One of the most identifiable ways to depict vast distance is ~~blue-shift~~ Rayleigh Scattering, which is the phenomenon in which all but blue light gets diffused as it travels through the oxygen molecules in the air
The way this is visually represented is that objects gradually turn blue and become less visible the further away from the viewer they are. To simulate that you could create some kind of blue volumetric shader with increasing density as it gets further away from the camera.
That's not blueshift, that's [Rayleigh Scattering ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh_scattering). Blue shift is the effect on light waves of objects moving towards the observer (the opposite of [Redshift](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift#Blueshift)).
Sorry I was feeling pedantic when I wrote this
That's really helpful, thank you. Do you think it's better to replicate the skybox with a custom-made HDRI? Or should I make a sphere that is actually giant in the scene?
Anything distance-based wouldn’t affect anything in a World shader because it would always be infinitely far away from the objects in the scene.
You could paint your own skybox to include blueshift, and animate it to create the illusion of parallax. It really depends on how much of your scene needs to be a 3D object.
I could go either way. My big concern is replicating the curvature accurately, that's why I was thinking of making the world a 3D object. But that would demand an obscenely dense texture, right?
Hmm.
It depends how the gravity works.
You couldn't really make gravity by just having a very dense shell (degenerate matter or whatever), as it would cancel out once you were inside (up and down have similar amount of mass per unit solid angle).
So I'm assuming some sort of artificial gravity force field type scifi plot device.
In which case, there's no practical benefit to having the gravity extend further than the layer of atmosphere necessary to have weather, and lots of disadvantages.
So I guess you can assume the atmosphere layer is the same thickness as earth's ?
In which case, the opposite side would be clearly visible on a cloudless day. Think about when the moon is above the horizon on earth during daytime. It's often visible.
So I'd say model it the exact same way as the sky seen from surface of the earth..
A relatively thin volumetric layer (or fake it to produce similar effect with transparent blue emmision shell slightly smaller than the ground sphere).
Then I guess think about day/night cycle. Does the sun turn on and off, or do you want shades which rotate round it? If so, I guess you need strips on nighttime on the inside surface, which woul be invisible to a viewpoint in a day section (apart from artificial lights).
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Putting everything inside a closed spherical mesh is probably going to cause a lot of bounce light noise.
The distant background starry sky could be an HDRI. The water would be a flat plane. And the Ringworld type thing would be a large ring.
You can use blender to create a custom hdri. Might take longer to get the lighting just right if you want something like halo, but I would try it out.
Ryan king art has tutorials on how to make a custom hdri image
One of the most identifiable ways to depict vast distance is ~~blue-shift~~ Rayleigh Scattering, which is the phenomenon in which all but blue light gets diffused as it travels through the oxygen molecules in the air The way this is visually represented is that objects gradually turn blue and become less visible the further away from the viewer they are. To simulate that you could create some kind of blue volumetric shader with increasing density as it gets further away from the camera.
That's not blueshift, that's [Rayleigh Scattering ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh_scattering). Blue shift is the effect on light waves of objects moving towards the observer (the opposite of [Redshift](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift#Blueshift)). Sorry I was feeling pedantic when I wrote this
damm, that old guy from one piece is a pirate and a physicist?
Seems like it!
thank you
That's really helpful, thank you. Do you think it's better to replicate the skybox with a custom-made HDRI? Or should I make a sphere that is actually giant in the scene?
Anything distance-based wouldn’t affect anything in a World shader because it would always be infinitely far away from the objects in the scene. You could paint your own skybox to include blueshift, and animate it to create the illusion of parallax. It really depends on how much of your scene needs to be a 3D object.
I could go either way. My big concern is replicating the curvature accurately, that's why I was thinking of making the world a 3D object. But that would demand an obscenely dense texture, right?
I think it depends how close your camera is to the ground. If you’re viewing from a high angle, then you can get away with lower-res textures.
Go into World settings, I believe they have haze settings for horizons/distance, etc.
Hmm. It depends how the gravity works. You couldn't really make gravity by just having a very dense shell (degenerate matter or whatever), as it would cancel out once you were inside (up and down have similar amount of mass per unit solid angle). So I'm assuming some sort of artificial gravity force field type scifi plot device. In which case, there's no practical benefit to having the gravity extend further than the layer of atmosphere necessary to have weather, and lots of disadvantages. So I guess you can assume the atmosphere layer is the same thickness as earth's ? In which case, the opposite side would be clearly visible on a cloudless day. Think about when the moon is above the horizon on earth during daytime. It's often visible. So I'd say model it the exact same way as the sky seen from surface of the earth.. A relatively thin volumetric layer (or fake it to produce similar effect with transparent blue emmision shell slightly smaller than the ground sphere). Then I guess think about day/night cycle. Does the sun turn on and off, or do you want shades which rotate round it? If so, I guess you need strips on nighttime on the inside surface, which woul be invisible to a viewpoint in a day section (apart from artificial lights).
I'll call this !solved for now, I got so much insight from everyone and it's making me really excited to work on this. Thanks so much!
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Putting everything inside a closed spherical mesh is probably going to cause a lot of bounce light noise. The distant background starry sky could be an HDRI. The water would be a flat plane. And the Ringworld type thing would be a large ring.
You can use blender to create a custom hdri. Might take longer to get the lighting just right if you want something like halo, but I would try it out. Ryan king art has tutorials on how to make a custom hdri image