebula Controls

The Nebula provides the following controls:

Fade: Adjusts the fade-in effect of the nebula, controlling the transition between the nebula and the surrounding sky or background. Increase the value for a smoother transition.

Amount: Controls the overall density and intensity of the nebula. Higher values create a more dense and pronounced nebula effect, while lower values result in a more subtle appearance.

Seed: The seed value determines the randomness of the procedural texture used to generate the nebula. Changing the seed will produce different variations of the nebula pattern. Experiment with different seed values to achieve the desired look.

Distortion: This control introduces distortion to the nebula pattern, creating swirling or twisting effects. Adjusting the distortion value can add dynamism and complexity to the nebula formation.

Hue: Changes the color tone of the nebula. Use this control to create different color variations, ranging from cool blues and purples to warm oranges and reds.

Saturation: Controls the intensity or purity of the colors in the nebula. Increase the saturation for more vibrant and vivid colors, or decrease it for a more desaturated and muted look.

These controls give you the flexibility to customize and fine-tune the appearance of the procedurally generated nebula to suit your artistic vision.

Examples

The image above showcases some example renderings using the Procedural Nebula feature in True-Sky. These examples demonstrate the range of possibilities and creative potential of the nebula controls.

Stars

The Stars feature in True-Sky allows you to add realistic starry skies to your scenes, enhancing the overall visual impact and creating a sense of depth and wonder.

Stars Controls

The stars feature provides the following controls:

Amount: Controls the density or number of stars in the sky. Increasing the amount value will populate the sky with more stars, while decreasing it will result in a sparser distribution.

Size Randomness: Adjusts the random variation in star sizes. Higher values introduce more size diversity among the stars, creating a natural and varied appearance.

Please note that the brightness of the stars is controlled by the brightness slider in the Sky settings. Adjusting the brightness slider will affect the overall luminosity of the stars in the sky.

Sky Clarity

The Sky Clarity feature in True-Sky allows you to control the clarity and visual effects of the sky, including the presence of light pollution and additional light sources.

Clarity Controls

The Sky Clarity feature provides the following controls:

Enable Light Pollution: When enabled, this toggle adds a subtle blue effect to the sky, simulating the presence of light pollution. Light pollution can contribute to the overall atmospheric ambiance and enhance the realism of your scene.

Altitude: Adjusts the altitude at which the sky effects are visible. Higher values will make the effects more pronounced at higher altitudes, while lower values will limit their visibility to lower portions of the sky.

Strength: Controls the intensity or strength of the sky effects. Increasing the strength value will make the effects more prominent and visually impactful.

Enable Lights: When enabled, this toggle adds additional light sources near the horizon, resembling city lights or other artificial lighting. These lights can contribute to the overall atmosphere of your scene and create captivating visual effects.

Amount of Lights: Determines the quantity of light sources added when the "Enable Lights" toggle is enabled. Lower amounts will result in a smoother effect with fewer light sources, while higher amounts will introduce a greater number of lights that are slightly broken apart.

Moon

The Moon section in True-Sky allows you to customize the appearance and lighting of the moon in your scene.

Moon Controls

Moon Quality: Adjusts the quality or level of detail of the moon. Higher values result in a more detailed moon model, while lower values provide a simpler representation.

Radius: Controls the size or radius of the moon.

Distance: Determines the distance of the moon from the Earth. Changing this value can affect the apparent size and position of the moon in the sky.

Height: Adjusts the vertical position or elevation of the moon in the sky.

Rotation: Controls the rotation of the moon in 3D space. You can specify the rotation value along the Z axes.

Surface Rotation: Allows you to adjust the rotation of the moon itself about its own center. You can specify the rotation values along the X, Y, and Z axes.

Moon Lighting

Strength: Adjusts the overall strength or intensity of the moonlight. Higher values make the moonlight brighter, while lower values create a dimmer effect.

Brightness: Controls the brightness level of the moon. This can be used to enhance or reduce the moon's visibility in the scene.

Moon Phase: Provides preset options to select different moon phases. You can choose from options such as Full Moon, Crescent Moon, etc. These presets automatically adjust the moon's appearance to match the selected phase.

Lighting Direction: Determines the direction from which the light is coming on moon. Adjusting this value can create different lighting angles and shadows on the moon's surface.

Shadow Brightness: Controls the brightness of the shadows part of the moon. Higher values result in darker shadows, while lower values produce lighter shadows.

Shadow GI: Adjusts the global illumination (GI) contribution of the moon's shadows. Increasing this value enhances the indirect lighting and the effect of the moon's shadows on the scene.