Paralax/Space backdrop
 

I've been looking for a feature in maya that could do the same thing that the "inverse normals" in 3DSMax.

In any given outer space scene there is stars and nebulas and stuff in the background... right? and when you are chase-cam on a figther spaceship, even tho you are moving forward, the stars aren't moving closer, as when you approach a solid wall, but if the camera zooms in on the space-ship, or the ship is turning, the backdrop is following as it would in real space.

In duke Nukem, it was called paralax textures, and you put them on the ceiling to imitate the effect of an open space.

Does i make my point clear, or is this just confusing???

Sadly, Maya doesn't have a built-in feature (to my knoledge) that can create this without making one yourself like Max's "Star-Blur" Post effect:(

I'll mess with a few things, and see what I can come up with, but in the meantine, you can always export your Maya camera data to After Effects, and just add your starfield to that data for better control:)

Hmm.... Or I could make a really HUGE sphere and point-constrain it to the camera.... That would work....

well, Every picture I see of space does not show stars unless it was taken from earth. I know there is reason for this but can't remember why. Anyways, maybe you can use this as an excuse and use planets as backdrops.

Hehe... I mean I'll put the backdrop on a 2-sided sphere, and make the sphere follow the camera position. That would give the illusion that the backdrop is infinite since when the camera moves ahead or backwards, the backdrop stays at the same distance. The only concerne is that objects might get outside the sphere, and that would look really odd... That's why it has to be a giant sphere.

The reason for there not being stars on some space images, is due to the contrast. If you took one of those images and brightnend the dark areas I'd bet you could see some stars there, or maybe to compensate for the bright light from the sun, the shutter time was reduced so much that the scarse photones from the stars, wasn't enough to make the light-sensitive material in the film react to it (a bit tecnical, but you get my point)

Makes sense!