There is something that this makes me think of. It would be using a non standard form
and literally out side of the "sky" box form of light refraction. It may or may not be performant,
It would depend on; is the sunlight turned off after the sun object dips below the horizon now?
Is the sun and moon simply, a rotating mask on the outside of the skybox with a single global light
regulated by the gradient bar filter, or are they actual individual objects each with their own
illumination regulated by the gradient bar filter? It did not turn off before, but Faatal has done
work which was mainly an extra camera point of view, or placement. It could possibly be done with a
shader beyond a specified LOD level.
If the sun is still on as it was before, and it is simply a gradient bar acting as a mask,
then at night it would only be doing the same amount draw calls for the static lighting as during
the day.
What I mean in reference to what Faatal achieved, is from the very beginning until he fixed it, the
player model was always lit. Day, in shade of a tree or hill, pitch black night a cave or a completely
enclosed cube.
That same anomaly may be used to an advantage.
First there are a limited color of lights used in the game, mostly white tones, the torch a bit of an amber.
These can be controlled by the same means as the ambient,sun,moon,sky,fog,fogfade lighting is now.
Second the land light objects are either themselves are attached to objects with LOD rendering, at its last
visible level adding one lod that is used to vanishing point, and basically making it a transparent or tinted
mask, or skybox shader addon, it would allow a single backlight to show through, like portholes in the terrain.
Just like the skybox does.
For proof that it may be possible just look up, in game, on a clear night, other than the moon, you see the
stars. Their distance is well beyond the normal draw distance in game. I literally tried an Icarus and a
Dante experiment in the past, to understand the game because I was amazed at the way it looked and worked.
Icarus never reached the heights of the skybox limit, Dante pierced the base and it was light at night
down there.
Would this be high priority, no, it's just an aesthetic. Could it be used in the future of this game possibly,
time and interest allowing, could it be used in their future games possibly. At that distance it's not really
any emission, just like the stars, it creates no shadow, nor really detail any surrounding mesh.