skybox discussion (Jim or Philippe) - Longbow Digital Arts Discussion

Author	Topic: skybox discussion (Jim or Philippe)
peeeto Member	posted February 12, 2001 12:07 PM [i started this topic to discuss sky boxes in general, but if Jim or Philippe would start it off with a few words...] first, a question for LDA - i noticed that sky planes were probably tried out for the game. can you share your experience with them? why were boxes chosen over the plane method? (the answer is obvious - boxes apparently worked better, but can you elaborate? what were the specific issues with the plane?) were sky spheres ever experimented with? if so, how did that work? --------------------------------------------- next, i have some tips for creating custom skyboxes. there are many ways of creating skies in the freeware raytracing package POV-Ray (it is very easy to use). see www.povray.org one of the most popular ways is to texture a sky shpere with the myriad of texturing options in the program. you can get some fantastic effects! then, to ray-trace the images for the skybox texture, render 5 different times with a camera with a 1:1 aspect ratio and a 90-degree viewing angle (camera at the origin). render four times: once facing north, once east, then south, then west. POV-Ray has a hard time aiming a camera exactly vertical, so to render the top, leave the camera facing north and rotate the skybox texture so the top is in view (as if you "rolled" the skybox forward). you should end up with seamless textures for a custom skybox! if the top texture isn't rotated correctly, rotate the bitmap in a paint program. IP:
Kaeto Member	posted February 12, 2001 02:08 PM Peeto - basically, skyboxes are a lot faster than sky spheres, and you can get more detail than a skyplane (because a skyplane is one texture, while a skybox is five or six) IP:
peeeto Member	posted February 12, 2001 02:39 PM thanks, kaeto - i know these things, but i was just trying to strike up a conversation so that others who might not know can learn & start to think about modding new landscapes. IP:
LDA Administrator	posted February 12, 2001 02:54 PM We used the SkyTracer plug-in for Lightwave to render out the sky boxes. 4 quads and the ceiling....much more detail and less distortion. We never tried spheres. Also I made adjustments to RGB colors to add variety....and something new I tried in the CTF maps was to add a very slow rotational spin....a simple time-of-day effect. Jim IP:
peeeto Member	posted February 14, 2001 08:59 AM thanks, jim. now to play around with some new skies... IP: