MasterSword: Continued mapping - Skybox info

[J-M v2.5.5]

MasterSword: Continued has quite some interesting skyboxes. I did some research on the pitch/yaw values, light source locations, and ideal light color/brightness of all these skyboxes. I triple-checked the information and tested everything in-game.

First, some information about skyboxes. Hammer has a strange orientation system, as you may have noticed. In the top (x/y) view, the right side of the screen is 0°, the top of the screen is 90°, the left side of the screen is 180°, and the bottom of the screen is 270°. The following two pictures should make clear how every skybox wraps around a map:


Every new point-based entity you create will be oriented in the direction marked by the orange arrow, which is 0°.


This picture illustrates how the six skybox images (bk, dn, ft, lf, rt, up) connect with each other.
(click to enlarge)

Without further ado, the skyboxes:
(all of them can be clicked to enlarge)

 

[Thothie]

Should stick in images of the HL1 skys too, since they are also available.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

http://www.vlatitude.com/resources/hl_sky.php
Only six are actually useful, and five out of these six are the same cliffs in different lighting situations. The rest is mostly alien or Xen stuff.

 

[Thothie]

I suspect the Xen ones could be quite useful, paticularly if you wanted to do an elemental plane thing (or just had one room with sky you teleported the players to). The only straight-out one I see, would be the city skyline... Lest you like that old D&D dungeon 'City of the Gods'.

 

[Netrogor]

*drools... and rabidly scratches self in disbelief of such beautiful skyboxes*
Awesome....

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Yeah, I thought the same. I never really realized that there were such beatiful skyboxes in this game, used and unused.

I mean, just look at the "volare" skybox. I think that's used in the dangerous pass, or in the ruins of Keledros. Awesome skybox.

 

[Tao]

Woah

But in the map they seem to be not very detailed.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

There is a very simple reason for this. Goldsource skyboxes consist out of six seamless images of 256x256 pixels. What you are looking at are the "back", "right", "front" and "left" images next to each other. I didn't include the "top" and "bottom" images because that would make each image alot higher.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is: you are looking at the exact, full size of the skyboxes. Yes, the images actually are just that big. However, in-game they get scaled to a much bigger size. No matter how big your map is, the skybox always seems far, far away. Making an image so much bigger causes it to blur out. And that is what causes the crappy look.

In Source, skybox images can be up to 1024x1024 pixels. Not to mention you can also create a 3D skybox in Source.

So the Goldsource limitation of 256x256 pixel skybox images is the cause for the low quality in-game.

 

[Thothie]

The Skyboxes also seem to dither to some odd 256 color palette - or at least they do on my system - I may have fubarbed something that's causing this.

Most people who make new maps seem to be releasing them with custom sky textures, the quality of which do not measure up to those of HL1 nor those included with MSC. They also take up a lot of extra space, and add immensely to the data the client has to download when connecting to a server. So be sure to look through these, carefully, before considering adding extra stuff for your players to download.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

It is very easy to make quality skyboxes for Goldsource using a nice program called Terragen. I'll have to write a tutorial on that sometime.

 

[Netrogor]

Yes, you should do that... it would be nice to have more maps for MSC (and other mods) where you can look up without hurting your eyes from poor quality skyboxes...

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Did you, ehm, you know... check the date on this topic?

 

[Crow]

I can't remember where I ninja'd all the skyboxes I have from, but here are a few of the better ones from my collection.

 

[evilsquirrel]

that last one might be good for some sort of elven forest...

 

[Thothie]

Yaz gonna link does, or do we hafta chop them up into TGA's?

 

[evilsquirrel]

Yaz gonna link does, or do we hafta chop them up into TGA's?

we cant chop them thothie...no bottom/top

 

[Crow]

hehe

heres a link to every skybox in the folder i have.

theres a good chance there are some in there that msc already has, i didnt take the time to look cuz im lazy ^ 10

Linky

in case you didnt know, the tga files are the only ones you worry about. copy them into your /msc/gfx/env folder

i think

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Wow dude, thanks! I'll have to reinstall Photoshop CS2 to update this topic someday... I haven't even added the snowy skyboxes from the frozen summit and the nightmare thornlands yet... >_>

 

[Thothie]

heh, Nightmare_Thornlands is just a photoshoped bit of ms_snow a bunch of goofie skulls in the sky.

 

[PBarnum]

Can I get a download link to the fullmoon skybox? I don't have it in my gfx/env folder.

 

[Thothie]

Hmm... What map did that come with? :\

I've no idea, it's not in my client folder, but it IS on my server, so:
http://www.thothie.com/msc_dev2/fullmoon.rar

If you use that, you'll have to add it to your .res file, as it is apparently non-vanilla. Tis a lot of extra DL for loading clients, so ye may be better off with " ax_darkclouds " or " LMmnts ".

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Wow, someone actually used the information in this thread
It's been a while.

I don't know which map came with "fullmoon", but I do know that I just installed MS: C v1.0, all the custom maps from thothie.com/ms and the betapack and voila, there it is.

This topic is outdated too, by the way. Perhaps I'll reinstall Photoshop CS2 someday and add the "snow", "snowcliff_" and "nm_snowcliff_" skyboxes.

 

[Thothie]

I don't know which map came with "fullmoon", but I do know that I just installed MS: C v1.0, all the custom maps from thothie.com/ms and the betapack and voila, there it is.

Not in the raw MSC install, nor the betapack, gotta be a custom map... And one my current client hasn't been to... Hrmmm...

 

[Gurluas]

Nashalrath will use some of the original hl1 skyboxes(if the map gets cut up in parts as we are discussing) else just one

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

So I downloaded some of the custom map archives from your website, and apparently "fullmoon" comes with World Walker part one. It's in ww_preview.zip (along with "green") and apparently you haven't been there