Skybox?

[-Psy-]

I've followed the Valve tutorial for Skyboxes but it doesn't work.

Someone help me!

 

[Ti133700N]

We'll need more infos to help you. Explain what you did, post some screenshots.

 

[silentbob]

1. make a huge ass box around you entire level in the 2D area (dont hit enter yet)
2. select the skybox texture
3. hit enter
4. go to Tools>Make Hollow
5. width=16 is fine.
6. (optional) go to Map>Map Properties
7. for the skybox param choose what sky you want. (to see the different skies to choose from go into your texture browser and filter for 'sky', then just type that name [ex. sky_wasteland02] into the map properties skybox param)
8. your done with your 2D skybox!

 

[Raeven0]

1. make a huge ass box around you entire level in the 2D area (dont hit enter yet)
2. select the skybox texture
3. hit enter
4. go to Tools>Make Hollow
5. width=16 is fine.
6. (optional) go to Map>Map Properties
7. for the skybox param choose what sky you want. (to see the different skies to choose from go into your texture browser and filter for 'sky', then just type that name [ex. sky_wasteland02] into the map properties skybox param)
8. your done with your 2D skybox!

Don't listen to him. He doesn't know what he's talking about.

http://img132.exs.cx/img132/4930/wrongsky1dw.jpg

http://img132.exs.cx/img132/3909/rightsky3za.jpg

 

[-Psy-]

Explain please

 

[Unvision]

Well, the second guy got it "righter."

We need more information to understand what you're doing. If you followed the tutorials and looked at the reference map, I'm guessing it isn't something so simple as not knowing how to make it - you're having trouble making it work on a more technical level.

But, without further information, that's all we can give you.

Don't just surround your map in it. Also, it's kinda a bad habit to use hollow to make rooms (or skyboxes.) Finally, you shouldn't have skybox on the outside of your skybox brushes, only on the inside (basically, if a side of a brush can't be seen by the player, it should be covered in nodraw - this applies to everything, not just skyboxes.)

Imagine that every face of a skybox-covered brush is a player - anything that "player" can see takes away from performance. For this reason, you don't want skybox textures in places the player can't see, under things, overlapping other brushes, behind things... basically you just have to think logically about where it needs to go, basing your decisions on those rules.

 

[Mess]

Sometimes it's necessary to have your skybox quite large, to make room for gunships etc.

 

[_Meitsi_]

Sometimes it's necessary to have your skybox quite large, to make room for gunships etc.

...and it looks very stupid if physics stuff or grenades "bounce" from the sky

 

[Raeven0]

But there's a difference in making it quite large and making it a giant hollow cube that includes the unneeded outer portions of the map.

 

[-Psy-]

Well, the problem is, is that the faces of the skybox are pointing outwards when I think they have to be facing towards the map

 

[Dead-Inside]

What are you talking about? ALL faces of the skybox brush should be covered with the skybox texture...

 

[Phisionary]

What are you talking about? ALL faces of the skybox brush should be covered with the skybox texture...

Why is that?

 

[pur3r4ge]

The ones pointing outside the sealed areas are discarded at the time of compile, so it doesn't matter what texture they have.

 

[FireCrack]

^yes.

Also avoid doing the bi cube around your map method. It takes much longer to compile AND runs worse. You'r best off making "corridors" above your streets or whatever, or putting little "boxes" outside windows.

Ofcourse, you may need to make modifications for the sake of fliers.

 

[Dead-Inside]

Why is that?

Because, according to VALVe, the compile might decide to screw on you. There's no gain in only texturing one side either way.

 

[-Psy-]

Well I made the skybox. But the sky is just black in-game...

[img=http://img11.exs.cx/img11/549/skybox5xw.th.jpg]

 

[Dead-Inside]

I can't decide what's skybox and what's not.. Are you trying to use a 3D skybox?

 

[-Psy-]

Yes I am.

If there is a 2D skybox of some sort tell me how to do it!

 

[Dead-Inside]

WTf? You know (Well you're trying to) how to make a 3D skybox but you can't make a 2D skybox?

Anyway, simplest ever is to make a big fat box around your map and just texture all sides with tools/skybox.

Best way is to isolate all areas so that you don't have to draw vis on uneccesary places and it's also cheaper on the engine ingame.

This you should do with or without having a 3D skybox. Both need the 2D skybox around the actual map.

For a 3d Skybox, build all stuff except models and displacements around your map that you want in your 3D skybox and add a skycamera at your grid origin (This is where two BLUE lines meet on your grid)

When you're done, select all 3d skybox material, move it to the side, and scale it down with 0.0625, one 16:th of it's original size, and move this outside the map a bit, so it's not in your actual map. The skycamera should follow along ! And then you're done.

 

[Nard]

Hmm, what about this:

Have you defined a sky texture in the map properties?

I have no idea if the engine puts a sky by default if you leave the field empty (I never tried), but you might want a sky texture in particular anyway...

 

[Dead-Inside]

Hammer loads a default sky (d2_wasteland or something along those lines) when you create a new map, so unless you've been a bad newb and edited a line you don't know anything about, you should have a sky.

 

[-Psy-]

I got a skybox working, but I got crap lighting

 

[Dead-Inside]

Got a light_environment? Works wonders. You might have a leak if you say stuff like that though.

 

[Atomkinder]

Odd (and noob-seeming) problem: my light_environment doesn't work, no matter what I do to it, and I can't find any tutorials that include anything beyond "put a light_environment in there" which is incredibly frustrating.

I've tried putting it everywhere, in everything (skybox, map, both, etc) and multiple positioning.

Help plz? Step-by-step to make this damn thing work?

 

[Dead-Inside]

Put the pitch to ~70 and then tweak the x/y angles if you want, etc...

When you got one working in your map, copy it and paste it in your 3D Skybox. Placement doesn't matter on a normal map as long as it's in there.