Skybox Noob Help

(fattakin) #1

Before you say it, ive already went through the tutorial on nibsworld and still cant get this working!

Ive build a small box above the main map, its a hollow caulked affair - ive textured the sides in ‘battery sky’ but left a flat terrain (common/terrain) as im not bothered by mountains (a la nibworld tutorial) Ive placed the prop_skybox in the centre.

When complied it looks no different, i can still see the corners of my map. (the brush joins) The sides and top of my main box are also textured in ‘battery sky’… ive tried caulking these as well.

I cant find any other Tutorials bar the one mentioned. can anyone advise!

Am i right in saying that Airstrikes will work when the skyportal works??
At the minutes they are 'aborting cant see target’Also couldnt mind any tut’s specifically for Airstrikes / Landmines ( but got those working!)

While we are at it, im wondering also:
How do i set enviroment lighting?? and what would be a good example of Late Evening darkness?

(eRRoLfLyNN) #2

I could also use help with this. I can see the corners of my “regular” box with a sky texture. Is there any way to get rid of this, without using an “external” skybox a la Nibs’ tutorial?

Re airstrikes - is it only a matter of raising the height of your top brush to get them to work? At the minute all I’m getting is “Aborting: Can’t see target”. Dumb pilot grrr :lol

How much above their heighest building do mappers normally put their sky at, for mortars etc?

(MuffinMan) #3

when you make a sky you have to use a working sky shader (shaders describe how the textures should be used) this means to have to either do one yourself or take an existing. in the textures window you see white borders around some of the textures, this means there is a shader for them and so they might work, actually most of them don’t except battery and goldrush i think. anyway - if you use such a sky you should not see any edges or lines, otherwise it’s not a working shader.

a skybox like described in nibs tutorial is something else. the purpose is not to set a sky texture but to blend other stuff over it, like mountains at a far distance for example, for that you create that little box with the prop_skybox in it and put in some little terrain for example, this terrain will then be viewable from your map like if it was around your map.

(fattakin) #4

Thanks Muffinman… so if i dont want a set of montains / terrain i can skip the skybox… OK.

So back to my Box Map - how do i get a sky that streches across and i cant see the joins??
My ceiling and 4 walls use the ‘battery_clouds’ and you can easily see the upper joins. So if i use the ‘battery_mask_ydnar’ which is one of those with the white borders that should work?

Do i need to make any adjustments to shaderfiles? If so… what?!

(MadMaximus) #5

as MuffinMan mentioned earlier, you need to use a sky shader, only a couple work in the et texture list. skies/sd_batterysky works, you can try that one. basicly a texture is just a picture, in the texture list it will be plain with no white border, but a shader that uses a picture ( texture ) will have the white border around it. in the shader for a sky it will set parameters that define it as a sky and how it is setup.

the props_skyportal does work as long as you use a proper sky shader.

(MuffinMan) #6

try the mentioned skies until you find one that works and then have a look at it’s shader, at the moment i am at work and can’t get an example here let me see if i can find something…

(MuffinMan) #7

there are tutorials on shaders available, some good ones at claudec’s laire for example and there are more of them at other pages and of course the documentation, I’d suggest to read a few of them to get an understanding, you will need it anyway if you’re not going to reuse an existing sky

(fattakin) #8

I just want to get a convincing sky up and running with airstrikes for the weekend as im playtesting a map designed for my buddies at a LAN party. I have been reading the Documentation as much as possible and will try yr suggestions tonite! Thanks

(fattakin) #9

Hey Max & muffi - that worked

I textured the 4 sides and roof in skies/sd_battery and it looks class and air stikes etc working first time. Thanks for the tips

Now can anyone advise on:
How do i set enviroment lighting?? and what would be a good example of Late Evening darkness?

(MuffinMan) #10

you can set ambient or better minlight in worldspawn, anyway the best method would be to place light entities with a high fading value and texture lights to get the ambient lighting you need