I could use this as well; this is an idea that's been in the back of my head for a while. Unfortunately, I know nothing about rendering. In 1.20.1, a quick look around the rendering classes seems to show that the LevelRenderer class in net.minecraft.client.renderer may be the place to look, but I don't know enough to find out.
I took a look at the example you linked, but, as you said, it's very outdated.
This example seems to be more recent; 1.18.2:
https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/literal-sky-block with source at https://github.com/nanite/Literal-Sky-Block/tree/main
I also found this port of the above, which should work for 1.20.1. Unfortunately, it does not work with Optifine (and apparently never will).
https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/block-of-sky with source at https://github.com/CerulanLumina/block-of-sky
Hopefully this helps someone!