Revolving Skybox

[Tyran]

Is the 'skybox' an object in the same way a planet or a roid is?

Could it be made to rotate as well?

I ask this because some (or most) sectors could use this to become more realistic and lively. It will give the feeling of actually orbiting a planet/moon.

Just imagine that every time you enter a sector the stars will be in a different place.

The skybox would have to rotate with variable speed depending on sector (can be hours or days for a full rotation). And only those where you are assumed to be orbiting an object like a star, planet, or moon would need this.

[Orga1]

I ask this because some (or most) sectors could use this to become more realistic and lively. It will give the feeling of actually orbiting a planet/moon.

I disagree with a rotating background, logically space is changing but fortunately for our own human eyes, we won't see that change until 100billion light years from now. So with the background not moving feels pretty realistic to me. The roids however could start floating slowly in a group, that is a known fact roids don't just sit there and do nothing. I think these roids are entities, but if there not a character made with animation sequence then they would have to animate it moving, without the original skeleton of of the model, the devs would have to be creative and so It's plausible but I'm not imagining it any further lol.

Besides, I'm already pleased with the way the planets changing day and night animation sequence.

[Tyran]

I disagree with a rotating background, logically space is changing but fortunately for our own human eyes, we won't see that change until 100billion light years from now.

Your logic is flawed,

If you orbit a planet the relative position of the stars (to yourself) will change and everything around you will appear to rotate. This can be simulated in enb by the skybox rotating.

This has nothing to do with the stars moving through space.

Also, the light year is a measure of distance and not time.

And, for the constellations to noticably move it would not take 100billion years, but rather 10s of thousands of years. After all the observed age of the universe is +/- 13.7 billion years.

[Yuritau]

Scientifically, you are correct, Tyran. Even a person not orbiting a planet/star/moon/etc would see at least some of the star field rotate, from their perspective, due to the rotation of the galaxy. But that would be so slow that you'd only notice if you were specifically looking for it.

Either way, it sounds to me like a lot of work for a minimal and purely aesthetic change that the majority of players simply wouldn't care about, if they even noticed.

[Tyran]

Scientifically, you are correct, Tyran. Even a person not orbiting a planet/star/moon/etc would see at least some of the star field rotate, from their perspective, due to the rotation of the galaxy. But that would be so slow that you'd only notice if you were specifically looking for it.

Either way, it sounds to me like a lot of work for a minimal and purely aesthetic change that the majority of players simply wouldn't care about, if they even noticed.

Your example of a sector not orbiting something (or orbiting far out like the asteroid belts) would indeed not be noticed. Which is why I've said that only those that orbit an object could have this.

Take earth station. Now, I don't know exactly how high the orbit is but I think it was a few hundred miles. A similarly placed station, the ISS, takes a bit more than an hour to complete a rotation. So the skybox would rotate at that speed accordingly.

FYI if the skybox rotates once an hour it is definitely noticable if you don't move. And whenever you enter a sector it will likely be different than the last time you entered it - again very noticable.

This brings me to another point which would be picked up by players as a difference: the angle of the lighting. As the skybox moves, the direction of the lightsource would also need to change.

Is the last part possible?

[C Del[IS]]

The client splits these things up into (basically) three different systems. There is the sky, sector lighting, and the orbital. The sky is, as you would assume, the general background image to the sector; this is static and cannot be rotated or changed on the fly. The sector lighting defines ambient lighting, it appears to define just one "key" directional light, and a "camera", which I suspect may have to do with lens flare generation. I'm not sure if the key light source can orbit, but I get the feeling that it can't, because it isn't stored in the sector's orbital file. The orbital defines the objects which travel along the perceptual sector edge. These are splines (flat 2D assets) and include things like planets, moons. and nearby (in-system) stars and orbit the sector itself at defined angles and frequencies. As a side note, anything you can travel to in the game, like Mars, is not part of the orbital, while things which are unreachable, like the moons of Jupiter (in Jupiter sector), are.

