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I'm creating a tech demo featuring a small planet. The problem I'm having is that the planet doesn't really feel like the right "scale" when the camera in down on the surface, I think it could be the curvature of the surface of the planet.

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for adjusting maybe the field of view, or any other camera tricks to give the impression that, once on the surface, the planet is larger than it appears at the moment.

enter image description here

enter image description here

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    \$\begingroup\$ This is my idea. The nearer you come to the planet, the slower the camera movement and a narrower(?) fov. this could probably give you the sence of you are near something larger! \$\endgroup\$
    – Tordin
    Jan 31 '13 at 14:52
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Tordin Thanks for the suggestions, slower movement is a great idea! I've played with a narrower fov but it doesn't really give the desired effect :( \$\endgroup\$
    – Caius Eugene
    Jan 31 '13 at 15:13
  • \$\begingroup\$ Oh, and what you allso could do, is an scaling offset. So that you scale everything bigger, the closer you come... It´s probably a real hussle but that would give you a neat effect of how big stuff is \$\endgroup\$
    – Tordin
    Jan 31 '13 at 15:16
  • \$\begingroup\$ I feel like that might be a bit have a bit of a performance overhead scaling everything. Got idea of how I could flatten out the horizon the closer I get to the surface? \$\endgroup\$
    – Caius Eugene
    Jan 31 '13 at 16:15
  • \$\begingroup\$ Scale your terrain's height down when far away so that the planet will look more like a sphere. As the camera gets closer to the surface, scale up along the normal (from the center of the planet). Alternatively, use real units (meters) for everything, and be prepared to deal with LoD and a MUCH higher-resolution mesh. \$\endgroup\$
    – 3Dave
    Sep 30 '15 at 2:45
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feel like the right "scale" when the camera in down on the surface,

The 2nd image makes it seem like the camera is positioned about 1/4 planet diameter (or so) above the surface, which affects how everything looks. Is the camera really "on the surface"? The closer the camera is to the surface of the planet, the bigger the planet will seem and the flatter the horizon will be.

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