"Endless" Ocean in 3D Skybox

The map I'm working on is an island in the middle of nowhere. I have water surrounding the island which the player can swim through etc, then there's the water in the skybox. There always appears to be a nasty transition point from the real water to the skybox water and then the edge of the water in the skybox just finishes leaving another nasty looking edge at the skybox texture itself. Anybody know of a way (other than fog because that doesn't affect the skybox texture) to make this look more realistic or will I just need to put up mountains or something?

Map download: http://www.mrated.com/photos/thecave/dm_The_Cave.zip

Screenshots: http://www.mrated.com/photos/thecave/dm_the_cave0003%20(800x640).jpg

http://www.mrated.com/photos/thecave/dm_the_cave0004%20(800x640).jpg

Thanks in advance for any help!

you could use env_fog and sky_camera fog. Or you could use a
water_lod and set the transition from good looking to crap looking
water so it is just inside the 'real' area of the map.

make sure you make the full size replica of your sky box water and line
it up right with your 'real' map water then scale the sky box water to
1/16 or .0625

do you have the 3dskybox scaled down to the right size .0625? Also, make sure you have your light env copied and pasted in both your real map and 3d skybox. If you have these both done correctly I dont know, I have a 3d skybox in my latest map and the concrete blends seemlessly with the rest of my map though I have not tried it with water yet.

heres a thought:

in the real world, sometimes there is a breakwater, or reef that will separate deep water (choppy) from shallow water (calm)

perhaps, if this is not a resolvable problem, you could incorporate this idea.

i was playing around with the same thing, endless water. I got it to look a lot better by playing around with the texture sizes. I never got it to the point where you couldnt see the line but it became a lot better.

Perhaps not scaling the water at all might help? And then
changing the "3d Skybox scale" in the sky_camera to 1? I haven't
tried anything with that setting, but it seems like it's possible it
could help.

Thanks for the suggestions but I'm still stuck... :sad:

I've rebuilt the skybox a few times over the past weeks as follows:

Insert sky_camera at 0 0 0
Ctrl-Select the water brush in the map
Copy, Paste, Resize to 0.0625 and move out of main map
Delete original sky_camera
Duplicate mini water brush, resize x & y by 2
Use first mini water brush to cut out the new larger one leaving a hole in the middle

Of course fiddling with fog etc. I still have noticable corners on my world and I've set the "fog start" to 300... the problem is the water in the skybox doesn't do the underwater caustics, the textures don't line up (remember they're animated), the water's edge is very obvious.

I've just checked the Coast01 map in HL2 single player and Valve haven't used water in their 3D skybox, the visible water is one big-ass water brush! It's gotta be cheap water (plus there are nasty little worm/piranha things in the water if you swim out too far!)... looks like it's back to the drawing board on this one. :sad:

I would also suggest you just put a huge water brush into your "real" level, several thousand units in dimension- 3D skyboxes only help with rendering solid architecture, don't they? Make sure you have a water_lod_control and a transition to cheap water value though, and you should be fine.

I think that if you drop your water in the 3dskybox down 1 unit so its 1 unit below the level of your water in your real map it might hide the seam, something to try anyways.

I've ditched the 3D Skybox after looking at the way coast01 was done for HL2 and have set the fog to the colour of the skybox texture at that point (took screenshot, opened in photoshop to get the RGB value). I've set the transition to cheap water and the fog start point to low values (200). Looks much better but because the area of the skybox texture the water hits isn't the same colour all the way around you still have a border, most obvious if you get on top of the hill. I'm considering chopping the corners off the giant square water brush but that may start impacting performance which isn't exactly super fast at the moment. I've updated the file on the web so if you want to download the map and check it out again, go for it. Thanks again chaps!

I would also suggest you just put a huge water brush into your
"real" level, several thousand units in dimension- 3D skyboxes only
help with rendering solid architecture, don't they? Make sure you have
a water_lod_control and a transition to cheap water value though, and
you should be fine.

shudders the SHEER mass! wow several thousands. I wonder if my comp can even run maps that big. rubs hands together ;P

What it you make your brush water look liek teh horizon and use a normal, non-water skybox.

Oh rs6, what are we to do with you, you're often coming up with great solutions but every once in a while spout absolute gibberish! :smile: Check out Finger's new map in the maps forum, he does it quite well.

Using nature/water_canals03 I've managed to make a decent, texture-aligned ocean effect in my current map quite easily- I've got 'normal' water about 1000 units in width before it hits the skybox, and since both have the same texture scale they line up perfectly. Although, the underwater "caustics" don't work, but I don't think there's anything you can do about that. Fog start distance is several thousand which should help, too.