Ambient Lighting

[IckyATLAS]

Here two very nice images with the full moon on 17th July 1943 at 3:00 Am on the Kuban Sea and from a Po2 cockpit.

And you can see that there is no banding at all, it is perfect.

 

The shore at Geelendzhik-1 airfield

 

From the Po2 cockpit on the runway, the moon is partially hidden by a cloud and light intensity goes down. Nice.

 

When viewed head on or when the moon is in the frame it is very nice. But as soon as you get away from the moon it is pitch black.

In reality this is not so because all objects will reflect the moonlight and in clear full moon the ambient luminosity is pretty high so the environment should not be pitch black but should have some lighting reflected and thus be more visible. Ambient lighting is a difficult story in CGI if you want it perfect. But maybe here something basic can be done as having objects be just more visible in grey color to better model this ambient moonlight. Depending on the size of the moon (full or crescent) different visibility of the environment could be done.

Anyway Clouds and Sky night and day in 2D (I do not have VR) are perfect.