Far away, distant objects

[Bnae]

No matter what I try I cannot make my orbital space station feel like its far away. Directional light, sky light, sky atmosphere, height fog, volumetric clouds is the set up. The object is moving and it’s not always close to the horizon.

I have tried move the object actually really far away and scale it
I have tried to use transparent material that I scale based on the lighting scenario
I have tried to use unlit material that I adjust based on the lighting scenario

It always feel like its still closer than it should be. Any ideas?

[ClockworkOcean]

You should be able to easily achieve what you have there with height fog. You just have to set the density and height correctly.

But once the object is higher in the sky, that won’t work. You might get some mileage with the scattering parameters in the atmosphere actor though.

[Bnae]

I ended up doing something more complex so I have more control over the effect. Hope this helps someone in the future.

1. Have a separate BP with SceneCapture and the space station mesh. Rotation needs to be adjusted so a SpringArm is a good idea. (onlyshow list and lighting channels)
2. Use the RT from the SceneCapture with opacity adjustments (like moon you don’t see the shadow side during day, only the light).
3. Have the “space station” (RT material) as a plane in the sky, I use spline to drive the station location.
4. Now do some math to have the SceneCapture to capture sun from correct direction and have the space station plane facing the player (or planet center).