Author Topic: how do i make my own skybox?  (Read 4693 times)

ive been trying to make my OWN skybox for like 2 weeks now but i still cannot figure out how the forget to make one
i've already patched together a skybox once before, but what tools are required to actually draw your own skybox? or generate one?
ive searched and searched and the only tutorials i can find are on how to make a skybox from a pre-made set of images, but i want to completely make/generate one on my own, without any
of that nonsense. plz help. cant find anything.

yeah ive also searched for some kind of tool that makes it easier but have had no luck

Skyboxes are just JPGs/PNGs, you can just draw whatever as long as their dimensions are something like 512 or 1024, skybox textures bigger than that may freeze the game for a brief moment to load in the textures

Then from there you can use any text editor to make the DML and ATMOSPHERE files, and you can look default/other skyboxes to see how they're set up

note that if you draw stuff on the skybox, the corners will looked squished due to it being a skybox instead of a sphere
i think there are programs to undo that effect?

There's probably an effect or plugin for GIMP, Paint.NET, or Photoshop that can help make your flat square textures look spherical when set to a skybox

I think Blender can also do something like that, but IDK

pretty sure there was a somewhat recent post about doing it with blender
probably in general discussion or modification discussion somewhere

pretty sure there was a somewhat recent post about doing it with blender
probably in general discussion or modification discussion somewhere
https://forum.blockland.us/index.php?topic=323182.0


https://forum.blockland.us/index.php?topic=323182.0
this still requires you to use pre-made skyboxes, not generate your own. also, i found a paint.net plugin that automatically maps a cube to a sphere ( https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/28104-trs-spherecuber-spherical-view-to-cube-view-converter/ )
but, when used, it pinches the top and bottom of the sphere, making it basically useless. also had to finnick around with how on earth im supposed to make it seamless in paint.net but i just ended up mirroring it, which looks jarring.

noedit : found a method of how you could probably distort your skybox to be spherical, and i'd imagine you can combine this with trogtor's method.
as for generating a skybox, and keep it seamless all in paint.net, i'm still not sure how you would do that.

just use the subdivision surface modifier and crank it up abit, then it creates a perfect sphere-cube-shape onto which you can just place your flat, seamless textures and it will distort them.

this still requires you to use pre-made skyboxes, not generate your own. also, i found a paint.net plugin that automatically maps a cube to a sphere ( https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/28104-trs-spherecuber-spherical-view-to-cube-view-converter/ )
but, when used, it pinches the top and bottom of the sphere, making it basically useless. also had to finnick around with how on earth im supposed to make it seamless in paint.net but i just ended up mirroring it, which looks jarring.
That plugin is for spherical view images, which i think is like when you take a 360 degree photo that gets stitched together, which, your textures are not that, and that's why they get distorted

That plugin is for spherical view images, which i think is like when you take a 360 degree photo that gets stitched together, which, your textures are not that, and that's why they get distorted
ah, ok, that explains that i guess
a further update : got this far into making a skybox, then ran into a brick wall : i have absolutely no idea how to smooth this out so that its seamless. anyone got any ideas?

noedit : tried to stitch it together in blender, got a headache trying to figure out how to add textures to the rendered model. gonna try to continue this tomorrow, if anyone has any better ideas please post them, i really want to make a skybox and have a good method for making skyboxes

dead links
the leopard.hosting links are now leopard.hosting.pecon.us
they probably still work, just need to change the hostname

this still requires you to use pre-made skyboxes, not generate your own.
was just suggesting it as another way to make them, if you can make HDRI images
whatever you find easier

ah, ok, that explains that i guess
a further update : got this far into making a skybox, then ran into a brick wall : i have absolutely no idea how to smooth this out so that its seamless. anyone got any ideas?
what's the issue, the top edges don't match the side edges or something?
you should be able to copy and rotate the top piece over and work on each edge individually

what's the issue, the top edges don't match the side edges or something?
you should be able to copy and rotate the top piece over and work on each edge individually
well that isnt needed, whats needed is i need to somehow smooth the top part, which is made up of the 4 tops of the other parts that line up with it
and rotating is a pain in the ass in paint.net, you cant just "rotate by 90 degrees", you have to use a command which can sometimes place the rotated image outside of the canvas meanin you have to retry, and a whole bunch of other stuff, you can just input a value to rotate it by