The Harvest Moon Consortium

[Izk The Mad]

After a lot of fiddling around, I seem to have been successful in making my first skybox. It's made with layered captures from "The Fountain" and Dore's White Rose

[IMG]http://www.rpgmodding.com/forums/pictur ... ctureid=78[/IMG]

A shot of the skybox skin.

[IMG]http://www.rpgmodding.com/forums/pictur ... ctureid=77[/IMG]

And what I started with. I really like the way this one looks.

[IMG]http://www.rpgmodding.com/forums/pictur ... ctureid=76[/IMG]

[lord rosenkrantz]

Hey, that neat and different, very well done

[Izk The Mad]

Thanks, lord r!

Version 2, or "why I lost hours of sleep last night". I decided to try adding the back side of the tunnel using more shots from "The Fountain". The edges still need a little work, but I'm really happy with the effect.

[IMG]http://www.rpgmodding.com/forums/pictur ... ctureid=80[/IMG]

[Tybae]

Wow! Those are awesome, Izk.

*veers slightly off topic*

Forgive my ignorance, but what program do you use for skyboxes? Do they need to be in a 3d program, or does Photoshop work?

[Izk The Mad]

Thanks! I'm just using Photoshop, and I "borrowed" an existing mdl from the CSP and edited it in wordpad. I did a lot of fiddling with multiple layers and transparency to make it all blend together.


Another variation with Dore's image:

[IMG]http://www.rpgmodding.com/forums/pictur ... ctureid=83[/IMG]



And something for the dark side:

[IMG]http://www.rpgmodding.com/forums/pictur ... ctureid=84[/IMG]



The back side of version 2:

[IMG]http://www.rpgmodding.com/forums/pictur ... ctureid=82[/IMG]



And the darn seams. How bad does this look, everybody? I'm too much of a perfectionist, but I'm also a little lazy...

[IMG]http://www.rpgmodding.com/forums/pictur ... ctureid=81[/IMG]

I think I may even make a variation with the Eye and Dore's White Rose combined for the front and back, sort of in limbo between good and evil, somehow.

[Tybae]

There's an easy way around the seams, just use the healing brush and blur tool. It will blend together quite nicely.

[quote=Izk The Mad;11657]Thanks! I'm just using Photoshop, and I "borrowed" an existing mdl from the CSP and edited it in wordpad. I did a lot of fiddling with multiple layers and transparency to make it all blend together.[/quote]

That's what I thought. I recognized the radial blur for the interior.

Now that I know that Photoshop can be used for Skyboxes, I just may join the party. What is the resolution and pixel dimensions for skyboxes?

[Izk The Mad]

[quote=Tybae]There's an easy way around the seams, just use the healing brush and blur tool. It will blend together quite nicely.[/quote]

I've used the blur tool, but I haven't found the healing brush. Would something like that work across two different edges of an image? I have to confess I'm still a novice at Photoshop, even though I've been able to pull off some interesting things over the years. I'm sure I'm still doing things the hard way sometimes. I was fortunate enough to receive a used copy of PS6 from a customer/gamer friend of mine.

[quote=Tybae]That's what I thought. I recognized the radial blur for the interior.[/quote]

Actually, I didn't use that, though I have used it before. This was all just layers and pieces of layers and transparency changes, and some careful "airbrush" erasing to blend things together. A little blur tool too, of course.

[quote=Tybae]Now that I know that Photoshop can be used for Skyboxes, I just may join the party. What is the resolution and pixel dimensions for skyboxes?[/quote]

The more the merrier! The ones in the CSP are 1024 x 1024 24 bit tgas. 2048 x 2048 works too, which is what I made mine. I wanted the extra detail for the angels from Dore's pic.

[Tybae]

[quote]I've used the blur tool, but I haven't found the healing brush. Would something like that work across two different edges of an image?[/quote]

Yes, just merge the two layers together and go from there. The Healing Brush is the tool that looks like a band-aid. It's similar to the Cloning Stamp tool, but it copies textures from the target and applies the color of the pixels to the destination. I think it was introduced with CS1, so you might not have that tool. The easy way around it is to use the rectangular selection tool and select the seam, then apply a slight motion blur to the area. It will mask the seam. Just make sure you don't feather the area too much.

[quote] I have to confess I'm still a novice at Photoshop, even though I've been able to pull off some interesting things over the years. I'm sure I'm still doing things the hard way sometimes. I was fortunate enough to receive a used copy of PS6 from a customer/gamer friend of mine.[/quote]

There are some good tutorials on Youtube and some good tutorials on Luv2Help.

[quote]Actually, I didn't use that, though I have used it before. This was all just layers and pieces of layers and transparency changes, and some careful "airbrush" erasing to blend things together. A little blur tool too, of course.[/quote]

Heh, you may be doing things the hard way. A radial blur will acheive the same effect more easily.

[quote]The more the merrier! The ones in the CSP are 1024 x 1024 24 bit tgas. 2048 x 2048 works too, which is what I made mine. I wanted the extra detail for the angels from Dore's pic.[/quote]

Sweet! Thanks for that.

[WojtekPod]

The skybox looks very promising - I am looking forward to testing it in the game.

WojtekPod

[Izk The Mad]

Thanks for the encouragement, everybody!

This is something I was just playing with. I think I like it, though it's pure evil. A "Pit" sky:

[IMG]http://www.rpgmodding.com/forums/pictur ... ctureid=89[/IMG]


The back side. I ended up with some strange effects because of how I layered this together. This isn't a seam. It's more like a Rorschach Test:

[IMG]http://www.rpgmodding.com/forums/pictur ... ctureid=90[/IMG]


I've been sharing these with everybody because I want the feedback. This is my first attempt at CC, and it's good to know I'm doing something worthwhile.

Edit: This might look good with the Underdark tileset. *Izk runs off to test*