Post by Hook on Apr 2, 2018 14:56:56 GMT -6
Basic SkyBoxes for UT Maps
By "Hook" - 6/5/02
I have had a number of mappers tell me that they just do not understand how to make and/or how to get a skybox to work. The following tutorial will give you the basics on skyboxes so you will know how to build on what you learn here to create more complex skyboxes. I will give some pointers of course but I do not want to clutter your mind with extra info that may only confuse you & cloud the basics you need to build a working skybox. You can then use this basic knowledge to go on and be creative with your skyboxes.
This tutorial should give you a good idea of how a skybox works!
Just remember that the skybox is separate from the actual playable map area!
Basically, the skybox is a "stage" and the skyboxinfo actor is a "camera" that displays what it sees in the skybox to your map area, on any and all textured surfaces that are set as a fake backdrop.
The textured surfaces that are set as fake backdrops are the "TV screens" that show what the skyboxinfo camera sees, so to speak!
The following will show you how to make a very basic skyboxed UT map:
For this tutorial, your map will be a one room playing area and I will refer to this area as your map.
So start a new map consisting of one room. Make the room size 512 wide x 800 long by 640 high.
The size is not critical. Subtract it from the world using any texture you want. Put a light or 2 in this room and also a playerstart or 2 in it. Rebuild and Save the map as any name you want, say as DM-Skyboxdemo.
Now, outside this room, we will make the skybox. Make this skybox room size 256 wide x 400 long by 320 high. Subtract it from the word using any texture you want. This is about 1/2 the size of the map room, but again, the size is not real important, at least for this tutorial. In this room add a skyboxinfo actor right in the middle of the skybox or at the center. You may have to move the skyboxinfo to get it in the center. Add a light to this skybox room. Now, change all the textures in this skybox room to some kind of starry night texture, if you didn't already use a starry night texture when you made the room. Rebuild and Save the map again. At this point, go into the UT game & play this map just to see what it looks like. It should look just like the map room you just made. Now go back into UnrealEd and open this map again. Now select all of the textures (walls) in the map room OTHER than the floor side. Leave the floor as is for now. Right click to bring up the surface properties of the selected walls. Check the Fake Backdrop check box. Rebuild & Save the map again.
Again, go into the UT game & play this map to see what it looks like. You should be standing on a flat textured floor with a starry night sky on all sides except the floor. Cool isn't it!
You can now go back and try making the skybox textures "unlit" to see if it looks better in the game. You can add planets, big stars & moons or boulders that look like asteroids inside the skybox if you wish. Try what you imagine and see what you can come up with!
Try the following to get a CTF-Face type of look!
Add a block floating in the center of the map room big enough to play on, and not touching the floor. Move the playerstart(s) onto the topside of this block. Then make the bottom side of the map room (the old floor) set as a Fake Backdrop like the other sides of the map room. Rebuild and save the map. When you play the map now, you will be standing on a block floating in space. When you go to the edge of the block you are standing on, you can look down and see stars all around and under the block also. Careful, you can fall off the block now!
