P0-P-172: Part 76: Surface to Space Atmospheric Transition

I have discovered an easy solution to a problem that I was having with the Space Environment. The skybox was not changing depending on the players position, and so I wrote a relatively simple script to blend a starfield skybox with a regular skybox based on the players distance above the planet.

Despite it’s simplicity, this actually works very well. I can also extend this by adding other sky types, but I think in future I will use procedural skyboxes, ie, shaders. This would give me a much more powerful ability to create not just different types of skies (morning, evening, etc) but also nebulae, deep space starfields, etc.

Creating each skybox as a set of 6 static images in an external program, and then blending them is not a viable solution for the long term, but it does give me proof of concept.