Space Illusion

I remember seeing a map that uses that type of illusion, I believe it was called "Emperors Throne Room". The map had Purple Special FX on and the space background/illusion was in front of the rock part of the Lagoon. I'll try and fiind a link to the map.



EDIT: This is the map.

 

personally, i've been making a few space maps, and part of making things feel like space, ive found, is to do the following.

For windows looking out into space, make sure that you limit the view down from the windows as much as possible, and make the sky as dark as you can, while including juicy in the mix of fxs. if your ship is meant to be damaged, adding debris is always nice. bits of paneling floating around and whatnot. if its just supposed to be stationary in space for whatever reason, adding some rocks as meteors and stuff also helps. i am currently working on a comet thing for use in one map im working on.

another things to help set the mood most people dont consider is that in the event a ship has suffered damage or been invaded or some such thing, the various objects in the ship, such as crates and other objects not bolted or clamped down would be floating in the zero Gs. if for example, as ive done in one assault map im doing, that is based off a symmetrical satellite, various doors and panels that the elites would have had to break free are still floating in space, as though they were disgarded and simply settled into place in those positions. crates and the like are also floating, not just flat, but in whatever position they stopped in after some random spinning, at random heights.

other than that, i dont know what to tell you except that if you make outside really dark, youll want to set as many objects with reactive lighting as you can without ruining the aesthetic aspect of things to help make sure its possible to see inside the ship's halls.

 

really? it worked? cause i built a small city area for a free for all map, and i couldnt block those damn lights for anything. i guess you wouldnt be using quite the space i did though, so for you, it probably worked. i woulda suggested it had i managed to block the lights successfully.

heres some ideas for you to make it look more like space out there.

i was thinking if its almost pitch black out there, you could try and use flag stands to simulate stars, if you can see the lights on the sides of them clear enough, or just use the tops as stars. lights could work too as closer stars if you dont use any of them in the ship, which is doubtful.

also, you should reduce gravity if your in space in a disabled ship. it would stand to reason artificial gravity would be off, leaving only spartan and elite magnetic boots to hold them to the floor.

and something that just occured to me. if a person wanted to simulate a ship that was breaking up from mechanical failures, as the match comes to an end, just a bit before the end of it, you could have mines and stuff spawn to cause a series of explosions, if the maps small enough.

 

thats what i meant. i reduce the gravity for players in the gametype settings to half, and to simulate a lack of gravity altogether, i set stuff such as crates and whatnot to fixed, so their floating in midair. thats something you should leave to just at the end of building the map though, if you have them floating at all, so you can use them as cover. it gets pretty interesting when your being shot in the foot, but the rest of you is safe.

and im gonna share with you a few tricks i picked up earlier when i was forging a ship map this conversation has inspired me to make.

the Flagstand stars thing DOES work. just dont set them all flat against the walls though. i use them at varying distance from the wall, but still far enough from the window it doesnt kill the illusion. the lights DO look a lot like stars in the pitch black of the colliseum, and the way they glow brighter regularly seems to add to it somehow.

also, i figured out a relatively quick comet you can throw in if you want to throw in some variation. just take a blue light, embedd it into the colliseum wall you want it on, till it doesnt light the wall itself up, and them set a mancannon in under it, to simulate the tail.trying to set it out of the wall kills the illusion however, as the blue light that makes up the main part of the comet will light up the walls.

and so you know, there are a few objects with reactive lighting you can use to light up the inside of your ship. these include the large walkway cover, of course, most of the bridges, or at least large and extra large. railings, though their sort of weak, and the two story towers, though that one only lights up the inside parts of the towers. i didnt find any other objects with lights that would actually light anything up that werent an actual light.

 

First off, I'm glad you aren't just placing lighting effects everywhere. Yeah they can turn FW into night...


...,but you can't see 2 feet ahead of you!

Moving on! As we know, objects react to shadows and to being in shadow.
LINK

You could use this to your advantage by placing Seastacks or Brace Larges into shadow and turning them black. The important thing is to make sure the "center mass" (the "tear drop" from Halo 3) is in the dark... I don't know where each focal point is but it shouldn't be hard to isolate.

Good luck! Hope it all works out well.

 

Once I was forging and an entire piece's texture turned black as soot. It was the round bunker piece. I guess it was the shadow effect going crazy, but it was so black it was hard to tell where the edges of the geometry were. I'm sure if you had that up against your window it'd look like black space. The trick it recreating the effect. It occurred at the rocks in front of the water fall when I moved the piece to just the right spot.

 

I know that spot. its on the waterfall side of the rocks, in the shadow of the bigger rock, right? I had that happen to me too when i was placing a 5X5 piece there.

and i have tinkered with the objects with built in lighting, and ive figured out you can light a map up relatively well when its so dark using the light objects, and other objects, like the large walkway cover. I also have shown a lot of my friends the view out the windows i made, using the flagstand stars, and a few have said it was astounding and one even claimed to be in awe, so i think its working.