To Make the Sky Rotate as in CTF-Face:
I am assuming at this point that you have a nice working skybox built with possibly a starry night sky type of texture. Now you may want to make your map look as though it is floating in space with the sky rotating like in CTF-Face. Many mappers believe that you will have to make the SkyBox rotate some how like making it a mover or making the wall textures of the SkyBox pan. Although you can do things like I just mentioned for certain special effects, it is NOT the way to create a rotating sky effect! The SkyZoneInfo actor is the key to this effect! To do this, you will have to make a few adjustments to the SkyZoneInfo Properties. In UnrealEd there are three axis settings that we use to determine an object's location. They are X, Y & Z. You can see what these are by looking at the 2D view window's properties and seeing that X is the top right window, and Y is the bottom right window. Z is the upper left window, the top view, because Z is up and down. A SkyZoneInfo can be made to rotate on these axes, but the direction it rotates is determined using Pitch, Roll and Yaw. If you do not understand these concepts, you can think of it in these ways:
* Pitch = up/down (like a wheel rolling forward or backward)
* Roll = left/right (like a steering wheel rolling from side to side)
* Yaw = left/right on Z axis (like a revolving door)
At this point, open up the SkyZoneInfo Properties by right clicking on the SkyZoneInfo actor in your skybox. Now pick SkyZoneInfo Properties. When the SkyZoneInfo Properties opens, go down near the bottom. Expand Movement, then expand RotationRate. Do not concern yourself with Rotation! Rotation is for positioning of the skyboxinfo and does not have anything to do with the moving rotation effect we are talking about! There are three fields here under the heading RotationRate. They are Pitch, Roll and Yaw. This is where you tell the engine how fast and which direction you want the SkyZoneInfo to rotate in. You may have to experiment with the settings to these three as to which one(s) you want to set and how fast. The default for these three is 0, (zero), or no rotation at all. For now, pick a speed about 700 and see how you like that. Try this speed setting with each of the three Pitch, Roll and Yaw settings. Just put 700 under each one separately, one at a time, to see what effect and in which direction it makes your sky rotate. Check each one, one at a time in the game. Make a note of the effect for each of the Pitch, Roll and Yaw settings so you can go back and set them to your liking after you test them. I believe that setting these numbers to a negative number such as "-700" will make them move in the opposite direction as a positive number, but I have not tried this! Setting them to negative numbers is not really necessary anyway.
You can set all three of the Pitch, Roll and Yaw settings differently. This is how CTF-Face and my map CTF-LuXor are set. You can try different speeds in each of the three places or even in just two of the places. Be careful that you do not set these to a setting that would make the players get dizzy or annoyed by the rotation! This can be very annoying if set wrong!
PS: Using a RockingSkyZoneInfo MAY be a better way to achieve the rotating sky effect, however I have yet to try this as of the last update of this tutorial. I will try it very soon and update this tutorial again with my findings! I also have to check whether you have to change another setting. This is the bRotating setting. You MAY have to set this to True in order for the rotating effect to take effect, but off hand I can't recall if I did.
Well, that is it for this basic skybox tutorial. Have fun and be creative!
Hope this helps!
Any questions just let me know.
By "Hook" - 6/5/02
I have had a number of mappers tell me that they just do not understand how to make and/or how to get a skybox to work. The following tutorial will give you the basics on skyboxes so you will know how to build on what you learn here to create more complex skyboxes. I will give some pointers of course but I do not want to clutter your mind with extra info that may only confuse you & cloud the basics you need to build a working skybox. You can then use this basic knowledge to go on and be creative with your skyboxes.
This tutorial should give you a good idea of how a skybox works!
Just remember that the skybox is separate from the actual playable map area!
Basically, the skybox is a "stage" and the skyboxinfo actor is a "camera" that displays what it sees in the skybox to your map area, on any and all textured surfaces that are set as a fake backdrop.
The textured surfaces that are set as fake backdrops are the "TV screens" that show what the skyboxinfo camera sees, so to speak!
The following will show you how to make a very basic skyboxed UT map:
For this tutorial, your map will be a one room playing area and I will refer to this area as your map.
So start a new map consisting of one room. Make the room size 512 wide x 800 long by 640 high.
The size is not critical. Subtract it from the world using any texture you want. Put a light or 2 in this room and also a playerstart or 2 in it. Rebuild and Save the map as any name you want, say as DM-Skyboxdemo.
Now, outside this room, we will make the skybox. Make this skybox room size 256 wide x 400 long by 320 high. Subtract it from the word using any texture you want. This is about 1/2 the size of the map room, but again, the size is not real important, at least for this tutorial. In this room add a skyboxinfo actor right in the middle of the skybox or at the center. You may have to move the skyboxinfo to get it in the center. Add a light to this skybox room. Now, change all the textures in this skybox room to some kind of starry night texture, if you didn't already use a starry night texture when you made the room. Rebuild and Save the map again. At this point, go into the UT game & play this map just to see what it looks like. It should look just like the map room you just made. Now go back into UnrealEd and open this map again. Now select all of the textures (walls) in the map room OTHER than the floor side. Leave the floor as is for now. Right click to bring up the surface properties of the selected walls. Check the Fake Backdrop check box. Rebuild & Save the map again.
