clouds

[WAR_Nuker]

ok so i have a map that takes place in the sky. i put the skybox in and it looks good....only thing is that when you look down off the edge you can see where the skybox ends and where the bottom starts. the bottom is just like a big pale blue square and looks terrible....but i guess thats how valve made their skybox materials. so, i decided to put in clouds to make it look not as bad and to add a more....above the clouds feel. this is what gets me. i used func_dustcloud and made the particles real big and not have so many spawned. thing is that even at these few particles, the framerate is terrible when you look down. its like 15 fps. +showbudget tells me its the 'swap buffers'....but that seems to be the excuse for low fps all the time. im thinking i might just delete the dustcloud thing and insert cloud sprites wherever i see fit....dunno if that will work though. any suggestions?

 

[Icewolf717]

Just use fog

 

[WAR_Nuker]

fog doesnt overlap the skybox texture

 

[Kyorisu]

Fog in a 3d skybox?

 

[Icewolf717]

oh, actualy in the sky? I thought he just needed to block visibilty to the buttom of the skybox.

 

[WAR_Nuker]

well i made my own skybox texture that looks decent all around so i wont need so many clouds to cover up the bottom. before i was just putting the env_sprites in the 3d skybox but it looked a bit tacky as i was just using them to cover up the bottom texture. now i think ill use func_dustcloud or whatever its called in the 3d skybox and i wont have to make the clouds so plentiful. thanks all.

 

[silentbob]

no no no... there is a prop you need to drop in your skybox or around your map... let me go find it...

yeah here:
models/props/cs_office/clouds.mdl

there are several versions of this prop so if you dont want to touch CSS props you can look for it elsewhere.

good luck

 

[Viperidae]

I use func_smokevolume with very large particle sizes, large spacing, with slow rotate and move speeds. The default material doesn't work, so I'd recommend particle/particle_noisesphere.

 

[WAR_Nuker]

im mapping for hl2 dm btw....i did find a sufficient cloud sprite but i will give that smokevolume a test run. thanks again.