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Doublesky effect with skyboxes

Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2009 19:18
by Enjay
I don't think that this is possible, but just to check. I have been trying to use Unreal-style 360° skyboxes with the Quake/Hexen like double sky effect. You know the one where you specify 2 skies and one is drawn over the other but the front one has holes in it so you can see the one behind. So you can scroll clouds over a static background, for example.

I've tried a few things to get transparent holes in the front sky (PNGs with transparency, Doom format with transparency, Doom palette with index 0 (as per the Wiki)) and have managed to create holes in my front sky. However, I can only see HOM where the holes are, not the rear sky.

At present, I don't have a decent skybox to do this with but, if it is supposed to work, I might try to get Terragen to make a cloudy sky that I can then edit to remove everything but the clouds so that I can "superimpose" it over another skybox. If, however, it isn't supposed to work, there isn't any point in me fighting with Terragen (which I'm not very proficient at) to try and get the skybox.

Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2009 22:40
by Graf Zahl
This feature is not supported for skyboxes.

Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2009 23:34
by Enjay
Fair enough. I'll stop trying then. ;)

Thanks.

Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 12:52
by Enjay
Where there's a will there's a way, as they say. ;)

http://www.zen64060.zen.co.uk/mistysky.wmv (about 780KB)

"Standard" GZdoom skybox (adapted from the marshes sky from Heretic II).
All white cloudy skybox placed on the faces of a cube-shaped MD2 model (surfaces of the cube facing inwards, rather than outwards).
Cube model set to be translucent and slowly rotating.
In-level skybox built.
Md2 model placed inside level skybox.
Skybox camera placed inside the rotating model.

It's not perfect (the faces of the md2 model need a bit of work to get them to line up a bit better) but it's pretty close.

Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2009 3:12
by Rex Claussen
Enjay wrote:Where there's a will there's a way, as they say. ;)
You persistent bastard.

I like the effect of the swirling/moving fog. In fact, I paid more attention to that than the movng clouds.

All in all, a swell show.

Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2009 13:36
by Enjay
:mrgreen:

It's all part of the same sky effect. By lucky coincidence, the lower part of the white cloudy sky textures that I used look more foggy than cloudy and work well against the already foggy looking static Heretic II skybox.

Re: Doublesky effect with skyboxes

Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2009 7:59
by Tormentor667
Now imagine the possibilites... any chance of you sharing the files with us?

Re: Doublesky effect with skyboxes

Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2009 12:38
by Enjay
Not sure where they are ATM as I'm still a bit "between computers" but, yes, I should be able to dig out the files and post them. It's nothin' fancy really. It's just a cube-shaped model with each internal face mapped to a picture of a sky. Place the skybox camera inside the model, set the model to rotate and build the rest of your sky outside the model in the traditional Zdoom way.

Re: Doublesky effect with skyboxes

Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 10:50
by Tormentor667
I think it's a good base if you imagine that replacing and altering textures could make up for a real amazing skybox without much problems :) Thx for sharing that!