Greetings, As a graphics programmer, I really eat up a good looking space game, and the other day I tried out EVE to study their rendering tricks. Most of all, I was very impressed with their skyboxes. I'm with a team that is creating a space shooter, and we've reached the point of skybox creation. My question is this: What are the tools of the trade for skybox creation? I need a tool (maybe a plugin for 3dsmax, or a stand alone tool) that renders a skybox from a scene, and also performs all the perspective adjustments needed to minimize distortion. What are the experts using? Thanks!

Experts? No idea, but I know alot of indies use "Terragen". Do a Google and you'll find links to the site to download and tutorials on producing a skybox.

Terragen can be used, however you have to pay for commercial use. I can't imagine though how can you make a skybox for a *space* sim with Terragen [smile].
If you have plenty of time you could make the tool yourself. It might take quite a bit if you want realistic scenes (i.e nebulas, planets, etc.) though.

Terragen was used in many commercial games as well as Bryce too. It is possible to create very good looking skyboxes with FREE terragen but you have to play with the settings. Anyway the idea is simple:

a) place the camera somewhere on the terrain
b) make 90 degree rotations to the right or left and save the screensthots but do not move the camera, just rotate it.
c) rotate the camera 90 degree up and down and make a screenshot

Viola! You have yourself 6 skybox planes.

Skyboxes are difficult for space games. believe me I know! Well until you learn how to do it anyway. Here is a good tutorial I've used that explains how to do it with blender 3d. So hopefully you are familiar with blender otherwise it might be a little difficult to follow. You'll need to use photoshop or something to fix it up once its all done. Since you are doing one for a space game just use a full sphere instead of following this guys directions exactly. Because he is explaining how to do it if your scene will have a ground. Well hope this helps. Good luck.

blender skybox tutorial


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