Tips on making a good skybox

[DownloadTheseSweetViruses]

Does anyone have tips on making a good skybox?

 

 

 

Thanks,

[Kappes Buur]

Which map format do you use?

For original DOOM your option is limited to just a sky texture.

For an advanced port you have the option to set a control

sector with the sky viewpoint thing or define a proper 6 sided

skybox.

 

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Sky

https://zdoom.org/wiki/Sky

https://zdoom.org/wiki/Skybox

 

In any case, the image(s) must be tiled to be seamless.

 

[ReX]

8 hours ago, DownloadTheseSweetViruses said:

.... making ....

Are you asking about creating the graphics for a new skybox? Or using an existing skybox? If the latter, use the suggestions by @Kappes Buur

[DownloadTheseSweetViruses]

10 minutes ago, ReX said:

Are you asking about creating the graphics for a new skybox? Or using an existing skybox? If the latter, use the suggestions by @Kappes Buur

I said making? My mistake I meant using an existing picture.

[ReX]

In that case, refer to what @Kappes Buur suggested. But you still need to specify if you're using a new sky for doom/2.exe or one of the source ports.

 

If you're using doom/2.exe, you just need to make sure your sky graphic tiles horizontally (i.e., the left edge of the picture seamlessly joins with the right side of that same picture).

[DownloadTheseSweetViruses]

7 minutes ago, ReX said:

In that case, refer to what @Kappes Buur suggested. But you still need to specify if you're using a new sky for doom/2.exe or one of the source ports.

 

If you're using doom/2.exe, you just need to make sure your sky graphic tiles horizontally (i.e., the left edge of the picture seamlessly joins with the right side of that same picture).

Right, thank you.

[Bauul]

I'd actually be curious to know good programs for genuinely making 6-sided skyboxes.  

[DownloadTheseSweetViruses]

6 minutes ago, Bauul said:

I'd actually be curious to know good programs for genuinely making 6-sided skyboxes.  

Me too,

[jerrysheppy]

1 hour ago, Bauul said:

I'd actually be curious to know good programs for genuinely making 6-sided skyboxes.  

 

This, plus any skybox texture repositories or packs.  There are all sorts of Doom and Quake projects out there with really neat custom skyboxes, but it seems like if I search the web for skybox resources, all I can find is generic landscape stuff that doesn't necessarily seem to suit a map set in Hell, say.  Where do people get their skyboxes from?

[Kappes Buur]

3 hours ago, Bauul said:

I'd actually be curious to know good programs for genuinely making 6-sided skyboxes.  

 

Terragen 0.9.43

Terragen 4 Free

https://sourceforge.net/projects/spacescape/

https://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Graphic/Graphic-Editors/Nem-s-Mega-3D-Terrain-Generator.shtml

 

https://www.quaddicted.com/webarchive/kell.quaddicted.com/skyboxes.html

https://lvlworld.com/review/id:2023

 

Maybe still available somewhere on the net, the skyboxes by Wadfather

 

 

 

[jerrysheppy]

22 minutes ago, Kappes Buur said:

 

https://www.quaddicted.com/webarchive/kell.quaddicted.com/skyboxes.html

 

 

This is actually one of the resources I was talking about when I mentioned I'd found some skybox repositories, but they mostly seemed to have (relatively) mundane landscapes, maybe sci-fi alien planets at most.  Nothing that reminds me of some of the more memorable vanilla Doom skies I've seen.  

 

(not trying to sound ungrateful, Kappes—just taking the opportunity to reiterate my lament and hope that someone will be able to give leads on some more Doomy/Quakey skyboxes.)

 

23 minutes ago, Kappes Buur said:

https://lvlworld.com/review/id:2023

 

This one, though, looks like it might have one or two promising candidates!

Edited October 29, 2020 by jerrysheppy

[ReX]

@jerrysheppy: The Kothic Skybox set includes some volcanic & red desert landscapes that could fit with Hell-themed maps. Examples are Gehenna, Dragonfire, Dragonheart, and Ares. But if you're looking for something resembling the Hell levels of DooM2, you are quite correct about there being a shortage of skies.

[plums]

23 hours ago, Bauul said:

I'd actually be curious to know good programs for genuinely making 6-sided skyboxes.  

I have a half-finished tutorial on how to make a proper 6-sided skybox from a large rectangular texture/image. Part of the hold-up is that the tools to do it in Windows are command-line utilities that are kind of convoluted to use, and even to install. The other part is that I'm really impulsive about what I want to do with my time on any given day and haven't felt like typing out a tutorial in a while :p