free skyboxes

If you scroll to the very bottom of the page he says to email him if you have comments or suggestions. where the word says email is his email if you click on it or just hover and look in the statusbar window.

My buddy Luis Sempe has a Skybox and Skydome tutorial, code, and example over at www.spheregames.com. Should work with most projects with minimal changes.

I would check out terragen. Its easy to use and as of the current version wont cost you anything. They have links to several tutorials on using it there too.

http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/


[edited by - bu11frog on January 14, 2004 12:06:38 AM]

Thanks for all your replies.

CyberJay82: Sorry my post must have been written confusingly. I did try to email Crinity and his email address is dead (returns my mail saying that his username doesn''t exist).


ichor: I think the site you linked me to has code for skyboxes but what I meant was I want to know how to construct the textures that make up a skybox, from photos or a program. Thanks for your reply though.


bu11frog: I did see terragen already and it looks pretty good. But the site says it is not free for commercial use. I want to use the skybox in my Creative contest entry, so it must be free for commercial use. I will probably end up using it for personal projects in the future though, so thanks.



Any more ideas? I know other people will have skyboxes in their contest entries. Where are you getting your skybox from or how are you creating it yourself?

I think that all this should be solved if someone makes(made) a program in which you render stuff and then take 6 pics with the camera in pixel-perfect positions It would also be suited for reflection-cube map texturing I never tryed it but I might make a test in something like 3DS MAX(just to see how cameras get aligned)

-sky photos: http://www.1000skies.com/
-Creating Backgrounds for 3D Games tutorial: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19981023/bell_01.htm
-Terragen with the plugin terrasky is another good and easy option.
Forum about terragen, terrasky.
http://www.modtheater.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8767

Hey jaba, those skies at the 1000 skies website, how do you use them? I mean, do they go on a skybox? or can you texture it onto a sphere? I looked at their little 3d viewer demo but i can''t figure out what they texture them on.

I use them to make sky box(generate 6 textures) with 3d max, the gamasutra tutorial explains how to make it. I don''t try it, but texturing a hemisphere (skydome) with the photo can look very well too.

jaba, thanks for your info.

It looks like I would need to buy a sky from http://www.1000skies.com/.

The partial skies are around $5 I think, but they look like they don''t match up at the sides. Would I be able to use a partial sky on a skybox? or would I need the full skies($50) that match up on the sides?

The gamasutra article was helpfull but I think it was saying I need to make a 3d model of surroundings and then take renders of it. I don''t think I can make a 3D model of the quality that most skyboxes have, in a timely manner. I would like to just convert a image file like the skies on 1000skies.com into the 6 skybox pictures, I don''t think the gamasutra article was about doing it from a single picture. Is it really easy to make the 6 pictures from 1 in photoshop and I am just not realizing?

Are other people making demos for the contest using skyboxes? I know there are some. Did you make your skybox? How? From photos you had? Image you made in photoshop? 3ds model renders? Or did you buy/ask permission for skybox textures from someone?

I sent you an email that i hope helps you out

Why don''t you post it on this forum instead of sending an email?

He sent me an email becuase he was sending me a file. If he had sent me any info that I thought would help someone else I would have posted it here for you to see, but what the email was about was really specific info about the skybox I wanted to use and it''s legal statment in the text file.


I still do not know how to make my own skybox, I would really still like to know. I think from the gamasutra tutorial I could make my own using bryce or 3DSM, but I would have to take a lot of time to create a scene.

@jaba
You said "I use them to make sky box(generate 6 textures) with 3d max, the gamasutra tutorial explains how to make it."

But I don''t see how to use the 1000skies images to make a skybox in 3DSM. The gamasutra tutorial was about making the 6 textures from a scene you built in 3DSM, not from an image.

Do you map the image onto an object within 3DSM in order to take the skybox renders? What type of object? A sphere?

Thanks