KSP2 - sky boxes and parallax?

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Will we be able to discern the 'visitable stars' via parallax in-game?

I haven't seen it mentioned directly - but IIRC there was something about being able to load an interstellar ship while it's between stars.  That's a feature I thought would be cool, especially if you want to be there for the flip (presumes that's how KSP2 models interstellar). 

But as I thought about it - this presents a potential problem for the devs. Sky boxes. 

Mind you - I'm assuming that from Kerbol system that we're going to see one 'skybox' of background stars, against which we can pick out the few 'visitable' stars included in the game.  I'm hoping to see parallax of these stars from different points in the system - much as we see with Proxima via New Horizons 

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-new-horizons-conducts-the-first-interstellar-parallax-experiment

I'm also assuming that if you manage to get to one of the other systems that the skybox will be unique to that system - including seeing Kerbol and the other proximate stars placed differently against the cosmic background from that star's unique perspective. 

I foresee doing that for each individual system to be fairly easy... But what about interstellar? 

... 

What do y'all think?  Is this a likely feature of KSP2 - or something that gets a little handwavium? 

Edited June 16, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[Pthigrivi]

My feeling is for simplicity there's no real reason to change the skyboxes. Over the distance of a few  to a dozen light years the visual changes in the sky just aren't going be very dramatic as most stars in the sky are really far away. The stars that move noticeably are the ones that are very close, and those will change due to parallax because they're actually modeled. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

2 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

My feeling is for simplicity there's no real reason to change the skyboxes. Over the distance of a few  to a dozen light years the visual changes in the sky just aren't going be very dramatic as most stars in the sky are really far away. The stars that move noticeably are the ones that are very close, and those will change due to parallax because they're actually modeled. 

That's exactly what I am talking about - I'm assuming that any star that can be visited is close enough for the parallax to be noticed.  (that being said - it's a feature I'd enjoy) 

I'm just wondering how they might implement this... And if they will. 

[Bej Kerman]

4 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I'm also assuming that if you manage to get to one of the other systems that the skybox will be unique to that system - including seeing Kerbol and the other stars placed differently against the cosmic background from that star's unique perspective.

Would having dynamic skyboxes (like Portal 2) of a starfield blown up in size across the sky work better? There's no seams and your vessel could travel very far away from the main cluster of stars and see the skybox update according to what it should see in its part of the galaxy.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

2 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

(like Portal 2)

Okay - now I'm trying to picture sky boxes from Portal 2 (where I spent most of the time testing in underground environments and looking for cake... 

2 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

a starfield blown up in size across the sky

I think (largely guessing b/c no game design background) a general 'sky box of background stars' would work for any system with just the visitable stars being rendered differently would work. 

I'd like to see the background starfield being persistent w/r/t galactic direction (so that at midnight on Kerbin the view of the stars at zenith is noticeably different when the planet is at the solstice and equinox points of its orbit). 

Doing that would allow players to have 'actual science-like' missions - i.e. "build an orbital observatory and take observations of Star X when Kerbin is at the equinoxes."

It would also allow for 'take observations of the star in the "Jebulon Constellation" while in orbit of Jool' type science. 

So a persistent galactic background (with constellations and distinctive features) would be cool to see if you can find the visitable stars by using parallax and science missions. 

Edited June 16, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[Bej Kerman]

34 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

55 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

(like Portal 2)

Okay - now I'm trying to picture sky boxes from Portal 2 (where I spent most of the time testing in underground environments and looking for cake... 

2D planes that project a much smaller area onto the backdrop of the level, providing the illusion that the level is much bigger than it actually is, as explained in Shesez's Boundary Break series.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

43 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

2D planes that project a much smaller area onto the backdrop of the level, providing the illusion that the level is much bigger than it actually is, as explained in Shesez's Boundary Break series.

That was cool! 

I'm more used to sky boxes from FPS games where the textures are painted against the inner sides of a literal box that bounds the gaming space (old school).  Some / many of the newer games use variations on what Valve did with their environments. 

I guess I'm hoping to see in KSP2 something other than random dots that simulate the background stars - and actually see some cool things (like the arms of the Milky Way we can see), which would give the Kerbol system a sense of personality and place within a galaxy. 

(a total 'nice to have feature', but one I think goes along with the basic premise of what KSP2 wants to be) 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

I also don't know that KSP or KSP2 has skyboxes... but I'm using that term to refer to the background stars we can see...

 

[intelliCom]

6 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I haven't seen it mentioned directly - but IIRC there was something about being able to load an interstellar ship while it's between stars.  That's a feature I thought would be cool, especially if you want to be there for the flip (presumes that's how KSP2 models interstellar). 

But as I thought about it - this presents a potential problem for the devs. Sky boxes. 

