Objects get fully lit when at a certain height

#1 It sounds like the sampling that occurs in SceneObject::getLightingAmbientColor (to determine the object's approximate lighting amount, this samples either the interior or terrain below the object) isn't finding the terrain. It performs the sample by casting a ray straight down from the object's center to see what it hits - the ray might be too short.

The method provides a default lighting value (0.5, 0.5, 0.5) if nothing is hit, you probably need to hand tune this value for your game.

However at that altitude you might not want the terrain shading the object - you could reduce the ray cast length so the terrain lighting is only used very close to it, or override getLightingAmbientColor in the flying vehicle class to always use a custom lighting amount.

#2 The terrain is legacy, with modified square size (24). Perhaps that has an effect too.
I'll see about extending that ray or making it shorter to see what effects I get. It works until like 300 units up in the air.

Edit: Would it not be better to use the ambient/color from sky, instead of a hardcoded value? Just a thought.

Thanks John!

#3 John, increasing the rays length to 10000 obviously gets rid of the brightness well enough for most games. Are there any side effects that I am missing? Performance impact with a longer ray?

Thanks.