Enviroment: setting up a sky map......

[EricChadwick]

I haven't used skytracer, but I have converted panoramas into cube maps for use in games. Might work for you.

Map it onto a sphere, spherical UVs, 100% self-illuminated. Tile it 2x vertically, or even better mirror it vertically along the middle. Maybe make a ground plane if you want.

Then convert to a cube map. Since I'm using 3ds max I use a Reflect/Refract map in a new material, From File button, set the To File button, click on [Pick Object and Render Maps], click on a dummy sitting just above the ground plane.

Works OK, still get some pinching at the pole, fix that in post.

Are you talking about these panoramas?
http://www.1000skies.com
All the pics on the website are free, only have to pay for higher-res ones. I asked the guy, he's cool with it. Just wants publicity for the site.

Hope this helps.

[ninjacore]

wahoo! great. i'll try your technique.

i know about the reflect/refract thing. my friend at www.binarybonsai.com made some amazing sky box maps and he told me how to use them. when in the view ports i get a complete 360 xyz environment which rotates when i move the viewport.
the hard part is making these maps to put inmax.

skylight is a bitch. for some reason it wont work within an object or when anything big surrounds your scene (skydome, roof,etc)

radiosity is a consideration, but its more hassle.


oh yeah. its those kind of maps. i have a ton on this texture cd i have. your link is cool too!

[Jon_Pran]

http://www.marlinstudios.com has some hemispherical skies that should not pinch. You have to buy the CD, though, and it ain't too cheap.

[JayCMiller]

we have the Marlinstudio cd and there allright, but the problem I've had is that they won't tile right. the image is a tileable pic but there is allways a seam that I can't get rid of. any thoughts?

I've put it in the environment slot because I have environment light in the scene & this is the only way to get it through with a background.

[Jon_Pran]

I've never had problems with them tiling. Some do look like they might tile, though (sunsets, with a big difference of light/dark areas). I haven't done any animations that require more than 200 degrees of the same sky, so I probably wouldn't have noticed if there was a problem.

Just tile them in PS, if it's a problem. I used to do that with older sky photos I had and it would work out fine.

[Maven]

I dont understand the difference between the sky box and the sky sphere. What is the benifit of doing the extra work for the box when the shpere is so much easier and faster to do?

[EricChadwick]

From what I've seen Marlin's 360-degree panoramas tile left-right just fine, but they don't include a full 180-degrees of height, and they've cut off the horizon too.

The 1000skies shots are full domes. A bit lower res, mostly 2000x500, but hey they're free.

[EricChadwick]

Looks like ninjacore's lighting situation requires the bkg image to be in the Environment slot, not on geometry.

Although now come to think of it, instead of a cube map, you could just take a 360- x 180-degree image, give it Spherical Env mapping coords, V Offset =.25, V Tiling =2, place it in the Env Bkg slot. Works great.

I convert to cube maps for game output.

[Jon_Pran]

I'll play with the hemisperical skies sometime and see if they are vertically correct, but that's the whole point of them - that you can look straight up and see the sky.

If you look at the .tifs, they look all distorted, so they were designed to be viewed 360 and straight up.

[EricChadwick]

Take another look. Tops are chopped.

[ninjacore]

wow. this has picked up a bit is see. cool!

i've been playign around and managed to get some panaormic photographs into my viewport looking ok, and moving when i change the view.

remember, we want geomtry free skys here.

i still prefer my friends sky box method, but the annoying this is making the skys in vue d'esprit, and making sure the all line up right.

posm: how do u convert to a cube map for use with reflect/refract?

i attached a shit image of a quick test.....Skylight is used by the way and one other light,,,,,

[EricChadwick]

See my first post. 2nd/3rd paragraphs.

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