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DarkBASIC Professional Discussion / Imitate curved horizon with flat tiles

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Deego
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Posted: 7th Oct 2010 22:33
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I'm building 3D planet flyover. I built a system of tiles that loop around as the player moves directions Z and X at height Y above the surface, and models of craters/rocks/etc. will be positioned randomly across the surface. This allows the player to move about an infinite planetary environment without having to model an entire planet every time I want to change things a bit.

It works well, but it looks a bit too flat. I want to emulate a curved horizon. Is there a way to "inflate" or change the camera view to make straight lines seem curved? If I can do that, I can render the planetary screen to an image, use that as a backdrop, and then deactivate the camera modification and render the inside of the spacecraft to keep the straight lines.

Is that possible? Is there a way to curve the rendered image? Besides actually using a sphere, is there another way to make flat tiles appear curved?
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Quel
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Posted: 7th Oct 2010 22:56
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I guess maybe playing with camera FOV and a special camera angle could produce the effect, but this is just a guess.

You could generate the terrain curved, and also place the objects on it using various options available... Some of them i would give the first shot: sin(), cos(), new-x/y/z-value()...
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baxslash
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Posted: 8th Oct 2010 19:04
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Why not just make some curved tiles? I don't think there's a way of producing a 'fish-eye' lense effect. Not that I've come across anyway...

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Deet
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Posted: 9th Oct 2010 08:06
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Wouldn't making a convincing curve require a lot of polys? Then there's the matter of accurately displaying textures on a curved UV, which is what I wanted to avoid. It was quick to set up the tiles so the texture is always right.

So I don't have to recode what I've already done, I'm making the HUD and spacecraft details obscure the edges of the screen, kind of like how a standard resolution image displays on a HDTV.
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Neuro Fuzzy
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Posted: 9th Oct 2010 12:46
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You could use vvertex manipulation to change the y values of objects far away from the viewer

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Sixty Squares
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Posted: 9th Oct 2010 16:55
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Dr. Tank made a fisheye shader demo that could be useful:
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=170392&b=6


Guns, cinematics, stealth, items and more!
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baxslash
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Posted: 11th Oct 2010 10:41
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Quote: "Wouldn't making a convincing curve require a lot of polys?"

Not really, if you look at a dbp sphere with only 20 columns it looks pretty smooth.

Quote: "Then there's the matter of accurately displaying textures on a curved UV, which is what I wanted to avoid"

If you don't have the right tools or knowhow then I can see that as a problem.

What about using a curved "fog" image a set distance away from the camera?

I like Dr.Tanks fisheye shader!! I'll be using that on a screensaver I'm making for a friend's band...

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