Editing 2.5D (section)

===Skyboxes and skydomes===
{{See also|Skybox (video games)}}
Skyboxes and skydomes are methods used to easily create a background to make a game [[level (video gaming)|level]] look bigger than it really is. If the level is enclosed in a cube, the sky, distant mountains, distant buildings, and other unreachable objects are rendered onto the cube's faces using a technique called [[cube mapping]], thus creating the illusion of distant three-dimensional surroundings.  A ''skydome'' employs the same concept but uses a [[sphere]] or [[Sphere|hemisphere]] instead of a cube.

As a viewer moves through a 3D scene, it is common for the skybox or skydome to remain stationary with respect to the viewer. This technique gives the skybox the illusion of being very far away since other objects in the scene appear to move, while the skybox does not. This imitates real life, where distant objects such as clouds, stars and even mountains appear to be stationary when the viewpoint is displaced by relatively small distances. Effectively, everything in a skybox will always appear to be infinitely distant from the viewer.  This consequence of skyboxes dictates that designers should be careful not to carelessly include images of discrete objects in the textures of a skybox since the viewer may be able to perceive the inconsistencies of those objects' sizes as the scene is traversed.