Mind you - I'm assuming that from Kerbol system that we're going to see one 'skybox' of background stars, against which we can pick out the few 'visitable' stars included in the game.  I'm hoping to see parallax of these stars from different points in the system - much as we see with Proxima via New Horizons 

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-new-horizons-conducts-the-first-interstellar-parallax-experiment

I'm also assuming that if you manage to get to one of the other systems that the skybox will be unique to that system - including seeing Kerbol and the other stars placed differently against the cosmic background from that star's unique perspective. 

I foresee doing that for each individual system to be fairly easy... But what about interstellar? 

... 

What do y'all think?  Is this a likely feature of KSP2 - or something that gets a little handwavium? 

Either the skybox doesn't change at all from different star systems, or, to allow for parallax, the starfield only updates when it is no longer visible (i.e., within a planet's atmosphere, on the daylight side of a planet, etc.)
The players would barely notice. Means you only need one skybox for each star system.

Although, each star system is obviously going to have its own parallax anyways, so I don't think we need to worry about all of the other "background" stars. Thinking about this, I suspect we're going to be within a "local group" of star systems, hopefully around 5 or 6 (systems, not stars, binary star systems count as one).

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Just now, intelliCom said:

Thinking about this, I suspect we're going to be within a "local group" of star systems, hopefully around 5 or 6

I agree with you here; that's the only way I can make sense of KSP2 allowing us to visit different systems. 

Even something like trying to get to a nearby solar twin (from here) like 18 Sorpii is a 45 lightyear travel; not something that I think will be in the scope of the game.  Heck; travelling to Proxima from Sol is 4 lightyears - and that's already insane... but if Kerbol is part of a 'local group': that's a plausible sale (little suspension of disbelief required).

[Pthigrivi]

It also stands to reason they might scale down stellar distances by a factor of 10 the way the kerbolar system is scaled down. Still Id guess with a few to several systems at launch the farthest would be 8 or 10 ly away (.8-1ly scaled down.)

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Why am I getting Late Heavy Bombardment vibes from those distances? 

;D

 

[mcwaffles2003]

9 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

My feeling is for simplicity there's no real reason to change the skyboxes. Over the distance of a few  to a dozen light years the visual changes in the sky just aren't going be very dramatic as most stars in the sky are really far away. The stars that move noticeably are the ones that are very close, and those will change due to parallax because they're actually modeled. 

The stars visible to the naked eye are also relatively close though. The average distance to a visible star is around 325 LY according to this incredibly reliable source : 

 

That said, if simulating the motion of the skybox is comparatively computationally costly I'd rather just have a high res skybox.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

12 hours ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

if simulating the motion of the skybox is comparatively computationally costly I'd rather just have a high res skybox

I hear you on that.  

Haven't loaded up KSP in a while - but I do remember seeing a few patterns in the stars from time to time... But what I don't know is whether they were just randomly generated backgrounds or a true sky box with orientation and persistent features. 

Having a few nearby stars subject to parallax against a persistent 'global' background of stars would be a cool feature - but hardly necessary.  Example: they could just borrow the technique used w/r/t the asteroids - which aren't visible normally and need the special probe set up to spot in the first place. 

[SciMan]

Having some experience with how the skybox works in KSP 1 (since I once had to adapt a mod to work with a different version of a texture replacer than the one it was designed for) I can tell you this.

The KSP 1 skybox consists of 6 textures, painted on to the inside faces of a very very large cube. If you have a good enough monitor and eyes, you can sometimes see the seams or distortion where the fact that it's mapped on a cube and not a sphere makes it look a little weird.

But the main point is that KSP 1's vanilla skybox texture is incredibly low resolution considering that it's a game set in space. There are virtually no stars visible that take up less than say 50 pixels on my 4k monitor (running in full screen). That makes the smallest observable feature in the skybox rather large, which gives an impression (to my eye) that the overall image is even lower resolution than it actually is.

The modded skyboxes I have seen over the years (mostly Poodmund's skyboxes) are much better, but it comes at the cost of needing a texture replacement mod to over-write the skybox textures, which is one of the reasons that I usually don't bother since 99% of the time I'm not paying attention to the skybox anyways.

But if the vanilla skybox was easier to swap out, as well as it had a system for loading skyboxes appropriate to location, that would be nice. Something like "N+1 skyboxes" where N is the number of solar systems (including Kerbol) that are in the game. The extra one is for when you're between stars (and there's no real reason to have more than one of those, despite the fact that the parallax "should" be different, because it's a case of "effort spent versus enjoyment produced", people generally aren't going to be looking at their interstellar spacecraft while they're between the stars, and if they do it won't be for hours at a time, meaning that the effort to make more than one "interstellar" skybox would be better spent elsewhere (IMO of course).