Skybox

[Meyer]

I'd like to ask if someone could explain to me how you make a skybox from the start... I just can't figure out how to make that darn skybox... could someone please explain it in detail.

 

[omlette]

1) Create a brush
2) Go to the texture browse and filter for "skybox"
3) You should see a blue texture that says SKYBOX on it. Apply this to the brush.
4) Hollow it out and place it around your level or over a window or wherever the sky needs to be seen
5) Map -> Map properties -> Skybox texture

This is where I don't know where else to help you, because the default texture doesn't load, and I don't know how to configure a working one. So this should help you up to a point, just short of finishing it.

 

[Shady]

It's actually really easy. 3 steps: Make a ceiling and the 4 outer walls and apply the texture called "skybox" to them (doesn't matter how the texture looks on it). Then up top on the toolbar click "Map" then "Map Properties." On the list click on "SkyBox Texture Name" and type in one of the following:

cx
de_cobble
de_piranesi
hav
italy
jungle
office
sky_dust
sky_wasteland02

When you play your map in game the sky you typed in will show...
Now 3d skies are another story...

 

[navyseal2004]

So the skybox is technically a room with no floor which is covering your map right?

 

[Anable]

"Technically" the skybox is simply a texture that gives you the allusion of the sky by not reflecting bullets and looking sky-like. In practical application the skybox closes off your map from the big black emptiness in your Hammer editor while appearing sky-like. There's a sample map that you can load that came with the SDK called "sdk_3d_skymap".

 

[Shady]

Yup - a room with no floor. Just make it tall and have the sides of it be flush with all the outer side of your map. Any areas of the map that are open to the "sky" area (can see any part of it) will see the sky that you chose. That simple

Open "sdk_3d_skymap" in the maps folder for more info. That one uses a 3d sky as well - which is actually quite simple and fun to make. Just mess around on there & you'll understand. U make a 2nd smaller kinda level in the same map off to the side. It's fully boxed in by skybox and has an entity in the middle (camera something?). Everything in it is 1/16 scale of the normal map. When you load your map, the mini level u made will shows up in the "skybox" portion of your main map. Any brushes yo umake that are around the entity in the mini map will be shown 16 times larger (normal size) on the big map. It's really inexpensive on resources because its just taking a really small, uncostly map and projecting it in your main maps skybox. Hope that was explained ok ?

 

[Meyer]

Thanks alot for the quick replies everyone... One more thing though... when I made the sort of box and added the skybox texture and did the map properties thing... I can't see the skybox in the camera view... all the other textures are showing however... is the skybox applied now or not? I'd like to see what my map looks like with all the textures in place before I start it up.

 

[Meyer]

nevermind

Thanks alot for the quick replies everyone... One more thing though... when I made the sort of box and added the skybox texture and did the map properties thing... I can't see the skybox in the camera view... all the other textures are showing however... is the skybox applied now or not? I'd like to see what my map looks like with all the textures in place before I start it up.

nevermind i got it to work... thanks so much guys...

 

[Meyer]

Don't want to start a hundred new threads for everything i don't get so... I'll just go on with this one... Ok so i think i've got at least the basics under control now... so I made a room and everything is just fine... except the table model I put in the room doesn't show up... it's there and i can stand on top of it, shoot and destroy it... but I can't see it.

 

[Shady]

I didn't have any problem with models.. I had problem with creating a brush and applying a box texture to it... You're supposed to use prop_physc_multiplayer (which uses shitty physics, but at least it cuts down on cpu usage) and the box shows in game and breaks when i shoot it, but I can walk through it?

 

[coolcps]

Every level I make with sky, it always comes out black. I always get the error when the map is loading "cannot load wasteland_02" or whatever. Anyone else had this problem?

 

[Turd Furguson]

you can't use the wasteland skybox because it doesn't exist. in map properties, change the wasteland to office or something

 

[navyseal2004]

If I want my map to be set at night, what do I have to do?

 

[jmjneary]

make your own texture