Periods and blending

Many of DVS’s lighting and post-process settings expose a Per Period map with four entries. The system blends between them based on the current time. This page explains why.

The four periods

Period	Roughly when
Sunrise	Around the simulated sunrise time
Noon	Middle of the day, sun at peak
Sunset	Around the simulated sunset time
Night	Between sunset and sunrise

The exact boundaries are computed from the geographic location, date, and time settings, so a high-latitude winter day has a longer Night period than a tropical equinox.

Authoring four poses, not a curve

You are authoring four key poses. The system handles the in-between automatically by blending neighboring periods over time.

This is faster to dial in than a continuous curve and forgiving in practice: Sunrise and Sunset can have hot, saturated values, Noon can be cool and neutral, Night can be dim and blue, and the transitions take care of themselves.

Settings that follow this pattern include:

• Sun Intensity Per Period
• Sky Light Intensity Per Period
• Moon Intensity Per Period
• Exposure Per Period
• Bloom Per Period
• Height Fog Falloff Per Period

Smooth transition speed

The Smooth Transition Speed setting on BP_DynamicVolumetricSky controls how fast lighting blends. Higher is snappier; lower is silkier and works better for cinematics.

Tip

When dialing in a look, set Time Speed = 200 and watch the sky cycle through all four periods in a couple of minutes. Find the moments you like, then drop Time Speed back to 1 (or 0) and pin Current Time for screenshots.

Where to next

• Time and date reference: every Time-category setting
• Exterior lighting reference: every per-period field