Path Tracer Moon

[WAS]

I can't really test this, but was curious if the path tracer could handle a realistic moon?

A moon, which uses a reflection shader as a child of a surface layer, which is masked by a adjusted grayscale colour of the moon texture with a wide (like 1.5-2) specular spread and a highlight intensity of 10 or something. Very light moon atmosphere with high height limit as a moon glow..

A planet surface with a subtle reflection surface and maybe a lake..

I wonder if you could get a glowing moon all by using the sun, where the moon can actually bounce some light to the planet surface.

[N-drju]

Bouncing light of other planets would sure be realistic and good to have! Then, provided it is indeed life-like, there would be no need to put additional "sunlight" just to simulate a moonlight as this would be done automatically.

I remember I have made some wonderful moons, with even a glowing halo around the planet's face. But it is not straightforward and you need a carefully placed light source to get a realistic result. Unless of course, it is an eclipse that you look for!

[WAS]

Bouncing light of other planets would sure be realistic and good to have! Then, provided it is indeed life-like, there would be no need to put additional "sunlight" just to simulate a moonlight as this would be done automatically.

I remember I have made some wonderful moons, with even a glowing halo around the planet's face. But it is not straightforward and you need a carefully placed light source to get a realistic result. Unless of course, it is an eclipse that you look for!

Yeah. I just recently shared a glowing moon setup. I don't like the sun approach, as with reflections, the light is not as accurate as it would be with a light source placed in front of the moon at center.

There was a lot of light bouncing in the screens shared, I wonder if the reflection is strong enough on the moon it could achieve this. It would be fun to see an attempt with it. I'm always thinking of ways to push TG even if it's molasses slow or ends if failure.

[N-drju]

Naaah. Not me. I don't like to wait too long for test renders.

This is a question to Matt and Oshyan, but I think you might be disappointed. I have rarely seen TG giving plausible and realistic results in orbital shots and this time through this will probably not happen either.

Personally, I don't mind having moon glowing via sunlight. However contradictory it may be... Once, when I made a Christmas render, my friend's acquaintance asked him what town was there on the render. Which proves that you can obtain good realism even with workarounds.

[WAS]

Naaah. Not me. I don't like to wait too long for test renders.

This is a question to Matt and Oshyan, but I think you might be disappointed. I have rarely seen TG giving plausible and realistic results in orbital shots and this time through this will probably not happen either.

Personally, I don't mind having moon glowing via sunlight. However contradictory it may be... Once, when I made a Christmas render, my friend's acquaintance asked him what town was there on the render. Which proves that you can obtain good realism even with workarounds.

To each their own, as you said, you find orbital shots not realistic, and I'd find off-set reflections and light not realistic. I also often don't take most peoples judgement as too serious -- I mean millions of people think fake images/videos of aliens/cryptids are real despite level of realism or accuracy. I also enjoy high quality renders despite time as it's really the only way to see those subtle differences and details to really make a judge of tests and quality.

Here is a preview of a version 2 of the glowing moon. The only thing that's annoying is when you have glow in atmosphere, you get a spot you have to fix in post (you can see it here). No matter the distance there seems to be a "focused" light from the source which is not accurate when there is no haze to provide a glow ball when glow ball is hidden imo. You'd think with this sort of setting you'd just get the cascading lights. I dunno.

[Matt]

Not yet. Some day...

[Matt]

Here is a preview of a version 2 of the glowing moon. The only thing that's annoying is when you have glow in atmosphere, you get a spot you have to fix in post (you can see it here). No matter the distance there seems to be a "focused" light from the source which is not accurate when there is no haze to provide a glow ball when glow ball is hidden imo. You'd think with this sort of setting you'd just get the cascading lights. I dunno.

Try increasing the diameter of your sun and you should be able to make the glow about the size of the moon.

[N-drju]

Try increasing the diameter of your sun and you should be able to make the glow about the size of the moon.

It will still not solve the problem of the glow being displayed on the moon's surface rather than just as a shining halo around it. I feel your pain WASasquatch. I've been there too.

[Matt]

Realistically, it should appear over the moon at least as much as it appears over the background of space. Anything else will require postwork, I'm afraid.