Hi,
I’m new to Unreal and ran into my first problem. I just can’t seem to find an answer to this online.
I need my Skybox to slowly rotate on an axis. I have tried to apply a couple of different conventional methods such as using a Rotating Movement or Event Tick to rotate the static mesh using Construction Scripts and/or Event Graphs, however, the underlying problem is that the Skybox material does not want to rotate with the static mesh.
Any thoughts?
This is not a good idea for the default skybox.
Create your own local files, modify them as needed.
You can check if the material is immune to rotation by changing the Z axis rotation in editor.
I don’t seem to recall this being the case, but it’s been a while since I last touched it.
Either way, if you are rotating the sky to rotate the clouds, that’s not a good idea.
Rotating a whole mesh is arguably a bad idea in all cases.
Take as an example a realistic star map.
You need to rotate it so that the longitude and latitude can be taken into account.
At the same time - because it is easier to do - the star material needs to keep on panning at a constant pre-set speed.
If instead you rotate the mesh, then you have to work to figure out the longitude and latitude inclinations - and could possibly get the stars to spin awkwardly.
The panning material instead will just keep on rotating the correct way endlessly… making it a bit easier.
If you explain what you are trying to do a little more in depth, i’m sure several people on here can give you proper directions.
If you are curious on other setups you should check out the Souls project btw. I think they still have a downloadable version or at least blog entries on how they got Unreal to behave.
Thanks!
I am attempting to create a rotating skybox. It sounds like panning the material might lead me somewhere, I’ll look into it. Anyway, the idea is that the skybox material rotates on the Z axis endlessly. Preferably with ways to control the speed of the rotation. Also, yes it appears to be immune to be immune to changing the Z axis rotation in editor. The material that’s been created for the skybox are stars and I only need them to rotate on one axis.
The default stars are made with a very noticeable tile pattern.
Google for the NASA free statmaps and use those as a base
the best way to do it is to make the skysphere transparent by masking the material when the sun is below.
You then create a sphere with the correct normals pointed inward, a good flat and unwrap, and place it at 0,0,0.
Scale it up to be bigger then the skybox, and you’ll get stars appearing beyond the skysphere.
Don’t overdo the sphere geometry.
the nasa file comes with a grid. I have always used the same number of subdivisions as said grid.
With that, make sure your star material pans at a constant speed with 1 MPC parameter allowing you to control the overall speed.
you can then change lat/lon by altering the outer sphere rotation.
forgot to mention, though it should be self-evident, the star material needs to be emissive.