A View-Aligned Cubemap Material could be a special type of material that uses six images—Top, Bottom, Left, Right, Front, and Back—to create an immersive background or visual effect. Unlike regular materials, this material would be projected based on the camera view direction instead of the object’s surface UVs, making it ideal for effects like distant scenery, portals, illusions of depth, and so-on. Although some who have experience with this sort of thing might know this as a cubemap-based “skybox”, I think a different name could be used since “skybox” already has a different use in Second Life. “View-Aligned Cubemap” helps eliminate some confusion. Here is a visual example of what I mean: https://i.imgur.com/4u40XHq.gif (The space shown is the interior of a cube with a seamless, unlit/full bright texture.) The key difference between what we can do already, and what I’m suggesting, is that no matter how close you get to this material it will seem like a distant, 3D space. View-Aligned Cubemaps are industry standard and are used to great effect in a huge amount of 3D games. View-Aligned Cubemap Materials would have huge benefits for Second Life’s visual immersion, especially in the skybox scene where players would be able to look out and see an environment that seems expansive and immersive, without needing any geometry. In fact, the cubemap could be simple as a single prim outside their window to show a suburban neighborhood, a single prim below them to show a huge chasm, or a single prim above them to show a night sky. Example Uses: Distant Environments — From city skylines, to mountain ranges, to forests, to abandoned warehouses, to alien landscapes, or elven ruins, these would be a huge benefit to creating the illusion of endless landscapes infinitely far from the player without adding any extra geometry. A player would be able to look out the window of even a tiny skybox and see what seems to be a huge environment around them, without using close-up images where the illusion breaks if you pay any attention to it or get too close. Holograms/Portals — Players would be able to create the illusion of 3d scenes inside of items/vfx without having to use lighting tricks, such as a cloak made of distant stars as if it showed a cutout directly into outer space, or crystal ball that shows a beautiful 3d scene that changes depending on what angle you look at. Illusions of Depth — They could be used in small, isolated instances, such as creating ceilings that are infinitely high above or fake rooms on a skyscraper. Specialized Backgrounds — These could also add a lot to the backdrop scene for things like photography, stage performances, or other similar uses. How It Could Work: "View-Aligned Cubemap" could be in the same drop-down menu where we select Textures, PBR, and Media. Users could upload six images (or a single cubemap texture, although this would require a specific UV map) into 6 slots for the material: Top, Bottom, Left, Right, Front, and Back.
