The Harvest Moon Consortium

[Izk The Mad]

That looks pretty good! And you were right, there's no healing tool in PS6. I just got home from work and I'm going to take a crack at that skybox again (darn OCD -been thinking about it all day ). I keep thinking about what lord r said about mirror images at the seams, and I don't like it either. So far, that's probably my best skybox, and I'd like to finish it.

I thought I might flip the bottom/back over to eliminate the mirroring, and create a vertical strip to use at the edges. I think if I create the edge as a separate image, I can split it in half vertically and paste and blend it in. My thinking is, that it would be easier (for me) to blend the edges of the strip in towards the center, and the outside edge will automatically match up, because of the way I split it. Hope that makes sense. Something like this:

_A B_
(ER EL)
_C D_

E right and left represents the strip, split, overlaid and blended into the four main parts. I think your suggestion to add a little blur at the edges would help, too. It would leave a little "fudge factor" for the graphics engine, and soften the seams.

Wish me luck.

[chaos_theocrat]

I think you do very good work, Izk, and don't worry, sometimes the best art takes a while to release. I tend to take a long time to make modules, but it's worth it to test things, making certain everything is perfect, and that the end result matches my initial vision for how the project should be as closely as possible within the limitations of what is possible. Your goals are definitely possible to reach, and the more you stick with it the sooner you'll be making skyboxes as easily, and prolifically, as I used to make my prefabs. - Cheers! :thumb:

Oh, and also: good to see you're finding some fine solutions for the seams. I know they are probably the trickiest part of skybox building to get figured out.

[Izk The Mad]

@chaos_theocrat, unfortunately patience was never one of my strong points, lol. I can appreciate the module comment, though. I'm still working on my first one. It doesn't help when somebody keeps adding cool tilesets to the tileset combo I use. :p I'm working with these in a test module with no tile haks, but I bet some of these would look really good in that new Aethyr tileset... -Izk


That last explanation of mine was wrong, should be:

ER A B FL

FR C D EL

I needed two separate strips for that (E & F), and I knew it, but my brain seemed to fail while I was typing it out.

Better seam:

[IMG]http://www.rpgmodding.com/forums/pictur ... tureid=101[/IMG]

The corner of the sky does not seem to match up with the corner of the area (8x8). And while my image matched up perfectly because of the two halves, I still get a shadow(?) at the seam. I may have to try a different mdl or something. I'll have to start a new thread and ask about that, maybe one of the CTP members might know and jump in. I used one of the CTP sky mdls for this, but I don't remember which one.

[Christopher]

Danmar, nor I ever managed to remove that corner issue. I would get down and dirty with the "unwrap UVW" modifier in Max and make adj. it was never perfect.
[CENTER]
[LEFT]Sometimes you need to lower your expectations to move on... :p

Not to say someone with more time and better 3dsMax skillz then mine couldn't figure it out. I know Danmar struggled with it a good long time and did not find a better method.
[/LEFT]
[/CENTER]

[Tybae]

What seam? I don't see a seam.

[Izk The Mad]

Thanks for the tip, Chris!

Can anyone tell me if there is an easy way to look at the general shape of the existing CSP mdls. I don't have/can't afford 3dsMax. I did download GMax a couple weeks ago, but I haven't installed it yet. I would need NWmax for Gmax, right? I was just reading this page: http://nwmax.dladventures.com/ I also noticed Bioware has a free Model Viewer available. For now, I just want to see how they're shaped without doing it the hard way, ie. renaming and editing in wordpad. Any suggestions, anyone?

[quote=Tybae;11733]What seam? I don't see a seam.[/quote]

Unfortunately the healing tool can't help me in-game, lol. I'm not even sure making the edge less detailed would help. I may try making the whole edge that dark greenish brown near it to see if I can hide it better.

I've tried another mdl since that last pic, the Underdark one, and I ended up with the top half of the cloud tunnel instead of the bottom half, almost like a sunrise. Interesting. It seemed farther away, though, and a little blurry. I've been studying the existing CSP skies more, in-game and out. There seems to be several methods of doing skyboxes. Noticed one with 5 tgas and five separate entries(?) in the mdl, must be 4 sides and a top, judging by the tgas.

It seems my stubborness is winning out over my laziness with this. Seeing how some of the other skies work just gives me more ideas, too.

[Tybae]

I actually didn't use the healing brush at all. That's just careful airbrush, blur tool, smudge tool and transparent scatter brushes to create gradation. All tools available in PSD6. It takes about 20 minutes of tweaking and brushing to get it to look as if there were no seam there in the first place.

The trick is getting the edges to match. Since they but up in game, you'll have to make the left and right edges of the skybox the same, so when they but up, there is no seam. I'd maybe just reduce the cloud size to begin with and have the cloud vortex in a starry, sky. That way, you don't have to worry about seams.

[Izk The Mad]

Any thoughts on viewing the other CSP mdls and/or programs to use?

Tybae, my earlier attempt was with a black sky around it, but I had to get ambitious and make it wrap around the back. Darn OCD. Except for the seams, it looks fantastic in-game, like you're actually in the tunnel. The others I've made so far are all black around the image, except The Pit, which hides the seams better. Maybe dark isn't so bad.

I'm still looking at trying other mdls for this one. Judging by the responses I've gotten, it's worth trying to make this one perfect, I think. I just might accidentally learn something new along the way.

PS: I understand what you meant about the edges, rather than just "matching up" they should be the same. I'll try that next.

[QSW]

Those are really lovely! Eeek, Saurons eye, back demon back!

[Izk The Mad]

Thanks, QSW. Have we "met" before? If you're who I'm thinking of, you know I always appreciate praise from a queen.


As for the mdls, everbody... I am now a registered, licensed, bonded and befuddled user of Gmax/NWmax. I've managed to look at the other skies and figured out how to export with new names. I'd lke to see if there isn't some way to change how lighting affects these, particularly the one I've been using. That's my next challenge. Any suggestions/comments about that are welcome, since I don't really know what I'm doing.