   How to correctly simulate sunlight and morning's brightness
  Hi All,I'm creating a shader to handle normal maps, light maps (for static objects only) and specular maps for meshes in a real world. I had some trouble with simulating the morning lights correctly. Currently I'm using a directional light to light the meshes, but then I have the polygons that are behind completely dark which isn't the case in the real world where some of the sunlight rays reflect with a lower intensity from the surrounding objects which lights the back areas of the objects slightly. I tried to raise the value of the ambient, but this ambient doesn't show any normal maps.Please let me know which lights to use and how to light the objects in an outdoor scene properly.Thanks in advance   
  This problem is as complicated as you make it.The simplest solution is to use ambient lighting, but like you said, it doesn't really cut it with today's visual demand. On the other end of the spectrum, you could use PRT lighting with a few dynamic light sources dotted around to maintain the illusion for movable objects. This can be a nightmare to implement and even trickier to keep going. The one-man-armies amoung us tend to compromise:A simple but effective option is to use hemispherical lighting. If you use suitable, subtly different colours for the two light sources, you can produce some pretty convincing results dead-cheap. Furthering the technique, you could use more than two light sources. Throw a few point-lights into the mix and you can surprise even yourself with the results.Have a look at Extrarius's posts in this thread. He puts forward a very good case for attentive use of lighting (Here's the 'before and after' page he put together from Serious Sam).Admiral   ;  Thanks, I'll take a look at them and will see the results.Thanks again!   