How todo it:
1) This first area
The Skybox Entity works by having 2 seperate self containted areas on the map. This means they aren't connected. The first area where your players are has to contain the center of your map (0,0,0). GTK/Zero Radiant will mark the center with a little X/Y/Z tri colour marker Like this:
2) This second area
The second area will have a "_skybox" at the spot relative to where to the center is in ther other area.
3) Placement
You may notice that my second area is also along on the 0 Y axis, this is because i built my second box directly under to first.
Personal note: I find it easier to keep track of things if your center and _skybox have the same x/y values
4) This scale key
You might have also noticed from the previous screen shot that box my areas are the same size. The '_skybox' entity has a key pair called '_scale' that you can set to a number to increase everything inside the skybox area by that many times.
Note: If you use '_scale' and have the same texture appearing in both areas, you may want to set the Horizontal and Vertical scale of the surfaces in skybox using the 'Surface Inspector', to make sure they appear the same size in your finished map. Example:
the ground on this map in the Player's Area is 0.5 H & V Scale, the ground inside the Skybox area is 0.25 H & V scale, because when it's scaled up 0.25 time 2 equals 0.5
5) The finished map
Compiling the map doesn't require any extra switches with q3map2, so you can compile it in what ever fashion. For this example I used:
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"C:\Program Files\Smokin' Guns\smokinguns\compiler\q3map2.exe" -fs_basepath "C:\Program Files\Smokin' Guns" "C:\Program Files\Smokin' Guns\smokinguns\maps\dm_simpleskybox.map"
"C:\Program Files\Smokin' Guns\smokinguns\compiler\q3map2.exe" -vis -fs_basepath "C:\Program Files\Smokin' Guns" "C:\Program Files\Smokin' Guns\smokinguns\maps\dm_simpleskybox.bsp"
"C:\Program Files\Smokin' Guns\smokinguns\compiler\q3map2.exe" -light -bounce 4 -compensate 4 -gamma 2 -fs_basepath "C:\Program Files\Smokin' Guns" "C:\Program Files\Smokin' Guns\smokinguns\maps\dm_simpleskybox.bsp"
The finished map looks like this
Slightly more advanced usage:
This tool does have some interesting properties:
-Things in the skybox will be visible from all parts of your map, such as tall roofs
-you can try to hide edges of your map where it meets the skybox
-You can have a well clipped outdoor map that still seems to have an odd shape to it
Here are some Shots of a slightly more advanced i made to demostrate some of the things you can do with '_skybox'
ingame the map looks like this:
I have drawn an overlay to show where the 2 parts of the map meet. The red line is along the visible part of the seam, the areas in blue are inside of the player's area, and the parts in orange are in the skybox entity area.
Here the church and cliff face aren't visible because I'm in a different section of the map, but the steeple and top edge of cliff in the skybox entity area are still visible.
This last Screenshot has r_showtris 1 set, so that you can see this can also cause some problems with clipping, even though the church and part of the cliff face aren't loaded, some times the parts of skybox entity area may still be loaded.
Note: Although I say 'outside the skybox' it is entirely possible to have an objects in the skybox entity area appear within the area with the player, the objects will act as a non-solid.