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DarkBASIC Professional Discussion / Star fields for sky boxes

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EddieRay
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Joined: 28th Feb 2003
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Posted: 25th Mar 2003 08:34
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Can anyone suggest how to generate a good star field for a sky box that won't be too hard on the frame rate, but still look pretty good? I played around with just texturing a cube with a black bitmap with a few dots here and there, and it's not too bad but certainly not great.

What bitmap size should I use?

I tryed the ml.x sky from Planet Potter... but in my Retro game, without even having all the object in yet, it causes textures to drop out on my GF2Go 16MB, along with a 50% drop in frame rate. (Looks really great on the Radeon 8500, with an unnoticeable drop in frame rate.)
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EddieRay
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Posted: 25th Mar 2003 08:35
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If a sky box is not the best way to go... then sock it to me with other ideas...

Thanks!

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EddieRay
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Posted: 25th Mar 2003 08:44
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Actually, the Radeon takes a pretty big FPS hit too... it's just not noticable because it's getting about 250 FPS to start with, so even having it reduced to 180 FPS is still rockin'....

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Andy Igoe
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Posted: 25th Mar 2003 10:00
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If you arn't using any other 2D you could use draw to back and use the dot command to draw a starfield. You'd need to store the 2D positions of the stars in an array so you could scroll your view.

Pneumatic Dryll, Outrageous epic cleric of EQ/Xev
God made the world in 7 days, but we're still waiting for the patch.
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EddieRay
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Posted: 25th Mar 2003 19:37
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Hmmmm... sounds like a lot of trouble, but if there's no better way, I might have to try it.

The box things works pretty well for now I guess, and requires less coding at least.

I'm trying to set a mood of a "starry night". My Retro game scene is mostly open-air. I'd really like to have a nice jpg of some really cool view like your standing on an asteroid with a clear view of a surrounding nebula, stars, maybe some small planet-looking things off in the distance, etc.

Would the following work?

Make a plane, texture it with a wide strip image that is a 360 panorama shot, and keep it perpendicular to the camera (but the normal of the plane is parallel to the x-z plane) and at a constant distance, then position the texture according to the y angle of the camera. Sound feasible?

Thanks!

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EddieRay
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Posted: 27th Mar 2003 00:45
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Anyone every try something like that? How do you guys make your sky so that it doesn't cut your FPS by 40-60%?

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Dave J
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Posted: 27th Mar 2003 15:27
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I made a sky sphere and mapped a star texture on the inside (you can find a few at www.3dcafe.com), simple as that. Oh, and of course it has to move with your player so you never go through it. lol.

"Computers are useless they can only give you answers."
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PiratSS
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Posted: 27th Mar 2003 15:47
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By far, skysphere is the best way to go

I agree with exceat, and it's hella ez to make.

Cheers.

1PH J00 C4|\| U|\|dER$T@|\||) +|-|I$, j00 |-|@\/3 4lR3Ady w0|\|! - p1r@T$$
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EddieRay
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Posted: 28th Mar 2003 06:18
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Okay... I also got some tips on the details outside of the forms too.
It really is possible to make some nice star-sky with the DOT command and you can even make some pretty nice looking nebula clouds with DOT and BLUR BITMAP and a ghost sphere in addition to the star sphere.

Sweet... thanks!

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the architect
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Posted: 29th Mar 2003 00:59
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2d may reduce your frame rate. I would beware of it.

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EddieRay
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Posted: 29th Mar 2003 06:39
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I'm talking about making a bitmap of a bunch of stars and nebula clouds on the fly (using the DOT/BLUR commands), then using "GET IMAGE" to make it into a texture for 2 spheres that surround the scene. Works very nicely. I'm not actually drawing anything 2D over the 3D scene or anything like that. Sorry to be unclear.

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