Lighten Up

Having looked into the qualities of the "magic hour" as David and Matt called it, I've decided to go with my sun higher up in the sky. I didn't realize till now just how little variation there is in the angle between "normal" daylight and the more drastic lighting effects of sunrise and sunset.

My sunlight was originally only set at a 38 degree angle (with zero degrees having the light pointing straight down at the ground from a noon sky position). It surprises me that at this relatively limited rotation I produced such a distinct part of the daily lighting cycle. I would have expected this effect at more around 50-60 degrees. In my reading though 50-60 is in the later sunset or rise part of the day...

I guess being from the prairies I have a slightly distorted sense of landscapes. In most places there are hills, plants, buildings, and/or mountains (which in fairness I'm used to the Rockies effecting sunsets in Calgary!) so the true 90 degrees is never going to happen. Mind you I come from one of those weird places that (at least for sunrise) an 70-80 degree emergence of the sun is possible. This last observation is mostly pointless other than I've expanded my lighting horizons (pun unintended :P). Cretaceous Alberta would have had a similar sunrise situation to its east due to the the inland sea... oceans being the one place I think of with a nearly 90 degree sun emergence event horizon.

So here is the new lighting scheme. Overall I actually like it more anyways. I'll have to do some work on the corpses shaders to better capture this lighting scheme. Also a few teaks to the gorging Gorgosaurus (in particular his arms).

While the old lighting scheme adds some mystery to the corpse, it also obscures it and the eating Gorgosaurus. So I think I'll be going with the new lighting scheme.

Thoughts or comments?