Smooth Appearence

Game Engine Game Engine Support and Discussion
#1

Objects in my game are appearing un-smooth like because of the skybox parented is close to the camera and then it’s obvious that my skybox isn’t really far away it’s just parented to the camera…

How would I made it so the closer I get to an object the it starts appearing, if I move back it disappears, but in a smooth like way… And that’s say there’s a big building my skybox cuts it off and it looks un-realistic… An enemy for example, the closer you get to it, it gradually starts appearing (increasing the alpha), at a certain point it the alpha is at full, lets say the alpha starts increasing when the enemy gets INSIDE the skybox, lets say that’s 30 blender units from the camera (let’s say bu for now), at 20bu, it’s totally visible, any further the alpha decreases…

This would work perfectly for small objects, but no big ones, this is because let’s say the center point of the big object is about 30bu to the surface, saying that all the vertices are the same distance away from the center… You’ll accidently walk into an invisible wall if the camera doesn’t sense it’s 30bu away from it. So what do I do?

Sorry, if you need a better explanation please ask and I’ll try to explain again what I mean :slight_smile:

Thanks,
Linkxgl

#2

I recommend putting the skybox in a background scene, either vertex parented to a camera that’s linked to the main one, or have the background scene camera copy just the main one’s orientation.

This way you can have the skybox just 1 BU away from the camera if you want, and it’ll still look infinitely far away.

#3

Sorry, I don’t understand what you mean :confused: The only way I know on how to interact with objects in another scene is with messages and python (changing properties…) And I have a script on the skybox saying get the active camera in the current scene and position it there, and you don’t need the orientation… The problem with this is that as I said above, objects will appear un-smooth-like, because the skybox is cutting them, you said I can put it one unit away from the camera, but that doesn’t fix the problem that the object is getting cut-of by the skybox…

This only way I can thin of fixing this is with a textured mist, or that the skybox was a mist it self so object would blend it with it instead of getting cut of by it…

Here’s a screenshot of what I means is happening and you see how the box is getting cut-off

Attachments

Problem.jpg518×525 41.7 KB

#4

Here, check this out: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=162275
This is a great way to put a skybox on another (background) scene.

#5

if the skybox is already in another scene, there’s no way that it could intersect with your geometry- what you’re seeing is the clipping plane, which has nothing to do with the skybox (the clipping plane is to increase framerate by not drawing objects that are far away)

What you want to do, is go into the world material settings and play with the mist/fog settings. Set the max fog distance to the camera’s max draw distance, and then the min fog distance to some point closer than that. With the skybox in another scene and set mall enough to be clear of fog, it will not be affected by fog.

#6

Ok, I understand that, but how will I put the sky box near the camera if it’s in another scene, you can’t interect with objects in different scenes except for messages and python accessing through properties, because you can’t collid or anything, so how will the skybox be around my camera if the background is flat because the camera in the background scene is not going to move… I might as well put a plane with a picture with a background :confused:

#7

There’s a couple ways to do this- one, you can link objects between scenes, so you could select the camera in the main scene, hit ctrl-L, select to scene, and select the background scene.
Now, in the background scene add an object (it doesn’t matter what, as long as it has at least one vertex) and parent it to the camera. Now, select the skybox and then the new object. Go into edit mode, select a single vertex (it’s best if this vertex is in the same location as the object’s center) and hit ctrl-P. This vertex parents the skybox to the object, which means it will follow its location but not rotation; so if the camera moves the sky will move with it, but if hte camra turns the sky won’t so you can still look around the skybox.

Alternately, you can store the camera’s orientation in a global variable via python, and then in the background scene, with a python script on the camera there (a non-linked one) apply this stored orientation to the background camera. This way the camera copies the orientation only, and will stay in the same location- so you can look around the skybox, but the camera won’t move within it so it will still appear to be the ky and not a very close textured object.

A third option may be possible, if you can access objects from other scenes with python (I think you can in newer versions of blender, but I’m not sure) in which case you can just use one script on one of the cameras to copy the main one’s orientation to the background one.

#8

Ahh I see thank you very much I really apprieciate it!

Thanks,
Linkxgl