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3 Dimensional Chat / How do you make a skybox?

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SJH
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Posted: 31st Dec 2008 20:13
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I remember a while ago while playing Halo, I started wondering how they made the sky and surrounding background. Is a skybox a giant sphere that is painted and has some moving 3d models like moving clouds and moving glaciers and water on the ground? Or is it a giant cylinder made with the smae properties?

Hope someone answers soon

-SJH
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ninja9578
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Posted: 31st Dec 2008 20:23
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A little of both.

Halo had a sky. It was a texture that was placed on the screen where there was no other geometry. Most of the Halo levels and the first level in space used that system.

Other levels had a huge dome over it. The most obvious one was Truth and Reconciliation, you could literally see the geometry every once in a while if you were in night vision mode.

Some of the objects in the Halo sky were physical models though, The Halo itself was a real model, so were the moons and planets. They were huge and far away, Bungie optimized the engine to do that, most engines couldn't handle that.

Nothing is impossible
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CoffeeGrunt
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Posted: 1st Jan 2009 00:38
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Hmm, I'd think it was more likely that they were small, but made to look huge and distant...

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Aaagreen
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Posted: 1st Jan 2009 12:43
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Liek the 3d skybox system in Source.

Your signature has been erased by a mod - Please reduce the combined size to 600x120 maximum size
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ninja9578
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Posted: 1st Jan 2009 18:44
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Quote: "Hmm, I'd think it was more likely that they were small, but made to look huge and distant..."

No, I was part of a group who full y explored the geometry of Halo, some of the things in the Halo sky were HUGE. The Halo that you saw in the sky of most of the levels was 50x the size of any of the maps.

Nothing is impossible
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CoffeeGrunt
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Posted: 1st Jan 2009 18:45
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Wow...

"Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Give a man a fishing rod, and he'll break it up into firewood...or swap it for a fish."
-Frankie Boyle, on Mock the Week
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Dar13
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Posted: 1st Jan 2009 19:07
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jeez thats big...

I know not with what weapons WWIII will be fought but WWIV will be fought with sticks and stones-Albert Einstein
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Jetherit
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Posted: 2nd Jan 2009 05:52
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Im not sure why Bungie would go through the trouble of making such processor intensive sky effects, but as someone said before, I think the best way is to fill in the blanks where nothing else was rendered. Im pretty sure that's how they do it in World of Warcraft, especially in Outland, so that the trippy green lines show no matter where you are.

Im not sure if you're asking how you can put one in your own game, or if you're just curious about Halo's approach. Either way, good luck.

From JASS to Q-BASIC to Java to C++
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ninja9578
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Posted: 3rd Jan 2009 04:59 Edited at: 3rd Jan 2009 05:06
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I remember taking the flycam into the level Boarding Action and flying off towards one of the planets. I left a weight on the movement key for over an hour while I watched television and barely made it half way. When I finally got there I couldn't even see the two ships anymore. I wish I could find a picture of it.

Here's a picture of the Halo object where it is plainly separate from the skydome.


Nothing is impossible
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BMacZero
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Posted: 3rd Jan 2009 06:01 Edited at: 3rd Jan 2009 06:04
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Just to clarify, a skybox is a cube with the normals pointed toward the inside. A sky texture is applied to the cube.

Similar to that is a skysphere. Basically the same thing, except instead of a cube, it's a sphere.

The textures on these will usually be just a sky color (if you plan on using animated, 3D clouds) or a full-on sky unto themselves with clouds and a sun painted onto them.

Either of these could easily be supplemented by other 3D objects (moving just inside of them, near the top) such as clouds, spaceships, and whatever else might be flying in your sky.

Usually anything on the ground, such as glaciers and water as you mentioned, is not part of the skybox but is a seperate object much like the flying objects described above.

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fallen one
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Posted: 3rd Jan 2009 10:48
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Google for Bryce skybox tutorial, download the free versions of Bryce that Daz gives out, go to my site and download my skybox example, and change the textures for your own, job done

Jolly Good http://www.avantivitastudios.com/
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