sky box / sky dome

Hi all,

I’m wondering if somebody can point me to some tutorials or information on creating sky boxes, or back drops? I’m looking to find some best practices for real-time rendering. Its been difficult to find thorough tutorials on the matter, for some reason. I’m just not looking in the right places. There was an awesome demo by a user here (Simo3DW) that showed a spaceship with some terrain that faded into a mountain range in the distance, and northern-lights-esque sky. Very cool. I’m dying to know how they did it!

For example, I’d like to create a simple night sky with some stars. Should this be procedural or image-based? And how to have my “ground” fade into the horizon seamlessly? These are the kinds of challenges I’m trying to resolve.

And yes, I did watch one of Soft8soft’s tutorials that included the creation of a background, using HDRI lighting, which was great. I’m just looking for more info. :)

Thanks!