What exactly is F_sky?

I checked it out with Wintex. It just looks like a little rocky thing and it's a floor texture. What does it do?

Umm.....it's a ceiling texture that becomes a sky.

F_SKY gets replaced in-game by the textures SKY1, SKY2, SKY3, or SKY4 depending on the episode that the map is in. The textures are then displayed in the sky "fashion" that we're used to seeing (cant remember the word for it).

I remember that I also had problems figuring out how the skies work, back when I first started out.
Why couldn't id software use a series of F_Skies in their list. Such as F_Sky1, F_Sky2, F_Sky3, etc. instead of just using one F_sky.
It would have made things so much simpler for many mappers.

It's a 64x64 segment of SKY1 from the Doom Press Release.

DarkJedi188 said:

I remember that I also had problems figuring out how the skies work, back when I first started out.
Why couldn't id software use a series of F_Skies in their list. Such as F_Sky1, F_Sky2, F_Sky3, etc. instead of just using one F_sky.
It would have made things so much simpler for many mappers.

That's as good a question as many other ones regarding Doom's strange anomalies. I think it was easier for them to handle if there was only one sky texture present in a level. Don't forget that the engine was programmed to handle the stock levels and user add-ons weren't even thought of back then.

So basically, when you put a F_sky on the ceiling, it will just be 64x64 square of sky?

No! It will be replaced by the sky graphic in a parallax fashion that the level is predetermined to use.

Why didn't you make your own little one room wad with F_SKY1 as the ceiling texture and see what it did.
er wait do you even know how to make a wad?

DarkSoul said:

er wait do you even know how to make a wad?

Darksoul, before you start telling everyone they can't make wads, make sure they have something to show first (screenshots, map downloads, etc). Keep in mind we've already seen thousands of retards that say that about others but never made a wad themselves.

Someone really ought to make that into a tag. :P

Darkhaven said:

Someone really ought to make that into a tag. :P

Not really, no

Oh well, I tried ;)

... and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try.

Think of it like this. I'm not sure this is the way that the engine really works, but whatever, go screw a donkey.

When you tell a flat to be f_sky, that's just a placeholder that tells the engine "OK, don't draw anything there, but we want to draw the sky (which is really just a texture) without skewing it like we skew the rest of our textures, before rendering anything else, so everything else goes on top of it."

Kind of like taking the ceiling out and photoshopping the landscape behind it.

I think it works like this: the engine takes the fsky for the current episode and stretches it in a circle for a background before the level is even shown. then the level is placed inside it and every fsky flat shows you the current view of the background with the level of the forground. Too bad this made NO SENSE at all.

I found your information very useful guys... I just had the prob myself, and got very pissed when my first attempt to make a sky, simply acted like a ordinary floor-/ceiling texture.. :p

It's the sky. You put it on the ceiling and you've got an outdoor area.
As for what the picture is, I think it's the sky for Doom alpha. Strife's F_SKY1 flat is really bizzare though. It's apparently a crudely drawn smiling sun with the words "HAPPY SKY" written under it.

Was bumping this really necessary?

Doomworld Forums Faq said:

Please do not bump threads older than a month or two.

Is backseat modding really necessary?

I remember when I thought you had to make walls with the sky textures on them that were REALLY far away from the rest of the map.. so far that they looked stationary when you moved. Then I realized that real way to do this was by making a sector that had a floor height that equaled the ceiling height and the fsky1 flat.. or something. Bleh now I forget because I havent mapped in a bit :P

GGG said:

Was bumping this really necessary?

No.

Kaiser said:

Is backseat modding really necessary?

No.