Again, go into the UT game & play this map to see what it looks like. You should be standing on a flat textured floor with a starry night sky on all sides except the floor. Cool isn't it!
You can now go back and try making the skybox textures "unlit" to see if it looks better in the game. You can add planets, big stars & moons or boulders that look like asteroids inside the skybox if you wish. Try what you imagine and see what you can come up with!
Try the following to get a CTF-Face type of look!
Add a block floating in the center of the map room big enough to play on, and not touching the floor. Move the playerstart(s) onto the topside of this block. Then make the bottom side of the map room (the old floor) set as a Fake Backdrop like the other sides of the map room. Rebuild and save the map. When you play the map now, you will be standing on a block floating in space. When you go to the edge of the block you are standing on, you can look down and see stars all around and under the block also. Careful, you can fall off the block now!
To Make the Sky Rotate as in CTF-Face:
I am assuming at this point that you have a nice working skybox built with possibly a starry night sky type of texture. Now you may want to make your map look as though it is floating in space with the sky rotating like in CTF-Face. Many mappers believe that you will have to make the SkyBox rotate some how like making it a mover or making the wall textures of the SkyBox pan. Although you can do things like I just mentioned for certain special effects, it is NOT the way to create a rotating sky effect! The SkyZoneInfo actor is the key to this effect! To do this, you will have to make a few adjustments to the SkyZoneInfo Properties. In UnrealEd there are three axis settings that we use to determine an object's location. They are X, Y & Z. You can see what these are by looking at the 2D view window's properties and seeing that X is the top right window, and Y is the bottom right window. Z is the upper left window, the top view, because Z is up and down. A SkyZoneInfo can be made to rotate on these axes, but the direction it rotates is determined using Pitch, Roll and Yaw. If you do not understand these concepts, you can think of it in these ways:
* Pitch = up/down (like a wheel rolling forward or backward)
* Roll = left/right (like a steering wheel rolling from side to side)
* Yaw = left/right on Z axis (like a revolving door)
At this point, open up the SkyZoneInfo Properties by right clicking on the SkyZoneInfo actor in your skybox. Now pick SkyZoneInfo Properties. When the SkyZoneInfo Properties opens, go down near the bottom. Expand Movement, then expand RotationRate. Do not concern yourself with Rotation! Rotation is for positioning of the skyboxinfo and does not have anything to do with the moving rotation effect we are talking about! There are three fields here under the heading RotationRate. They are Pitch, Roll and Yaw. This is where you tell the engine how fast and which direction you want the SkyZoneInfo to rotate in. You may have to experiment with the settings to these three as to which one(s) you want to set and how fast. The default for these three is 0, (zero), or no rotation at all. For now, pick a speed about 700 and see how you like that. Try this speed setting with each of the three Pitch, Roll and Yaw settings. Just put 700 under each one separately, one at a time, to see what effect and in which direction it makes your sky rotate. Check each one, one at a time in the game. Make a note of the effect for each of the Pitch, Roll and Yaw settings so you can go back and set them to your liking after you test them. I believe that setting these numbers to a negative number such as "-700" will make them move in the opposite direction as a positive number, but I have not tried this! Setting them to negative numbers is not really necessary anyway.
You can set all three of the Pitch, Roll and Yaw settings differently. This is how CTF-Face and my map CTF-LuXor are set. You can try different speeds in each of the three places or even in just two of the places. Be careful that you do not set these to a setting that would make the players get dizzy or annoyed by the rotation! This can be very annoying if set wrong!
PS: Using a RockingSkyZoneInfo MAY be a better way to achieve the rotating sky effect, however I have yet to try this as of the last update of this tutorial. I will try it very soon and update this tutorial again with my findings! I also have to check whether you have to change another setting. This is the bRotating setting. You MAY have to set this to True in order for the rotating effect to take effect, but off hand I can't recall if I did.
Well, that is it for this basic skybox tutorial. Have fun and be creative!
Hope this helps!
Any questions just let me know.