Here's something new: a suggestion of something in 2.1 that should be fixed before 2.1 comes out.
I know, strange indeed, but here me out:
There's been something bugging me about the way the skyboxes are rendered in the preview shots (and in SRB2CB as well)...but I figured it out!
They have too much 'perspectiveness.'
Now, unless you happen to think in the same convoluted way as I do, you ask me, "Metal96, now what the does that even mean?" And rightfully so, it's strange terminology that I have made up to describe a phenomenon I've noticed in the way of 3D visuals, real or not.
I think of 'perspectiveness' as the rate of size change when converting a 3D field to a 2D plane. So, for example, an image with a greater perspectiveness would have more size change, or 'dimensionality,' between the objects in the forefront and those in the back. Less perspectiveness ultimately leads to isometry (think Sonic 3D Blast), where there is
no size change between the objects in the forefront and those in the back. This is slightly related to field of view, but not exactly, as, in order to gain isometry in the real world, your field of view would have to be infinitesimal and your distance from the object would have to be infinite, but this of course can be done with the marvels of computer graphics and the human imagination.
Now, something that tends to happen in the real world (or a 3D projection) is that objects lose perspectiveness as they go farther away from the camera; you can see this...well, it's actually easy to do...go run SRB2CB (or SRB2 in OpenGL), and bring down the console, and type the following:
cam_dist 1024
cam_height 160
gr_fov 15
We've taken the character farther away from the camera, and then 'zoomed in' on him by decreasing the Field of View (this is why I said it was related to field of view). This in an
exaggerated example of what needs to happen to the skyboxes. The objects in them are supposed to be large and far away from the camera, but are small in the map and thus drawn 'normally' with the rest of the graphics slapped on top. This makes it look way out of proportion and kind of strange.
To demonstrate, I have prepared some photos:
This is my level, in which what is outside the windows will be replaced by skybox, which will be a very large piano.
This is the skybox rendered with the default system.
This is the skybox rendered with the new system.
So now I'm gonna put these images together to demonstrate what I mean. Here's it "rendered" in what seems to be the current method:
And here's what I'm saying to do:
(please forgive the quick'n'dirty editing)
The first one looks like the piano is looming right outside the window, which is not at all optimal when a map can be far more expansive than just my deck outside the window...Imagine a tree being rendered overtop of this image; the illusion breaks quickly.
The second one
looks like shit because it was taken with my potato of a cell phone and then blown up huge could be far more believable if executed correctly, but if you imagine a huge expansive map, such a flattened perspective of the piano would fit right into the background just fine.
Alright, not good examples, but you get the point.
So how does one implement this? By simply changing the perspective equation's coefficiant. So say my function for determining relative size was 100/x, so every 200 mappixels, the size halved. I could change this to 1000/x, so it would take a thousand mappixels for the size to half, (more exaggeration) temporarily while the skybox is being drawn. Slap it together and you have a far more convincing skybox (trust me, I know my examples sucked)