Light Levels

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by nerdvana

In fact... it seems to mirror Anthony's house rules fairly well...

That's not really surprising; there simply aren't that many ways to do proper curve fitting on the available data points (it's certainly possible that some one of the authors was aware of my page, it's been around for a while, but spontaneously coming up with similar numbers is quite believable).

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Anthony

That's not really surprising; there simply aren't that many ways to do proper curve fitting on the available data points (it's certainly possible that some one of the authors was aware of my page, it's been around for a while, but spontaneously coming up with similar numbers is quite believable).

I know I did something similar, and I know Hans and those guys pretty well, You're bang on that the curve fit was pretty compelling from 0 all the way down to -9, reserving -10 for "total darkness."

I remember the numbers being SO obviously a nice curve fit that I simply didn't go any farther than that.

[CousinX]

Here's the table from Mysteries, combined with the one from Magic ... overall it gives a pretty good idea of the various light levels.

Modifier .... Light Level
+0 to -1 ... Overcast day
-1 to -2 ... Indoors with warehouse lighting, emergency lights, and
other poorly-lit spaces
-2 to -3 ... Twilight or overhead streetlights
-3 ........... Torchlight
-3 to -4 ... Clear night, full moon
-5 ........... Candlelight or moonlight
-5 to -6 ... Overcast night with moonlight
-7 ........... Starlight
-9 ........... Clear night, no moon

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

I know I did something similar, and I know Hans and those guys pretty well, You're bang on that the curve fit was pretty compelling from 0 all the way down to -9, reserving -10 for "total darkness."

It's a bit of work deciding where -1 should go, I set it at below 500 lux because that's the minimum for an indoor sports arena and it worked with the rest of my formulas, but given that full sunlight is on the order of 100,000 lux, it's certainly possible to set it higher. I just liked 'x10 distance to light source = -3 light level'.

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Information! Wee! Much obliged.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by CousinX

-9 ........... Clear night, no moon

Are you sure this one isn't "overcast night, no moon." I'm pretty sure I dimly remember that being the darkest possibility other than "buried in a cave."

[CousinX]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Are you sure this one isn't "overcast night, no moon." I'm pretty sure I dimly remember that being the darkest possibility other than "buried in a cave."

That's what the table in Mysteries says, although I'd tend to agree with you: "clear night" implies starlight, which is listed in Magic as -7. I suspect it's a typo.

[Purple Haze]

Seems to match the science:

http://www.yorku.ca/eye/sensit.htm