help with skybox

I am pretty clueless as of how to get a skybox to render properly. It always looks like a blurred mass in the distance.
What I've been doing is to create a large, hollow cube with the desired map sky texture.
I've also tried a box with the "skybox" texture and then put another cube elsewhere with the textures and a skycam entity. I assume I'm just going about this all wrong, any suggestions.

Thanks

Yup, I'm afraid you have done two fairly logical things but neither is
right :biggrin: To make a normal, 2D skybox, you encase your level in brushes
covered in the "skybox" texture that is a flat light blue colour with
the word skybox on it. To choose which actual sky you want to be
rendered, you go to map -> map properties -> skybox texture name,
and enter the name of the sky texture you want to use. If you look in
the materials browser and see you want to use the set comprising of
havft, havbk, havlf, etc... then you would enter the common part of the
name, in this case "hav".

Okay, thanks much, I'll go check it out

I'm having a bit of trouble with this as well. I had a single paint can in my map initialy as a prop_phys_multi, and it worked, but now that I have added several more paint cans, a pallet, and some pottery I can only see the pallet! (didn't seem worth starting a new topic)

Errr, but that is entirely unrelated to skyboxes! Put it in a new
topic, people might not check this since its marked as answered
already, and I'm afraid I don't know the answer :sad:

<DIV>I have a Problem with the skyseams </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>ive set up hammer for hl2 </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>the only sky i have is sky_wasteland02... now i tried to do it the easy way and make a block around my map ... made it hollow and a skybox ....</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>but u can always see the seams where the top meets the sides ... does anyone have the same problem or any solution to fix this ? </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>heres an image :</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>

I think that has to do with the sky's image itself and nothing you've done.

we'll see when there'll be more skies to choose from :smile:

Vahn said:
we'll see when there'll be more skies to choose from :smile:

There's already like 8.
To see the names (I can't check at the moment) just open the GCF files (I would imagine/hope GCFscape still works)

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Vahn</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
<DIV>I have a Problem with the skyseams </DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV>ive set up hammer for hl2 </DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV>the only sky i have is sky_wasteland02... now i tried to do it the easy way and make a block around my map ... made it hollow and a skybox ....</DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV>but u can always see the seams where the top meets the sides ... does anyone have the same problem or any solution to fix this ? </DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV>heres an image :</DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV>
I used to get this in original HL when using Direct3D. I don't know about HL2 though...although I have seent his occur once in a while, but not as consistant as this.

how did you set it up for hl2? we can make hl2 maps now??!?!? how?!?!?!

also,

http://www.snarkpit.com/forums.php?forum=6&topic=2359&5

list of cs skyboxes

http://www.snarkpit.com/editing.php?page=tutorials&game=HL2&id=119

Personally all that does for me is remove some resources (I get less
textures and props to use, not more, not different), but others seem to
have it working properly.

Im a poor newb and have to wait till christmas till i can map hl2 but watching all these little problems get fixed might help me later =P

I suck at computers so i need help on this... also excuse my horrible spelling(when i don't know i spell phoneticaly)

1. what is the diffrence between 2D skybox and a 3D skybox, and how do you make a 3D skybox.

2. every time i make a hollow "sky box" around my map, .0625 sized map or any thing it be comes invincible, its there but you can't see it.

3.when i do make a skybox the box its self is just blueish color and i can't see a texture on it...

i need a lot of help on this pleaseuv'e been working for about four days on this i've read every tut i could find on google and yahoo; while try to do it at the same time (by the why yours was the best) i suck so much at this thanks

and Dr. Green's government is an [athouritarian fiscist dictatorship plotacracy]; this form of government is more towards the reactionary right of the political world, not the left. (communist/slosalist/liberal side of the isle.)

1. A 2D skybox is just a set of pictures made to look like an
environment. These pictures are placed around the outside of the level
by the game to look like what is outside of it. A 3D skybox can be used
in addition to the 2D skybox, and it allows you to place small, low
detail objects around your level that are scaled up during the game.
The 3D skybox is cheaper for the engine to handle than normal geometry,
and so you can create a rather vast inaccessible "outside" to the level
that isn't just a static picture but is a truly 3D setting.

2. I'm not really sure what you mean here. Do you mean it is invisible
in the editor, or in the game? For starters, ignore the 3D skybox and
just build a big hollow cube around your level entirely covered in the
"skybox" texture that is plain blue with a grid on it and the word
"skybox" printed on it. Now go to "map -> map properties ->
skybox name" and enter a valid sky name, such as "cx", "havana", or one
of the others you get listed in the materials browser when you search
for skybox. After you compile, you should see the correct sky being
displayed around the outside of your map.

3. You aren't meant to see the actual sky until you compile the map and
play it in the actual game. The blue texture seen in the editor is just
to represent the sky while you are building the map.

i fixed the 1 and 2 problems but im still having trouble with the 2 when i make the sky_cam and do that jazz, i then put it in a sky_box but the box turns the enviroment (walls, mountians, ect...)invinsible on teh editor, its strange.

I'm having some trouble doing 3d skyboxes... I want to make hills, as seen in many cs maps, but whenever I copy the displacements and the sky_camera and scale them down to .0625, the displacements get seriously messed up. When I run the map.. they seem like they are 16times too big.. so almost as if its getting scaled up 32times. but it seems to be more vertical.. its hard to tell, but I think its okay length and width wise.. its just the height that gets super messed up... anythoughts on this? I have a few pics.. but I don't have anywhere to upload them, sorry.

A very popular place to upload images here is http://www.imageshack.us. I dunno if this is relevant, but have you tried creating the hills at 1/16 scale, rather than resizing them?

indeed. the problem seems to be soley the fact that scaleing displacements doesn't work. You have to do your displacements after you scale everything down.