Skybox, Skybox, anybody got a Skybox?

[Broadsword56]

Hello fellow combatants,

I'm making a photorealistic Crete map in CMFI-GL for an area near Retimo airfield in May 1941, and I'm in need of a skybox for it that has plain sky on the northern side (no terrain). That way, the water N of the beach will go out to the sky horizon and it will seem like the open sea in that direction.

Is there an existing set of skybox images that already does this (perhaps something that was made for Sicily)? Or does anyone have the files or is anyone able to mod them or point em to them?

I'll give a copy of this bespoke map to the first person who can share those files or point me to ones that fit the bill and explain how to get them into my map -- thanks in advance.

[mjkerner]

Broadsword, I think LongLeftFlank's Pacific mod has one. I'll check. Good catch, by the way.i'll need it for Maleme map, which I should be able to get started in a week or so. I have most of the sources gathered.

[mjkerner]

Broadsword, LLF has the distant ground tile modded to look like the ocean, but his "mountain" skyboxes are all just plain khaki-brown...no terrain or anything. I can whip up one using the same sky color as the ones with terrain that come with the game and see how that works.

[agusto]

IIRC the sky colour is not defined in the terrain images. What you need to do in order to make the northern terrain disappear in game is to open the 'mountains north.bmp' and the others in photoshop and there select channels->alpha1. Then you just paint the part of the terrain you want to disappear in black. Grey areas will fade out (use this if smooth edges are required). If you dont have photoshop or something similar i can make them for you.

[mjkerner]

Augusta, I'll try LLF's first, if not I'll do an alpha. If I screw it up, I'll come a-calling! (I'm doing other mods for Crete.)

[Broadsword56]

It all sounds excellent mj and Augusto -- I know you'd come through. Awaiting the results wth great interest.

(BTW, everyone, this mod that turns the N horizon into pure sky would be good for maps that don't actually have beach on them, too. Even land areas that are just inland from a beach, with no water on them, would look more realistic if you don't see distant hills in the seaward direction.)

[mjkerner]

Okay, got it. LLF's modded one works, but where the east and west mountains pics/bmps meet the northern one, there's an abrupt cut off of the terrain. I'll need to mask them so that the terrain trails off to where they each meet the northern one.

[Broadsword56]

If you can, that would be great. IRL the coast is curved and there's land extending out to sea on the E and W horizons -- but it would be better it it didn't look like it ends too abruptly.

[Pete Wenman]

This was done a while ago for CMSF,

http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=314&func=fileinfo&id=484

but it shows what can be done

P

[tdogg]

Awesome, you guys are making Crete missions ? Can't wait, loved the Crete operation that was in cmak.

[Broadsword56]

That CMSF beach kit is exactly what's needed for CMFI.

Curious to know: Why was the swamp tile modded into sea water too?

How would that be used and what does it accomplish that the existing tiles didn't?

(I'm thinking it might have to do with the water and elevations issue -- if so, it would be useful in CMBN where it would allow people to make water-filled creek beds at any elevation)

[Pete Wenman]

Curious to know: Why was the swamp tile modded into sea water too?

Because CMSF didn't have any water type tiles.

P

[mjkerner]

Broadsword, have you checked out the CMSF files yet to see if they work? I had the Beach mod, but no longer have CMSF on the 'puter. I can dl it, regardless.

This mod should work becasuse I've used trees from CMSF before, and at most, it would be a renaming thing.

[Broadsword56]

Sorry, don't own CMSF. i'm also away from my CM computer until the end of the week.

The CMSF horizon is on the wrong azimuth for Crete purposes and would need to be on the N side.

[agusto]

The CMSF horizon is on the wrong azimuth for Crete purposes and would need to be on the N side.

IMO you are just going need to change the names of the files.

[mjkerner]

IMO you are just going need to change the names of the files.

Agreed. I'll get to it tonight.

[mjkerner]

My Thanks to Augusto and Pete W. for your suggestions. Renaming worked like a charm.

Broadsword, there is one problem, which you already probably thought about. Because the battle map "lies" on top of the "distant ground" tile, whatever one of those you use will extend out to the horizon. This means that a ground tile will just show, well....ground, all the way to the horizon. If you use a modded one to represent water, then when you zoom up from the map, it's surrounded by the water tile up to the horizon, which is fine looking north, but pretty funky looking in any other direction.

[Broadsword56]

My Thanks to Augusto and Pete W. for your suggestions. Renaming worked like a charm.

Broadsword, there is one problem, which you already probably thought about. Because the battle map "lies" on top of the "distant ground" tile, whatever one of those you use will extend out to the horizon. This means that a ground tile will just show, well....ground, all the way to the horizon. If you use a modded one to represent water, then when you zoom up from the map, it's surrounded by the water tile up to the horizon, which is fine looking north, but pretty funky looking in any other direction.

I'm having trouble visualizing this, mj. Can you post a screenshot of the issue?

I don't mind things looking a little odd from zoomed out height off the map if they look right down on the battlefield.

[mjkerner]

I'm having trouble visualizing this, mj. Can you post a screenshot of the issue?

I don't mind things looking a little odd from zoomed out height off the map if they look right down on the battlefield.

Will do, once I can remember my Photobucket password! But I agree...down low, it's all good.

[mjkerner]

Looking North:

Looking NW:

Raised view, looking NE:

There is no game object to show height/scale, but this is probably the equivalent of 50 feet in the air. In other words, not very high.

[Broadsword56]

Thanks! Sure lools like the good old Aegean to me, down low. Too bad about the odd effect at higher level, but do you think it's still worth using on a coastal map? What do people think? I think it's probably better than the ocean looking like a river with distant land on the horizon.

Is there any other workaround that would address the odd effect? (I'm no modder so I don't know a thing about this)

[mjkerner]

I don't think there's a workaround, Broadsword. The terrain "under" the battlemap is the "distant ground" texture, which is a bmp image, and it's simply repeated over and over. If you modded it so the northern orientation looked like water and the rest like dirt, you'd just end up with hundreds of mini versions of it and it would look like a quilt.

But it does look nice from down low. It's a mod, so individuals could choose to use it or not.

[agusto]

Looking North:

Love the ships in the background. However the large aircraft carrier doesnt really fit into the crete scenario afaik (i could be wrong though) and the ship on the far left looks like a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser to me. It would be really cool if you could replace them with some images of recongnizable german/allied WW2 ships. Most ships of that time had B&W-ish camo schemes, so nobody would notice it if you take an old photo. You could other wise just use a low-quality pic of the historical ship you want to depict, this would also help to hide the B&W colors. You could also try to add a smoke plum coming from the exhausts of the ships using the alpha mask.

German destroyers:

[Broadsword56]

Or actually, the most widely useful thing would be to just erase the ships and have plain water out there.

[mjkerner]

There's a version without ships, too.