Figured out Custom Skies from Scratch - Nearly!!!
Posted: Fri Jun 18, 2004 3:14 am
RIght, this is a quick one, as Im at work, but I'm very very close to figuring out custom skies, from scratch, rather than bootlegging original skies.
For my map, Im working on a custom sky, showing the earth in all its glory from space. Here is an example of a tut I am in the process of writing showing how to make the sky, with a pic of the sky there:
http://wiki.fpsgamers.se/index.php/Halo/MoonbaseSkyTut
(On Halo Wiki - Free, unregistered upload as well as download/view tutorials!! We Need More TUTS!!)
The problem is, this sky is bootleg, in that I copied dusk.sky and all its shaders, renamed them and reapplied bitmaps as and where I need them. But I can't resize bitmaps, or reposition them. Only a really bodgit way of resizing in that I get the bitmap into photoshop and reduce the actual usuable image in the same 512x512 frame if you get me.
So, I started to experiment with custom skies. Here's what I did:
1.)Went into 3ds. Created a sphere of radius 50,000 (yes, 50,000). Normal segmentation.
2.)Edit->Mesh for the sphere, flipped normals.
3.)Applied material called skytest with a basic starfield to inside of sphere, applied basic UVW spherical map.
4.)Created a frame (did I mention both frame and sphere are at 0,0,0). called it frame.
5.)Linked sphere to frame. Exported as JMS
6.)Went to guerilla. Created new shader_transparent_chicago, name starfield. Applied the starfield map (which btw I converted to bitmap using tool again) etc..
7.)Went to Tool. Typed tool model sky\skytest skytest. This created a gearbox model out of my sky
8.)Went to guerilla. Created a new sky called skytest.sky based on the skytest.gbx model that I created. Edited them all so they all link to each other etc.etc. & maps applied properly,
9.) Stuck the sky in a test map Im working on, and loaded Sapiens.
BO! A custom sky! But!! One problem.....
The sky works, its very very basic, need some proper UVW mapping etc, and maybe a little more than just stars, but it has paralax error.
Sapiens is rendering my sky, but when I strafe across my level at camera speed 60x, the sky appears to move a little behind the sun, like its not at infinite distance.
I tried making the sky bigger and bigger, it helped, but its still not infinite like the proper skies in Halo.
I tried adding stuff like # and ! to the end of the material name to see what effect that had. None, other than for tool to ask me now to create a shader for starfield# so maybe I was doing that wrong.
Ok, if anyone knows how to fix this paralax, I'd be more than grateful. Even a few random guesses. Im writing a tutorial on custom skies to add to the Halo Wiki. I am more than happy to acknowledge anyone who helps in a meaningful way, that way, everyones happy and the community can benefit from being able to create custom skies!!!!!!
For my map, Im working on a custom sky, showing the earth in all its glory from space. Here is an example of a tut I am in the process of writing showing how to make the sky, with a pic of the sky there:
http://wiki.fpsgamers.se/index.php/Halo/MoonbaseSkyTut
(On Halo Wiki - Free, unregistered upload as well as download/view tutorials!! We Need More TUTS!!)
The problem is, this sky is bootleg, in that I copied dusk.sky and all its shaders, renamed them and reapplied bitmaps as and where I need them. But I can't resize bitmaps, or reposition them. Only a really bodgit way of resizing in that I get the bitmap into photoshop and reduce the actual usuable image in the same 512x512 frame if you get me.
So, I started to experiment with custom skies. Here's what I did:
1.)Went into 3ds. Created a sphere of radius 50,000 (yes, 50,000). Normal segmentation.
2.)Edit->Mesh for the sphere, flipped normals.
3.)Applied material called skytest with a basic starfield to inside of sphere, applied basic UVW spherical map.
4.)Created a frame (did I mention both frame and sphere are at 0,0,0). called it frame.
5.)Linked sphere to frame. Exported as JMS
6.)Went to guerilla. Created new shader_transparent_chicago, name starfield. Applied the starfield map (which btw I converted to bitmap using tool again) etc..
7.)Went to Tool. Typed tool model sky\skytest skytest. This created a gearbox model out of my sky
8.)Went to guerilla. Created a new sky called skytest.sky based on the skytest.gbx model that I created. Edited them all so they all link to each other etc.etc. & maps applied properly,
9.) Stuck the sky in a test map Im working on, and loaded Sapiens.
BO! A custom sky! But!! One problem.....
The sky works, its very very basic, need some proper UVW mapping etc, and maybe a little more than just stars, but it has paralax error.
Sapiens is rendering my sky, but when I strafe across my level at camera speed 60x, the sky appears to move a little behind the sun, like its not at infinite distance.
I tried making the sky bigger and bigger, it helped, but its still not infinite like the proper skies in Halo.
I tried adding stuff like # and ! to the end of the material name to see what effect that had. None, other than for tool to ask me now to create a shader for starfield# so maybe I was doing that wrong.
Ok, if anyone knows how to fix this paralax, I'd be more than grateful. Even a few random guesses. Im writing a tutorial on custom skies to add to the Halo Wiki. I am more than happy to acknowledge anyone who helps in a meaningful way, that way, everyones happy and the community can benefit from being able to create custom skies!!!!!!
Go BABy Go! *whiff of sarcasm*
