Skydomes

[Metal Head]

Hey guys. Can you point me to some place where I can learn to make skydome textures? So far I've only been working with skyboxes, so I have no idea of how to make a skydome texture. I searched for tutorials all around the internet and no luck.

[Phatsniper]

Check out this post from Danimal yesterday in the WIP thread: http://forums.epicgames.com/showpost.php?p=27090022&postcount=134

[Metal Head]

Thanks, that was useful! And what if I want to put a spherical skydome, so it would be a skysphere :D The first scene from our project is in space and for a space environment, skydomes won't do well

[PuckerFactor]

Another good method is shown here...using a dome-like chamfer box. the Authour "Fallen667" says the texture mapping works better than a half-dome.

http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=712965

[danimal']

To be clear so I don't sound like I'm ripping him off, I borrowed the general idea from Henrik seen here (he also has a thread in General): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCxFGC1xiFQ

My end solution is different than his, but it was definitely inspired by his work. Literally, I took a plane, and used soft selection to "bulge" it up, then played with the bulge and the UV's to see what seemed to work best with a couple of different types of textures. Some of the above mentioned techniques require specifically altered maps such as here: http://www.cgtextures.com/skies.php

Which is great if that's all you want to use, but I wanted to be able to make my own skies in something like Photoshop. I ended up liking the bulged plane + a spherized texture in Photoshop. Essentially my UV's ended up looking like this, which match up nicely with exactly what spherize does.

Here's the dome and UV's next to it:
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/1092/capture3nj.jpg

Here's what spherize does in Photoshop:
http://www.creativepro.com/files/story_images/100402_fgb.jpg

As you can see, they're pretty much the same thing, which means I can make completely standard resolution images and just run 'em through the filter at the last minute.

[Metal Head]

Thanks guys, those were some really nice replies!
Amm, I'm more worried about making a spherical environment. Not a skydome, but something that will surround the level completely. And I'm not worried about the enviroment model as much as I'm worried about creating the spherical environment AND it's textures. So can you give me some ideas or even better - an example of how to make a spherical environment model that will surround my level completely? :)

[Xendance]

Thanks guys, those were some really nice replies!
Amm, I'm more worried about making a spherical environment. Not a skydome, but something that will surround the level completely. And I'm not worried about the enviroment model as much as I'm worried about creating the spherical environment AND it's textures. So can you give me some ideas or even better - an example of how to make a spherical environment model that will surround my level completely? :)

In 3ds Max: Make a sphere primitive, convert to poly, use normal modifier and flip normals. Done. The UV maps are correct by default (for a 360 degree panorama pic).

[Sir. Polaris]

After reading this and taking notes I surmised my notes and created a walkthough. I'll post it here as for anyone having trouble. I dubbed it a SkyCloth :D

Walkthough - Skycloth - ScribD (http://www.scribd.com/full/25984582?access_key=key-2h5d39ixweveljzz179z)

[danimal']

Very nice of you to do that. I do suggest bulging it up way more than you did, if you see my pic above, the bulge is more a true half-sphere with the half-sphere bulge touching the outside of the plane. I realize that may not be obvious from a top-down view. The end result should look almost exactly like a real half-sphere that simply has cornered edges, rather than a hill.

http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/3391/capture3ki.jpg

It results in far less "compression" on the horizon, since the sphere is coming almost straight up out of the plane, whereas in yours, that slow gradual bulge will make a lot of compression (texture space not parallel to viewer, starting to run perpendicular). I started out more like yours (but ran my dome much higher like a true half-sphere), but then I used scale to sort of inflate the bulge. Just my 2 cents, I think your tutorial should get people on the right road and they can experiment for themselves :) Well done.

[DaemonXR]

Metal Head, you will have to work in some image processing program. I am using Photoshop CS.It is the world best. U will need to acquire or make your space image of a very high resolution if u wanna good effect. If u cant or dont know how to make such image u can try google a space images and crop it and blend it into one big than use google for links about tutorials (such are these i put here) and do a spherical texture map u will later apply into your big space dome. It is not easy as it seems but these steps are inevitable and u will be happy with results.
I hope it helps.
These sites can be very interesting for all sky dome makers:)

http://www.philohome.com/panorama.htm

or this:

http://www.easypano.com/panorama-software.html?gclid=CI6eyJW-1J8CFQIUzAodlEEJcA
http://www.maxoncomputer.com/tutorial_detail.asp?tutorialID=54&site=