Search / View

[Joe Kari]

There is something that we really lack (and me or my brother can't produce that by ourself) it's fine skybox. If someone have great skills with Terragen, or whatever software, please contribute

[Murphy]

I don't have great skills with Terragen by any standard, but I might give this a go later.
What do you have in mind? Monumentvalley-like scenes? Desert scenes? Sunsets, nights, high-noons?


For now I'd like to offer two links:
http://www.cgtextures.com/
Go there and click on Skies 360. There are a number of great skyboxes made from real skies (ie photos) and some even come in cubemap form. The site allows you to use these textures for anything (commercial or not!) unless you sell the textures or modifications thereof as textures ie. you use them to create a competition for that site on the texture market. You are however free to use the textures for any other project. So, you guys might want to have a look at the skies over there.

http://liandri.darkbb.com/unrealengine- ... en-t34.htm
This link above is a link to my personal UnrealEd forum where I offer tutorials and some bits and pieces of content as well as support for UnrealEd stuff (mostly UnrealEd 3.0). However, since UnrealEd also works with Skyboxes I have written a tutorial that explains how to get Terragen to render square textures that can be used in a skybox. If someone else wants to have a go at some Terragen skyboxes, feel free to check out that tutorial.

EDIT: What kind of texture sizes and formats do you need?
Should I just upload the 960*960 24-bit bmp source files I edited slightly (removed spikes) so you can scale and convert them to what you need or do you want, say, 512*512 jpegs.

EDIT2: -removed-
EDIT3: See below for previews and download options!

[Joe Kari]

Thanks a lot, nice job

About CG-Texture, last time I go there, their skybox was only skies ! I mean: there was no ground (like mountain, canyon, hills, or plain).
This is great for "skybox entity", but not really usefull for classical cubic skybox.

* If you want to give us a ready-to-use skybox, jpeg 512x512 is fine, just do it with at least 80% of jpeg quality, under 80% there are visible jpeg artifact.
* If you want to provide source at the original output size of terragen, just convert them to PNG-24 (BMP file are a little too big, and PNG is non-destructive too). Or if you don't have anything to export PNG, just export a jpeg at 100% quality.


EDIT: I didn't find your sun in this skybox
And about sun, if possible, can you put in your README.txt the coordinate of the sun you have set in Terragen ? It is really usefull for mapper to have the sun coordinate, because it is what we put in the skybox shader, this allow us to cast shadow at the right angle

[Murphy]

The sun comes directly from the west (perfect middle of the "West.bmp") and shines down from an altitude of 20.376°.

I will upload a new zip-file with 512*512 jpegs and a new readme tomorrow. If you can think of anything else you need in there, let me know.

[ReD NeCKersoN]

Is there anything to be gained by using a larger texture size for skyboxes? 1024x1024 for example? Would the images be crisper or would it just be overkill?

Also, there are times when I'd like to have a plain blue sky with no background terrain. With sun at high noon. With clouds & without.

[Murphy]

I will pack sky-only versions of the skybox above into the zip I will upload tomorrow.
EDIT:

Ok, here it comes: The textures for a six sided, cubic skybox with landscape and without.

Northern side of the skybox with landscape:


Northern side of the skybox without landscape:


Download the 512*512 versions of the textures (recommended)!
Download the 1024*1024 versions of the textures!

I hope this helps.

[==diop]

Is there anything to be gained by using a larger texture size for skyboxes? 1024x1024 for example? Would the images be crisper or would it just be overkill?

Also, there are times when I'd like to have a plain blue sky with no background terrain. With sun at high noon. With clouds & without.

Im not sure but i think that the 512*512 is the maximum (engine limit). I remember in half-life 1 it was 256x256 max (same as the default texture limit).

[Joe Kari]

Hi,

I still need hi-quality skyboxes.
Especially with a semi-desert (desert with some plant) or green landscape, with smooth hill (we already have plenty of rocky skyboxes).

And please remember to give the exact sun coordinate when submitting a sky, I need to know it to cast shadow at the right angle.

[Crank]

Look here

the Textures are free to use
The skies look very good...

But you have to register if you want to have the full size. (its free ;D)


edit: damn somebody posted the site before me... yeah ill try to read the topic before i post next time

[Joe Kari]

Sure, but all those skies doesn't have landscape,

I still need hi-quality skyboxes.
Especially with a semi-desert (desert with some plant) or green landscape, with smooth hill (we already have plenty of rocky skyboxes).

[EvilFutsin]

Shall I send Leon your way?

[Joe Kari]

Probably

[Granknight]

might it be still needed, i am quite skilled with terragen and now i'm getting practical with terragen 2.

[ReD NeCKersoN]

might it be still needed, i am quite skilled with terragen and now i'm getting practical with terragen 2.

It would be nice to have some more skyboxes, yes.

[kaiyouw]

Maybe a dark one, as if it was night =]