Bumping this as making good looking and proper space scenes is nearly impossible without extreme workarounds that are subpar.
Many people that I know, including myself, are working on space games. While all of us are working on different types of space games, one thing is clear - we need more skybox freedom. If the present issues and limitations with the skybox were addressed, it would bring about a new era of good looking space games.
Every space game developer that I know struggles with lighting. Roblox’s day/night system is filled with too many constants, forcing developers to have ugly transitions or hacky/annoying workarounds.
Additionally, I would like to have the sun as a removable source of lighting - the massive spectral glare is incredibly annoying when a ship is in the dark of space with only a few small lights.
This is a thing, at the very least.
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But, seriously, skyboxes and whatnot as mentioned in this thread, ought to have some overhauling.
Lighting deserves some love. The only new thing we’ve gotten with lighting is clouds and Future is Bright, but that’s still really buggy.
Those were both announced in 2020? They are both about 3 years old, not new.
What do you mean buggy? I personally have not really seen any bugs with clouds, and I have only experienced one bug with Future that barely even impacts player experience.
i mentioned a lot of the things this feature request is asking for a few months ago without even realizing that there was a feature request for this stuff:
tl;dr the skybox system (and lighting in general) really need an overhaul, trying to work with a system that hasn’t changed much in over 15 years is a pain…
It would be great, while we’re talking about the sky and atmosphere, that we can get completely volumetric clouds, and maybe even cloud types like cummulus nimus or cirrus.
I agree with this post, thank you.
All of these ideas are awesome, but what I’d rather see is more freedom. Not every Roblox place needs to have such complexity in the skybox. The problem is that some should, most prominently every game which attempts to take place outside of Earth. I think one of the most influential changes that can be made in that regard would be, as has been said by others, the removal of the horizon, or “fade,” and allow the sun and moon to be shown at all times.
In an ideal world, though, I think it’d be best if all of the “simplification” was removed. Developers should be given more access to adjust lighting and skyboxes, as follows:
LightDirection setting in ViewportFrames. This could also optionally mean we’d get settings such as LightDirection and LightIntensity.At present, it is possible to disable celestial bodies, disable stars, and create custom (albeit static) skyboxes. The only problem is the hard-coded lighting colors, and horizon “fade” that makes it very challenging to even “hack” space settings, or other-worldy setting.
This would be a neat feature to add to Roblox, I strongly agree that the system could do with a overhaul to entice more developer’s imagination.
This would definitely be a super cool thing to add. The sky definitely needs more customization.
support since i prefer procedual sky more than ever, or just better skybox versatility. its just far more customizable.
also why are graphics feature requests ghosted so much??
Please Roblox! Let this be a thing. The Future Is Bright update was pretty underwhelming when it comes to things that are actually needed. Stuff like lights longer than 60 studs and better skyboxes are the kinds of things we need
I wish there would be a structured procedure for feature-requests that will at least guarantee there will be some staff response within 6 months, even if it’s a rejection or clarification.
Space-exploration games are taking a rise on Roblox recently, and it’s clear to see that something as basic and low-level as a simple skybox is genuinely affecting games’ potential. Games like the Wild West take the engine to the maximum by utilizing virtually all graphics features, so far as I can tell, and it’s also clear to see that the only part the skilled developers can’t control is the skybox.
I agree with all the points in the original post, and especially with the points from Evercyan. This topic deserves recognition!
Having more customization with the sky would make a ton of games look better, especially more open-ended ones like open worlds and space games. The sky is really restricted right now, so having more control would make it much easier to work with!
In addition to the above suggestions, I would like to see the ability to rotate the skybox on all three axes. It could even be tweenable so you could have a constantly rotating skybox. Other game engines have this capability. It would definitely give the illusion of being in space.
To address the OP’s list…
My suggestion:
@Evercyan It is possible to simulate atmospheric extinction using atmospheric effects and color filters, but it’s hard to get right. I have recently developed a script that handles twilight lighting just using the lighting service. I have also simulated the illusion of the size change where the sun/moon appear larger at the horizon and smaller at the apex.
this would be amazing for having source-style control over the sun for lighting
This needs to be done. If I had to add something, it would be to make space events such as eclipses possible through scripting. By this I mean being able to script the moon to move towards and cover the sun to create the solar eclipse. Tweening would make it even better too. Then do the same but for a lunar eclipse. It surprises me how you can make almost everything complex in Roblox, but not the skybox. You are so limited when it comes to altering the skybox, apart from changing how the sky itself looks with images.
If you want us to make better and better games for you to show to all your investors, then let us do more with our lighting and skyboxes! It’ll greatly boost your cash flow and have more developers come in as well as making our lives much easier and better!
I’d like it if roblox decoupled directional light sources from the skybox. The skybox texture and celestial bodies should also be decoupled from time of day. Limiting a game engine to physically accuracy, no matter how ridiculously overengineered and true to the real world you get, is not the way to go. Looking at you, guy who wrote up a whole astronomy lesson up in the second reply… If you instead give developers the most control possible, they’ll be able to make a 1:1 simulation of our night sky if they so please, but more importantly, they’ll also be able to make anything they could ever imagine.
Directional light sources, like the sun’s, should be treated just like any other light source. Though I should point out that the ux would be something you’d have to keep in mind, because since directional lights don’t really have a position, only direction, it’d make for something a bit awkward to work with depending on the implementation.
Optimally the skybox would be controlled on a much lower level, but since I know roblox won’t do that anytime soon, a way to blend and layer between different skyboxes would be nice. Being able to set skybox orientation would be useful as well. The ability to freely create, manipulate, and blend “celestial bodies” would be needed too.
Ofc there should be an entirely optional and easy way to sync celestial bodies, directional lights, and skybox blending to the time of day, so as to maintain ease of use and backwards compatibility. This should be the default setup. While we should expect the most control possible, we simultaneously shouldn’t expect every user to reinvent the wheel whenever they want simple day/night functionality.
On the related topic of skyboxes, roblox PLEASE give us control over our lightprobes and outdoor env map.
You can do almost anything in Roblox if you are dedicated enough. I made this a while ago sky - Roblox, I can’t say that it’s 1:1 accurate, but it’s definitely possible to make even with the current limitations of Roblox.
Not saying that we don’t need this, I think it would be a great addition to let us have better control over the sky and it would make it a million times easier and more convenient than having to do what I did in order to get my off-brand sky overhaul working.