Space scale with local ships

Development Rendering
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1

Hi,
I chose to rephrase original question (and I solved second issue and just left it here for reference):

I need something like “global space” for planetary system and “local space” for ships (as those are different by several orders of magnitude). I can do the math, so that I can draw small planets that just feel like they are gigantic objects thousands of kilometers away, BUT, when I do that, it is possible that planet that is “officially” far away is in reality just half a kilometer away from camera, so if there is other actor (ship from “local space”), those two can overlap, and I can imagine solving this with only two things:

a) Draw my planets further than any actor can be - but that would require pretty big objects - can I do it like that? like drawing something say 20km away with 200km size, whilst “local space”, where game is taking place will have standard size/positions? (planets are not playable, they don’t have physics, collisions and so on, but I can imagine whole bunch of issues with lighting distance, size of depth/z-buffer…)

b) Draw them separately (as I would in custom engine), and then draw actors - Can I do that? Can I draw something as background, with separate depth pass? Something like:

  • Draw my planets
  • Clear depth buffer
  • draw everything else on top of those planets

So the question is: can I do a without any issues? what is the limit for size of objects that aren’t really part of game? And more preferably, if possible, how would I do b?

And second (solved) question was this:
When I am on an orbit, I see like 5% of the whole planet - how can/should I deal with that, if I want pixel perfect material on it? detail textures took care of that

2

Hi,

can I do a without any issues?

Yes, I think, in best case, you can do something like SkySphere but for space.

what is the limit for size of objects that aren’t really part of game?

The maximum size of an individual world has been increased to approximately 20 kilometers across. Also, we now support 3D world origin shifting (instead of only 2D shifting.)

This is defined by the ‘WORLD_MAX’ constant in C++ code. It was increased by a factor of four (from approximately 5 km.)
Remember, you can create worlds as large as you want by connecting multiple worlds together using Unreal Engine’s World Composition feature!

And more preferably, if possible, how would I do b?

About depth priority, please see this thread:

Hope it helps!

Best,

3

So I can place meshes in “skysphere distance” without any issue? That is great. With that distance, I can manage depth priority. Thanks.