I am creating a model of the solar system for my game. It will be using a top down RTS-style camera with the planets orbiting around the Sun. What is the best way to realistically light this kind of system?
Point lights have a very limited radius which doesn’t quite work out for this scale. I have tried changing their radius in blueprints and it kinda works, but produces horrible shadow artefacts, sometimes even when the planets are not aligned to shadow each other.
Direction lights work, but they are not fit because of exactly that - direction. In some case you may see something unrealistic like this:
Have you considered using spotlights on each planet? Each planet could have an orbiting spotlight always oriented to be coming from the “sun”. You won’t get shadows from other planets but it would maintain your directionality and lighting quality
I haven’t tried spotlights yet. So far I have managed to get an unlit emissive material going that fades to black, always facing the sun. Used a material parameter collection for that. However that means planets do not cast shadows on each other. With faraway planets that’s ok, however when you are looking at a planet with one or several moons you kinda notice. I’ll give spotlights a try next.
