Forum Discussion
High-Res Satellite and Sky Images
Hey all, I'm working on a game where my primary goal is to create the same feeling of insane height and atmosphere that space scenes give you (the Space bit of SightLine is a really good example). ...
Thanks! Looks like there's lots of data available, I'll just need to figure out how to extract it.
One question when it comes to terrain though is that when you look down, generally, the satellite image is fairly appropriate in representing what you're looking at. Looking up at the horizon line however, is a different story. You'd expect the land to compress towards the horizon and detail to blur into itself, eventually ending where the skybox begins.
Any ideas on how to recreate that with simply satellite images? I could obviously stick several of these onto a huge plane and let the 3D rendering and perspective do it, but that sounds really expensive and I'd need to make it really big with lots of textures. I'm thinking a better solution is to bake that effect into a texture and map it onto the plane. Perhaps even an upside down sky dome (land dome?). The player will never actually reach it, so it doesn't need to reflect land elevation changes.
I have no idea how to bake that kind of thing into the texture though.
One question when it comes to terrain though is that when you look down, generally, the satellite image is fairly appropriate in representing what you're looking at. Looking up at the horizon line however, is a different story. You'd expect the land to compress towards the horizon and detail to blur into itself, eventually ending where the skybox begins.
Any ideas on how to recreate that with simply satellite images? I could obviously stick several of these onto a huge plane and let the 3D rendering and perspective do it, but that sounds really expensive and I'd need to make it really big with lots of textures. I'm thinking a better solution is to bake that effect into a texture and map it onto the plane. Perhaps even an upside down sky dome (land dome?). The player will never actually reach it, so it doesn't need to reflect land elevation changes.
I have no idea how to bake that kind of thing into the texture though.