   Pulling off a huge space scene
  Okay, from what I’ve been trying out so far, a inverted textured sphere isn’t looking to great. Can any one tip me on how to increase the detail on the sphere? I only use one texture for it.My other option that I haven’t explored yet is parallax layers. Typically, I thought a background layer for stars plus additional layers for galaxy and/or nebular effects. Firstly, I thought that would be better to use one layer, until I started thinking about the large amounts of tiles I would need to create decent effect. Separated layers would allow the use of layover effects for nebulas or galaxies (easier to mange this way).Next would be the 3D effects (lens flares) when scrolling across a given object.If all done correctly, the scene should look considerably more detailed then the previous approach. The scene (galaxy, stars & stuff) should be rendered with out a depth buffer with maybe a little perspective distortion to it. Next, the depth buffer goes back on and the rest of the scene (ships, asteroids, stations & what not) is drawn next as normally done.The only trick I see here is scrolling in sequence with the camera (i.e. players view) and the perspective distortion.I’m thinking I could use a subdivided quad in a given resolution (64x64 Cols/Rows) and render the tiles to the inner quads with a slight perspective ( say, Pi/4?). Any ideas, tips or comments?   
  Well there are several things you could do:1) Create a real star field with billboard aligned quads for individual stars, this would be the most realistic as all stars would move correctly.2) Create a fullscreen quad and texture it with a repeating star texture, then modify the texture coordinates based on your camera angle so it looks as though it is moving around you.3) Use a skybox.   ;  Hey Rasterman, I already tried your 2nd option and it worked well, but a little weird. The texture sort of flickered a little.I’m sort of skeptical about you first tips though. Mainly because I’m unsure of how that would be set up (tiles??). But it seams as if it would work well like the 2nd, pretty much 1) and 2) are both what I was talking about in my original second idea, - the Fullscreen quad.I didn’t want to use the skybox because of the way it might look. I thought a sphere would work better. Plus, I didn’t want planes to look flat, I wanted the scene to look as it had depth to it.Any idea on how to do that?   ;  As long as the star textures used for the skybox are generated correctly, they won't look flat, you won't even tell its a box, and you should get a more even texel density on the screen than with spherically mapping a sphere as that will cause a lot of distortion at the polar ends.  Creating the star textures is another story though.For the first tip just create some points floating around in your world, then calcuate some small quads where those points are and billboard them (tuts on GD about that).  Or to make things even easier just render them as GL_POINTS.   ;Quote:Original post by RastermanAs long as the star textures used for the skybox are generated correctly, they won't look flat, you won't even tell its a box, and you should get a more even texel density on the screen than with spherically mapping a sphere as that will cause a lot of distortion at the polar ends.  Creating the star textures is another story though.For the first tip just create some points floating around in your world, then calcuate some small quads where those points are and billboard them (tuts on GD about that).  Or to make things even easier just render them as GL_POINTS.See, this is the problem. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was using Direct3D. Either or, I know how to use OpenGL so I would just do the equivalent.Back on topic, I’m having a hard time getting the skybox textures to look right in using the software I’m using (Lightwave). I need a space scene and SkyTracer isn’t exactly *space compatible* if you know what I mean. By the way (in case you didn’t know) SkyTracer is Lightwave’s atmosphere editor. Atmosphere, hence space scenes would really work.Any ways, I’ve seen a few demos that looked as the skybox would better in my case. That is, combined with the other effect previously mentioned, things should be okay.I need to find good tutorials about creating space scenes in Lighwave, Maya or Bryce. I need skybox textures, and that is becoming a pain.;  I used this tutorial to create a decent looking starfield texture for a skybox:http://gallery.artofgregmartin.com/tuts_arts/making_a_star_field.htmlI was only able to get partway through the tutorial before the "artistic touch" portion tripped me up but maybe you'll have better luck with it.  I don't know how well the instructions will work with the tools you've mentioned as I've not used any of them.   ;  Dude, the skybox is not working well… I still see perspective distortion. Any idea on how to remove the perspective? And don’t say orthogonal, please. You know what I mean by perspective right? What I mean is I can see the texels distort as the cube (skybox) I rotated to were it’s vertices are a specific point (with perspective).  All I need is a panorama star field. Something I can view in complete 360^3 degrees (360 on all axis). Hmm… Maybe if I use parallax? This is why I choose a tile map as the most likely candidate. Maybe not though because I don’t want to play with all those tiles and stuff. I seen an RC Flight-Sim game that used panoramas (RC Flex) that looked good. The images were also huge. But I guess that is just what I get. In the game though. The view was limited to certain angles. But if I offset (Photoshop filter) all the corners and make sure there are now seams on the panorama, then I believe I can get away with complete 360 degrees freedom.What do you think? By the way, the panorama images were 8160x4060 something. I’m off on the last bits, but I remember 8000x4000 panaorams.PS. I'll check you your recent reply, thanks.   ;Ysaneya has some pretty amazing stuff in his journal lately:You should check out some of his stuff and ask him a few questions...   