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?
I ended up doing something more complex so I have more control over the effect. Hope this helps someone in the future.
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)
Use the RT from the SceneCapture with opacity adjustments (like moon you don’t see the shadow side during day, only the light).
Have the “space station” (RT material) as a plane in the sky, I use spline to drive the station location.
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).
i was gonna say ‘composite the scene with output from a distinct render target’ but you did an excellent job! great visual effect.
EDIT: just to riff, but if you put the scene into the various stencil buffers, station included, you could do force-field effects, so the station always has a thin line around it, etc. PostProcess could be very useful here.
I like the distance the streetlights and their light-puddles add to the scene. Makes it look at bit Simon Stalenhag
