Space Skybox

[FabianHummel]

Idea

The space skybox is an item display with a custom shader that renders animated stars in different colors / sizes and a colored background. It doesn't really have special behavior except for custom rotation via the dyed_color attribute and the model's X-axis Normal, which is the same as the planet's logic described in #5

[FabianHummel]

Rudimentary skybox is implemented, but it is nowhere near of being finished. I think the hardest part will be making it seamless and implementing the pitch/yaw rotation. Currently, it is based on a two dimensional screen quad (in world space), but I will try to take a look at spherical (or any volumetric shaped) skyboxes and see how they are implemented.

Screen.Recording.2026-01-13.at.21.51.26.webm

(Video quality is a little below par, sorry)

[FabianHummel]

The skybox's UV is now mapped as equirectangular, which makes displaying a 3D skybox texture much easier with a lot less math. The actual texture is still missing, because I can't simply use this UV, as the sampler contains the entire atlas, rather than exclusively the star map.

Screen.Recording.2026-01-27.at.19.56.56.Skybox.correct.equirectangular.UV.mapping.webm

I also found out how to render to an equirectangular image in Blender, which will be useful to create and render beautiful, high resolution skyboxes:

Credits (Blender Project File): someone on the Unity3D Subreddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/u9ep44/nebula_skyboxes_with_free_download/#lightbox)