Seam in Skybox (But FD said No Skybox?)

Obsidian Ant

Obsidian Ant
I have a feeling this may have been discussed before but I haven't seen any images directly posted showing this. And maybe that is because it is far more apparent when using the Oculus Rift.

Anyway I noticed this:

74oBp2c.jpg

Screenshot using Oculus Rift looking into space at a seam in the Skybox.

XbMICwE.jpg

This is the same image with changed levels, and boosted brightness and contrast.

And here is a high-res zoom that make the joins in the Skybox very clear and obvious:

SUoF2Uu.jpg


Did I just misunderstand where I thought Frontier said there was no Skybox?
 

Lobstris

Lobstris
The seams have been discussed before, and I know I've ticketed it.
There is also the issue that the bright area of the galaxy seems to be made from loads of semi-transparent polygons blended together, leaving visible straight lines too (which you can see in the left-hand side of the sharpened image).

However there isn't a contradiction in there being a skybox, and there being 'no skybox'. On initialisation, simply render the stars required for a given system, blended with the galaxy background and nebula to the skybox textures, then render those in game. I imagine a six-sided textured cube is a bit easier on the GFX card than hundreds of points. :)
 

Obsidian Ant

Obsidian Ant
Lobstris said:
The seams have been discussed before, and I know I've ticketed it.
There is also the issue that the bright area of the galaxy seems to be made from loads of semi-transparent polygons blended together, leaving visible straight lines too (which you can see in the left-hand side of the sharpened image).

However there isn't a contradiction in there being a skybox, and there being 'no skybox'. On initialisation, simply render the stars required for a given system, blended with the galaxy background and nebula to the skybox textures, then render those in game. I imagine a six-sided textured cube is a bit easier on the GFX card than hundreds of points. :)
Click to expand...

You are saying that whilst the background dust and clouds maybe a skybox, the stars might not be?
 

dannysquid

dannysquid
They do use a skybox. They've talked about it somewhere (not sure where!). I suppose there's really no point in calculating the star movements in real time (them being a very long way away and everything).
 

Slawkenbergius

Slawkenbergius
I don't think they ever said that there was no skybox. They may have said there's not a pre-rendered skybox, though, which is true. It renders afresh each time you jump to a new star system, with everything you can see based on actual things you can visit.
 

Lobstris

Lobstris
Granite said:
You are saying that whilst the background dust and clouds maybe a skybox, the stars might not be?
Click to expand...

No. I'm saying that, as the game loads (or as you hyperspace into a system), behind the scenes the game probably calculates the visible starscape (points with size (magnitude), colour, and X,Y,Z or polar coordinates) for the new system, then projects and renders those points onto skybox textures (cube mapping).

You see the cube map in game, but it has been calculated behind the scenes from the actual stellar coordinate data. I think that's how FD are doing it.

*Edit* This may also explain why some people in the various astronomy threads have noted stars slightly out of position, distortion caused by mapping a 'spherical' surface to the cube.
 
Last edited:

Ben Parry

Ben Parry
Indeed we render a skybox (not containing stars) during hyperspace. What you're seeing are probably inconsistencies caused by things that have rotated to align with the camera (and therefore don't match up between faces). The stars are rendered as little billboards but that's mainly because texture compression makes a mess of them.
 

lysan

lysan
I read in one of the news letters that in Alpha there was a skybox but they changed it at some point. I don't remember the number of the NL however there was a time line to get to the "real" view of the universe. Someone can maybe dig it out for easy digestion :)
 

Ixnatifual

Ixnatifual
You would probably need to move quite far for the background to change noticeably even if it was rendering itself again whenever you moved, so it seems a waste of resources to do so.

But obviously the illusion should work, so no visible lines in the skybox, please :)

Everything in a game world is an illusion anyway. You just have to be smart about things when you make the game. Would be cool if the skybox updated in the background at certain distance intervals from the current system's star for interstellar supercruising.
 

Obsidian Ant

Obsidian Ant
Ben Parry said:
Indeed we render a skybox (not containing stars) during hyperspace. What you're seeing are probably inconsistencies caused by things that have rotated to align with the camera (and therefore don't match up between faces). The stars are rendered as little billboards but that's mainly because texture compression makes a mess of them.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info Ben. :)

So the stars are rendered separate from the skybox - and are actually in front of the skybox?
 

Lobstris

Lobstris
Ben Parry said:
Indeed we render a skybox (not containing stars) during hyperspace. What you're seeing are probably inconsistencies caused by things that have rotated to align with the camera (and therefore don't match up between faces). The stars are rendered as little billboards but that's mainly because texture compression makes a mess of them.
Click to expand...

Ah. I stand corrected then. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom