Good question! I'd like to add that even when the sun is past the horizon, it's still casting shadows by default...so the shadows are being cast at an upward angle!
Re: "Sun behind my horizon's mountains (image/gmt) is still reflecting off of rTrainer nose" ... (adjustable feature?). --I don't seem to get any visual change when altering "ShadowMinSunAngle" (in the gdb file). Also can't find description for this param anywhere. Is it still hooked up? What does it do? --I've tried adding gdb file settings for lat, lon, and altitude (per the Mills example, adapting to my location). Even absurd values for Altitude (+/- 3000) do not seem to change sunset time (or angle it occurs). Is Altitude hooked up yet? To what? --Googling: "SkyBlendSunAngle" ... Not defined in 10 pages of results. Anyone know precisely what the 4 parameters do? --Someone posting about an rF1 question in another forum got an answer that changing the first and last values in "SkyBlendSunAngle" could alter the time (angle?) at which the horizon lights come on. I will try this next, as it could affect sunset angle.... [what I am trying to adjust] A test I am trying to avoid is: - Lowering my entire track/terrain and horizon model by some large amount... so that when the rf2 lighting on the car (and everywhere else) indicates that only half the sun is visible on the horizon.. that the rf2 sun is actually at that point. This would of course mean that I would have to completely re-do my AIW file.... which so far, in dev mode, has required only cutting and pasting the header from the rF2 Joesville track.... to be able to run my fast line way points and grid/garage positions from my rF1 aiw...(in rF2). Some of the reasons why this sunset issue may be particular to my track is that: --It is a long track (50km), --It fits in a roughly rectangular area of 10km by 12km, --It is moutainous, and traverses between sea level (Z axis zero), to about 600m in Altitude (twice a lap). --The horizon (skyboxi.gmt) is ~5km in dia, and 900m tall (and looks good height wise WRT track & terrain). [My track's size is why I think I may ultimately have to lower my model by a half kilometer or so...] The default rF2 sunset lighting looks ok on most everything... it just unfortunately happens about a half hour AFTER the sun has passed behind MY horizon. I'll report back what altering the "SkyBlendSunAngle" params do...
And they should. You will not see sun reflection when you are in shadow, so that solves the problem from first post - assuming everything will cast shadows upwards - INCLUDING GROUND. So the true problem here, is that not everything cast shadows - especially the ground, when sun is below it. If you read track modding manual, then you will note the part about shadows saying that object must have polygons facing the sun in order to cast shadows. Now think what happens when sun is underground? Ha! It cannot see the ground and is shining through it. ISI must fix problems with shadows anyway (I've noticed much more of them). When it's done, it will fix your problem aswell.
I really don't think it's gonna work. Sun is directional light, not point light - it has no position, only direction. Or in other words - distance to sun is infinite. This means that no matter how much you move your geometry, it will not appear to change relatively to sun's position. It's the shadow problem, that's all. I can only advice you not to go and try to find a workaround for it - unless your ptiority is to make your track work properly with rF2 beta and not with rF2 gold. ISI needs to fix shadows. Just wait for it.
Unless ISI did something weird, that is Earth's orbit average radius is 150 million kilomerets. Even if you build your race track on top of Mount Everest, you will see a difference of 0.000003 degrees in Sun's angle comparing to what you see at sea level. This means that standing on top of Mount Everest you would see a sunset less than one milisecond later than the guy standing at sea level. So for simplicity games assume that Sun is at infinite distance. It was like this with rFactor and I think we can safely assume it is like this with rFactor 2.
As I said before - it shouldn't happen "up there". It should go as usual, but mountain should cast big shadow on entire track. Sun is somewhere far away in space and it shines all the time. It most definitely is a beta version kind of thing. Shadows are not working correctly for now. They need to fix that sooner or later. When it's done all problems with sunstes will go away.
