| Nerdboy |
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3D skyboxes are an amazing piece of hammer that is demonstrated in a ton of maps, and almost every map in HL2. 3D skyboxes are a little hard to make at first, but become extremely easy afterwards.
1. Make your map geometry. I made a really basic glass room with a metal floor, ceiling, and a column in the middle. Don't forget to add your skybox brushes to the map!
2. Go to the entities tab. Scroll down the entity dropbox until you find sky_camera. Place the sky_camera in your map and align it at the origin (0,0,0) point. This is important for aligning purposes! Do not place the sky_camera anywhere else!
3. Go to edit and choose select all. Hit Ctrl+C on the keyboard, or go to edit copy. Select paste special and a panel should pop up.
4. Click okay. You now have a replica of your geometry. Hit Ctrl+M or go to tools and choose Transform. Select scale.
5. 3D Skyboxes are usually 1/12 scale, or 0.0625 scale. Type 0.0625 in every box and click okay.
6. It's like you shipped you map off to a miniature model factory! You have a 1/12th scale replica of your entire map. Move this outside your big map. Group it (try anything you can to leave the sky_camera out of the group.) Build you skybox's geometry around this mini model. Just as refrences, texture scale for 1/12th is 0.01625, and the sky_camera is from the player's point of view. Don't build anything in your small 1/12th scale refrence or you'll encounter errors.
7. With your geometry all set, what you need to do now is simple: place the skybox for your 3dskybox (sorry, I don't know if it's possible to do multiple 3d skyboxes so don't try.) Your 3D Skybox NEEDS to be surrounded in skybox. Be sure that it is or you'll encounter problems.
8. Now it's time to delete anything unneccessary. Remove your refrence but leave the sky_camera. Now return to your origin and remove the other sky_camera in your main map.
9. Your skybox is finished. Save, compile, and test your map. It will take a while to do this.
Tips:
- You can scale down your skybox in the sky_camera properties. It speeds up your compile time, but the measurements are your job.
- Make sure you put your env_sun in the skybox, if anywhere.
- The models valve has for the skybox are 1/12th scale.
Warnings:
- Big maps will lead to EXTREME compile times and a high chance of crash.
- The bigger the 3d skybox, the more freedom people have to walk around in there. |
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