The first trailer for Disney’s CGI remake of the The Lion King arrived on Thanksgiving day. While the animals and landscapes in this CGI trailer are photorealistic, the sunrise that opens this shot-for-shot remake is less realistic than the hand-drawn original.<\/b>
\nThe first trailer for Disney\u2019s CGI remake of the The Lion King arrived on Thanksgiving day. While the animals and landscapes in this CGI trailer are photorealistic, the sunrise that opens this shot-for-shot remake is less realistic than the hand-drawn original.
If you\u2019ve ever watched a sunrise from the beach, you might have noticed the sun looks flatter near the horizon. This is caused by atmospheric refraction. The air itself acts like a lens, refracting or bending the light. The lower in the sky the sun appears, the flatter it looks because the light is traveling through more atmosphere. On an average day, the sun appears about 20 percent wider than tall near the horizon. Colder air and\/or areas of higher pressure increase the refraction making the sun look even flatter.
In the 2019 trailer, the sun is rounder, nearly white and emerges smoothly above the horizon. The 1994 version shows a deeper yellow, almost orange, more flattened sun rippling its way up.
The undulating effect seen in the 1994 trailer is gone in the latest version. Those ripples are created by turbulent air rising upward. This would be expected as the rising sun disturbs heats the nocturnal boundary layer, air near the ground which has cooled and become very stable overnight. Air turbulence is also what makes stars appear to twinkle at night.
Both trailers accurately depict the red-orange colors of sunset, caused by the scattering of light. Blue has a very short wavelength, which air molecules are better at scattering. At sunset and sunrise we are looking through a lot more atmosphere leaving the longer wave red, orange and yellow light. Dust, moisture or pollution in the air compound this effect creating deeper reds.
That increased amount of atmosphere also explains why its painful to look at the noon sun but not at sunrise or sunset. Its all about the amount of air the light is traveling through.<\/p>\n