All this means that only these splines may orbit or move during gameplay, so the movement of the sky (background stars), and likely the sector lighting, should be impossible. Also, it's important to note that the EnB client takes an extremely simplistic view of the world, as evidenced by the purely silly, non-Newtonian way in which players and objects move in the game. From the client's point of view, the sector itself is stationary and everything else orbits it (reminiscent of the primitive concept of geocentricism). Really, when we're in Earth sector for instance, we're not orbiting Earth, we're just sitting there miraculously suspended 400 km (indeed at about the level of the ISS) above its surface.

[Tienbau]

yep what CDel said. The only thing we can do really is having orbiting debris as in the asteroid belt sectors. Sometime in the future it might be possible to create a new 'debris mode' which is a starfield that moves, and have the actual starfield blank.

I don't know how feasible this is, or even if we can change the speed at which the debris revolves.

But TBH there are a whole bunch of other things that would be cooler to do than this, and if we had a dedicated graphics person their work requests would be somewhat full pretty quickly!

[Hexersup[IS]]

hmm if you want a corrct view of it go to Witberg, ECS Deutschland. have a look from planet away to the background and wait.

What you think you will see? A sun, and it 'seems' the sun is rotating around the planet.

Now have a look at the planet, what you see then? The planet is rotating, and in the other direction than the sun.

Now if you are near the planet, as you call it 'orbiting', what would happen with the sun?

Right, the planet rotates in one direction(since you are orbiting you may not see that) and the sun in the other direction.

Now, you are already orbiting from your point of view. Because that would exactly happen if you orbit a planet.

This effect if i'm right you can see in every sector where a big planet resides in.

In other sectors are smaller planets but a sun. So you haven't a sun rotating.

And the third are the sectors they have no planet and no sun, there is also no rotating sun.

The sun would not really rotate, but you would see it as that.

I think, we have that already. Or i'm wrong?

greets

Hexergirl

[C Del[IS]]

hmm if you want a corrct view of it go to Witberg, ECS Deutschland. have a look from planet away to the background and wait.

What you think you will see? A sun, and it 'seems' the sun is rotating around the planet.

Now have a look at the planet, what you see then? The planet is rotating, and in the other direction than the sun.

Now if you are near the planet, as you call it 'orbiting', what would happen with the sun?

Right, the planet rotates in one direction(since you are orbiting you may not see that) and the sun in the other direction.

Now, you are already orbiting from your point of view. Because that would exactly happen if you orbit a planet.

This effect if i'm right you can see in every sector where a big planet resides in.

In other sectors are smaller planets but a sun. So you haven't a sun rotating.

And the third are the sectors they have no planet and no sun, there is also no rotating sun.

The sun would not really rotate, but you would see it as that.

I think, we have that already. Or i'm wrong?

greets

Hexergirl

I think he was mostly talking about the stars in the background (i.e. the sky), and having them move as they would if you were orbiting a planet.

[Hexersup[IS]]

I think he was mostly talking about the stars in the background (i.e. the sky), and having them move as they would if you were orbiting a planet.

Yes i know, he was talking about orbiting a planet and making this a bit visible, giving you the feeling.

The sun does that. The backround isn't possible to rotate(possible yes just not visible in game ), but there is a way for stars.

And if i'm right that is already in use. Just so slow that you can't see it really or maybe to few stars. Because i think i saw something like that.

The stars are possible in the same way as the sun and moons.

Make some screenies of the background where stars are visible, if it is in use you would see it in some hours.

EDIT: Oh, i just thought a bit about the skybox....it is possible to rotate the background...

greets

Hexergirl

[Tyran]

Thanks much to the devs for the explanations.

hmm if you want a corrct view of it go to Witberg, ECS Deutschland. have a look from planet away to the background and wait.

Coincidentally my inspiration for this suggestion also comes from Witberg. A moon is orbiting the main planet almost along the sector's vertical axis. It just looks so dynamic and cool that its begging for more - sectors become less static as well as more realistic.

EDIT: Oh, i just thought a bit about the skybox....it is possible to rotate the background...

Drool