Game Development Community

Hide Scattersky edge

by Bryan Morgan · in Torque 3D Professional · 02/15/2010 (5:20 pm) · 10 replies

Don't know why I've never asked this as it has bugged me since scattersky was introduced, but how do you make it so you can't see the edge (bottom) of the scatter sky from your terrain.
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Only thing I can think of would be to create non-traversable mountains all the way around the terrain block which is higher then the highest traversable points of the map, but that's not really a very good thing to have to do all the time, especially if you want non-traversable flat terrain at the edge of your map going off into the horizon(until megaterrain or multiple terrain blocks works, that's only possible if you dedicate most of your terrain to the non-traversable portion, but still).

#1
02/16/2010 (12:07 pm)
When I first used scatterysky in one of the early betas, we had a viewer height setting that I would tweak to try and fix the very issue you're encountering. Pretty sure it worked too, because I don't remember having that issue until at least a version or two after the setting went away.

I've tried raising my terrain by significant amounts to no avail. My edge isn't anywhere near as big as yours though.
#2
02/16/2010 (1:43 pm)
I think that the current workaround would be to set your clear canvas colour to something approaching the colour at the edge --- not much use if you've the sun low in the sky at one side or are using time-of-day.
#3
02/16/2010 (1:50 pm)
I find the Water Plane object works well for this, since it stretches to the horizon.
#4
02/16/2010 (2:14 pm)
I occaissonally notice a dark line at the edge of the waterblock ...
#5
02/16/2010 (3:21 pm)
The water plane does work for hiding the scatter sky edge somewhat, but it's not always practical. If I were to create a desert level and stand on the highest point in the middle of the map I really wouldn't expect to see water meeting with the horizon. The easy answer to that would be not to create any points in the middle of the map high enough to see over the edge of the terrain block, but that seriously limits level design. It'll be easy to fix this issue when (if) T3D gets something like TGEA's megaterrain(multiple terrain blocks linked together) or paging terrain.
#6
02/16/2010 (9:01 pm)
this may sound silly as i havens tested it out but why not then just use a ground plain with a ground texture extended to the horizon and then limit the play area so that the player cannot go out onto it, then in your desert setting you would just see flat sand into the distance. you could even through a few props and billboards out their to break it up some...just an idea not actually tried, but it would hide the edge and give the illusion of land out into the sunset, they do something similar in the call of duty games if anyone has ever done the out of map multiplayer glitches.... (or just look for the MW2 and World at war out of map you tube videos to see what i mean)
#7
02/17/2010 (11:29 am)
paging terrain....mmmmm good.
#8
02/18/2010 (6:31 pm)
The issue is you've not designed your level well.

You have a map that has mountains a player can get to and you don't have any ground or water or any other graphics content between the edge of your map and the horizon.

Usually you would provide some sort of geometry in that space to fake it.

In Pacific we use WaterPlane as its an island and keep people from walking to the back side where there is no terrain.

We have some initial work on a "vista" object which renders a small model large to make it look like distant geometry.

Other ideas... change the canvas color, use fog, add a ground plane, or just put some meshes out there.
#9
02/18/2010 (6:48 pm)
This is why there are so many games set on islands - cover rest of world in unreachable ocean!
#10
02/18/2010 (9:25 pm)
I still get an edge even using a water plane. It started showing up around about the version you told me to set double sided to fix terrain shadows for terrains that do not always lower beyond the lowest point of the sun's angle.