Why the sky box of the sun (the sun's light) does not affect the object

[yaoge]

I do not understand why the ground in the scene is not affected by the solar light of the sky box. demo:http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#E6OZX#6.  

I will describe it in more detail：

When I removed the light（The HemisphericLight）  in the scene.The ground turned black  .I think there is a sun in the sky box, why the sun's light  does not affect the ground.

please help me！！

[JohnK]

Hi an welcome to the forum. I will try to give a simple explanation.

Here is a picture of the sun. Print it out. Take the printout into a dark room. The room will not light up because it is an image of the sun not the sun.

A skybox is just an image it is not a light object. You need a light object to light a scene.

Read about the basic things you need in a scene here http://babylonjsguide.github.io/begins/Introducing_Babylonjs

[yaoge]

13小时前，yaoge说：

8 hours ago, JohnK said:

Thank you for your help, I understand what you mean, the demo（http://www.babylonjs.com/cyos/#14WKFU#1） of the sun is just a photo?If so, how do I manually add the light (position, color, brightness) that matches the sunlight in the sky box? thank you very much!In the end, I want to achieve the effect is like this：https://map.harvard.edu/map3d.htm。

 

[Nabroski]

@yaoge

Hello 

A shader is more like a painting, Hyperrealism.

And as always you can achieve a great result in many ways.I depends on your skills, you posted a shader example. So i assume you have a basic understanding of (at least) reading through the code.
you will notice:
float hTime = time*0.2;
uSunPos.x += sin(hTime);
uSunPos.z -= cos(hTime);
uSunPos.y += cos(hTime)+1.;

What you can do is to copy these lines and do the math in babylonjs on Hemilamp turn on the Shadows and here you go. For Lensflare/Sundisc in the camera you can 
place a Sphere with good portion of the mesh.material.emissiveColor with a Blur Postprocess
place a box in-front of the camera (lens) and flip the Faces, make it simi-transparent so the light will travel through the first face flipped in sundirection, hit the surface on the second also flipped to sundirection you will see a spot, works best with spotlights. old school. 

Simple you babylonjs Lensflare

Notice you can improve this shader, i think you kind of copy paste it right away from shadertoy and they render it on a two triangles, on the GPU side Pixel (fragmend) shader cycles through all pixels on a screen, a vertex shader per vertices of your mesh - skybox 3x4x6=72 vertices(with in mind that only one Plane is in in viewing frustum ~4cycles) vs 1080p (many many many many m... cycles), i highly recommend to do some calculations in the vertex shader. 

I got some friends in Harvard, they land in Germany in two days, and i can't visit them, mostly becourse i spend to much time in this forum

good luck.

Edited February 5, 2017 by Nabroski
two triangles

[JohnK]

13 hours ago, yaoge said:

If so, how do I manually add the light (position, color, brightness) that matches the sunlight in the sky box?

Sorry but matching a light to the sunlight in the sky box  is way beyond anything I have attempted. Other experts will perhaps join Nabroski in giving you an answer. You will find an introduction to lights here http://doc.babylonjs.com/tutorials/lights

[Nabroski]

i simplified it just to get the sun-position
http://www.babylonjs.com/cyos/#NANUP#1

what you have to do now, is grap the math and put it right into babylonjs new BABYLON.Vector3 ...

[yaoge]

1. Sorry, I'm late. Thank you very much for your help, I have a little clue. like this http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#E6OZX#77. My skill is too weak. I can only change the position of the lights by this code：

   light.position = skyboxMaterial.sunPosition；

   2.And I did not get the time to convert the sun position. I do not understand the code ：

   vec3 uSunPos = vec3(0.5,0.0,0.0);
   
   uniform float time;//What is the format of the variable time? like this 12:20:55 or 12.2055？
   
   void main(void) {
   
   //original formel to set sunposition from your shader
   float hTime = time*0.2;
   
   uSunPos.x += sin(hTime);
   uSunPos.z -= cos(hTime);
   uSunPos.y += cos(hTime)+1.;
   
   //
   If the variable time represents the current time, then after the above operation uSunPos is the current sun position? I understand it correctly?

   3.I tried gradient lighting diffuse to achieve similar to the effect of Harvard University 3Dmap, but I failed, when the use of diffuse can not control the intensity of light the whole scene is very bad.       Do I have to use a shader? I do not know...                                                 @Nabroski，Very touched you pay for the  forum  ！
    

[Nabroski]

Sorry, I'm late.  - no worries.

My skill is too weak. - we will get this. over time. dont haste

 Do I have to use a shader? No

is the format of the variable time?  ms since the shader has started

http://babylonjs-playground.com/#MPQGY#0

Just keep on exploring and asking questions

If i look at your playground, it looks a bit chaotic. That's good! you try different things and see how they works, so create little playgrounds on a specific topic,
what is your project goal.

• load a mesh
• get shadows
• get global world time to sun position 

and for every task create a little minimal playground in a week or something and then put everything together. 

Very touched you pay for the  forum   i also wondering

Keep us posted!