Tilting skybox for celestial poles

[Ket]

I have no idea what the limitations are for skyboxes, so if it's a ridiculous request to implement feel free to ignore. This also might not be possible because of the way the game handles poles, IDK. 

The axis that the stars rotate on should align with the north/south poles like on a typical planet with seasons. Right now they rotate on a flat plane around the player, and it does point north/south, but if it could tilt up as you approach the poles that would be more accurate and realistic. This could make for fun map-free navigation (you can use it to calculate latitude without using the command/coordinate HUD) and more accurate player-made sundials. 

A wiki article on celestial poles for a better (visual) explanation and usage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_pole 

 

Opposing argument: 'It's not a round planet, it doesn't need this.'

                 Ok but the sun and seasons already behave as if it is a round planet; including long nights and days at the poles, equinoxes and solstices, and there is even a shifting solar equator. May as well finish out the set. 

 

[Maelstrom]

Acts like a round planet?   uhhh....   Not exactly?  On default settings there are 2 poles between spawn and the northern world border and 2 poles between spawn and the southern world border.  That's very unglobelike behavior for a planet.  

Speaking of world borders.  Should you travel to said Vintage Story geographic location you will see a cliff.  Perhaps if you could fly out far enough you'd see elephants supporting the mantle seraphs cannot mine through.

[Ket]

Sure yes multiple poles. I'm talking about the sky and the seasons. Those are globe like in behavior. There's tons of non globe like things beyond that, not the point. Talking about the sky parts. 

[Ket]

This is great very excited. Thanks guys! 

[IronOre]

Astronomy is my scientific specialty!

The changing rise/set angle of the sun and movement along the horizon was one the the main reasons I was attracted to Vintage Story.

Needless to say, I conducted an in-depth astronomical analysis and confirmed the EXCELLENT behavior of the sun, but of course I was quite confused by the moon and stars.

The moon was rising the west and setting to the east and while that would be possible if the moon was moving VERY fast relative to the spinning of the earth, the illumination of the phases made no sense. It also  always used to rise/set at the same place on the horizon no matter the latitude at a position just south of due E/W.

The stars used to be globally static for a slight southern hemisphere location where they would rise in east slightly up and to the left (N), set in west slightly down and to the left (S).  The celestial poles were always near the N/S horizons with SCP pole a bit above the horizon and NCP a bit below the horizon.  At the time the stars would rotate once per day to always come back to the same midnight configuration.

When I saw the reply to this thread in the previous message about the recent update (v1.21.0-pre.1 - Story Chapter 2 Redux) I was very excited when I saw this in the notes:

Moon and stars position now closer to a real astronomical simulation

• Moon phase now consistently correct
• Rendered moon orients itself so that the lit side precisely faces the sun current position
• Moon phase is correct based on relative moon and sun positions
• Moon apparent path through the sky is now close to the ecliptic
• Night-time star field rotates appropriately for the current latitude
• Night-time star field varies over the calendar year according to the seasons / zodiac

MOON 

Everything I was thinking would be addressed.  I was over the moon (pardon the pun).  When I got the update I went in to make new observations.  I was so happy to see all the things mentioned for the moon working.  I thought it might look a little better if the moon phase shadow would curve a bit to show a crescent phase instead of a straight line, but that is a minor issue and one I could totally live with in a voxel world.

STARS 

However, the stars are still not working correctly and are very confusing.  They do shift through the seasons as the update planned, BUT they are not rotating correctly for the latitude.  For almost all latitudes they are still rising up and to the right (south) as you look eastward and this only changes after around 66 S (when this should be more and more vertical as you approach the equator, and then start to rise up and to the left (north) as you look eastward for all the southern latitudes.

• At the north pole (90 N) the stars should be rotating with the center position (north celestial pole) directly overhead and the stars near the horizon going around the horizon without rising or setting. Strangely the only place this happens is around 66 S.
   
• At the equator (0) the stars should be rising and setting straight up and down perpendicular to the horizon.  Strangely this is occurring at around latitude 23 N.
   
• At the south pole (90 S) the stars should be rotating with the center position (south celestial pole) directly overhead and the stars near the horizon going around the horizon without rising or setting. Again, strangely the only place this happens is around 66 S.

I think what is happening is that the sky is not spinning around a fixed point but the actual center points (celestial poles) are shifting, but not quite to a pattern I can determine.  To fix  this all that would be needed is to spin the star sphere such that just 2 points seem fixed (north and south celestial poles) and then tilt the star sphere according to latitude just as is done with the sun.  This would shift the north celestial pole from directly above at the north pole (90 N) which would drop to the northern horizon at the equator (0) where the south celestial pole would start to be visible on the southern horizon.  From there the north celestial pole would drop below the horizon, and the south celestial pole would start to be higher and higher above the horizon until it was directly above at the south pole (90 S).

My only other suggestion would be to have slightly more exaggerated/recognizable constellations (not real ones, but something cool) as the star field is very busy and nothing really stands out.  Barring that, at the very least it would be nice to have very clear (large/bright) polar stars, maybe a red one for the north pole and a blue one for the south to help pick them out for visually checking latitude at night.