More realistic sky

[S_Hacker]

When you go in space in galacticraft especially on the asteroid belt, you can notice that the sky looks sort of cheap with just a black background with white dots.

My suggestion is that in space, the sky will be more realistic with maybe "clouds" and a sort of blue-ish tint like you would see in reality.

 

[Douglas_Fresh]

When you go in space in galacticraft especially on the asteroid belt, you can notice that the sky looks sort of cheap with just a black background with white dots.

My suggestion is that in space, the sky will be more realistic with maybe "clouds" and a sort of blue-ish tint like you would see in reality.

I never ever considered that, but I like the idea! I think the surface of the Overworld looks fine, but a few clouds (possibly moving?) and a slight glow around the edges to show the atmosphere would be a nice touch.

 

[Ezer'Arch]

My suggestion is that in space, the sky will be more realistic with maybe "clouds" and a sort of blue-ish tint like you would see in reality.

Do you mean you'd like the Overworld had some kind of "glow" and clouds around the entity that represents the overworld, or is it also the sky background that needs to change?

 

[S_Hacker]

Do you mean you'd like the Overworld had some kind of "glow" and clouds around the entity that represents the overworld, or is it also the sky background that needs to change?

I didn't mean directly the sky in the overworld, but the background in space.

 

[Ezer'Arch]

I didn't mean directly the sky in the overworld, but the background in space.

A sky background like this?

 

[S_Hacker]

A sky background like this?

Yeah, exactly what I meant.

 

[JakXLT]

A sky background like this?

Kinda like that yeah, but pixelated and shit so it looks like it actually belongs in minecraft.

On the subject of realistic skies, would it be possible to modify the skybox of space stations and the overworld so that the phase of the moon and the position of the moon match up? Having the moon directly opposite the sun at all times makes no sense, especially at New Moon.

 

[radfast]

On the subject of realistic skies, would it be possible to modify the skybox of space stations and the overworld so that the phase of the moon and the position of the moon match up? Having the moon directly opposite the sun at all times makes no sense, especially at New Moon.

Changes to the position/phase of the Moon is planned for space stations (and equivalent Sun/Overworld changes for the lunar sky). There's also a current issue where stars are visible "through" the moon (especially at New Moon). But I don't plan to change how the sky looks in the Overworld, that would be messing with vanilla Minecraft too much.

---

Making the stars look more realistic but still Minecraft is a bit hmmm. The real sky that a person would see in space is black and white, apart from the reddish tint to planets like Mars. It's not really any different from the night sky you can see from a desert on Earth (far from any town or city obviously). The more colourful "space-like" images - like in Ezer'Arch's screenshot are enhanced-colour images made by telescopes like the Hubble.

If someone has time to make a Minecraft-like texture for the stars we can look at that, this would be a good starting point:

 

[radfast]

@Douglas_Fresh - for the Overworld as seen from space, we are also looking at that "blue tint" and possibly clouds, as you have suggested.

 

[Space Viking]

The Milky Way done Minecraft style, eh? I'd imagine it as something really subtle appearing in the skybox during nighttime. Of course being slightly more pronounced when there's minimal to no atmosphere around. I could definitely think about it.

Also, the Sun and the Moon seen in the Overworld's skybox appears to be using a blending mode known as "Screen", which typically creates gradual transparency for individual pixels depending on how dark they are. I'd assume it's just meant as a simple way of emulating atmospheric haze during twilight. In the vanilla game the stars and the Moon never overlaps eachother, so that method makes sense there.

Given lunar phases has been mentioned (and a subject of previous discussion), I'd imagine it would be pretty nice if it took on a more realistic approach. It has actually been done before with the Moon Mod, which I think is really cool:

I consider it has potential and would be a nice (and possibly optional to work around eventual conflicts with other mods) feature in Galacticraft rather than just having the Moon otherwise orbiting the Overworld's second Lagrangian point.

Eitherway it's tied to the concept of objects moving independently on extraterrestrial skies. Just imagine seeing Phobos speeding across the Martian sky for example.

 

[Ezer'Arch]

Kinda like that yeah, but pixelated and shit so it looks like it actually belongs in minecraft.

Yes, it'd make more sense if the extraterrestrial skies follow the same style as of Overworld. I was using a resource pack that changes the Overworld sky.

Eitherway it's tied to the concept of objects moving independently on extraterrestrial skies. Just imagine seeing Phobos speeding across the Martian sky for example.

While I really like the idea of a more realistic Moon orbit (the Overworld's one), the concept of 8-day-moon cycle simply goes through the window.

 

[Space Viking]

While I really like the idea of a more realistic Moon orbit (the Overworld's one), the concept of 8-day-moon cycle simply goes through the window.

That is assuming it was directly based on real-world lunar phases.

To be specific, I was thinking about making physical sense by having the Moon performing a full orbit once per eight day, which namely is the equivalent of a Minecraft month. So nothing really goes out the window when it comes to current game mechanics. It's just that the Moon will not be restricted to the center of the night sky anymore.