How to mod skybox (skyline)

[MOS:96B2P]

I'm having some trouble with modding the skyline.  I know its possible because I've downloaded several modded skylines that work and looked at them to see how others have modded the skyline.  However I can't get rid of the imported sky, behind the buildings, so only the CM sky is shown.  I get the below box looking thing or when I tried to disappear the imported sky behind the buildings I got a brown background behind the buildings.  Any adult supervision would be appreciated.    

 

[MikeyD]

If you're working in Photoshop go to 'Channels' under the 'Window' tab.
You will see the art broken into Red/Green/Blue channels.
For the game's 'mountain' horizon art there's an added Alpha channel that's used to knockout the background and let the game's sky be seen.

Its simple enough to create the knockout channel.  Make a black and while  piece of art for the knockout, Control-C copy it. Then go to 'Channels', select 'New Channel' and control-P paste your knockout art into it.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Ello, ello, ello.....What's going on here then?    (or should that be    ?) 

[MOS:96B2P]

4 hours ago, MikeyD said:

For the game's 'mountain' horizon art there's an added Alpha channel that's used to knockout the background and let the game's sky be seen.

Thanks for the reply Mike.  I have paint.net and Pixelformer which I used to do something similar for a building.  I didn't understand that's what had to be done for the skyline.  So in theory I should be able to do it with these two programs.  If not I may end up looking into Photoshop.      

 

19 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Ello, ello, ello.....What's going on here then?    (or should that be    ?) 

This one probably ......... 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Now that is taking on a very distinct look.....I like the brownstones. 

[sburke]

Brownstones?  Brownstones?  You need to visit Brooklyn! Where is the stoop to sit on in summer?  

[Sgt.Squarehead]

It looks to me like @MOS:96B2P is using a variant of the H&E building set.....With some experimentation you can build some really quite interesting looking (& not very Syrian at all) structures (as you saw elsewhere come to think of it). 

I'm really interested to see where this project goes.....I thoroughly enjoyed the early tests (more than any other test I can recall TBH) and as the project developed we've all learned quite a bit about the engine in the process.

Edited July 26, 2019 by Sgt.Squarehead

[MikeyD]

If you can't get an alpha channel into the art I believe you can add the alpha as a separate piece of art. If your file is named "mountains haze east.bmp" you can try making a separate B&W knockout file for it named "mountains haze east-alpha.bmp"

a BIG caveat for that, though. I haven't attempted that in a decade or more and I don't know if it still works. So do a test to see if it works before putting too much effort into it

[contrails]

I ran into the same issue but wasn't able to find a free program that lets you manipulate the alpha channel. I was working with GIMP so what I did was save the file in a format that supports transparency such as .png and use "greenfish icon editor" to convert it to a 32-bit .bmp

[MOS:96B2P]

Thanks @MikeyD.  I can now disappear the background.  I'm not sure how happy I am with the skyline buildings.  They're not as sharp as I would like.  With all the cool photos of big city skylines that are available I thought it would be easy to find some that could be made to work in the game.  But they get blurry during the conversion.  I'll continue to work on it. 

The cool CMSF2 sloped roofs are a mod made by @37mm. 

[Mord]

47 minutes ago, MOS:96B2P said:

I'm not sure how happy I am with the skyline buildings.  They're not as sharp as I would like.  With all the cool photos of big city skylines that are available I thought it would be easy to find some that could be made to work in the game.  But they get blurry during the conversion.  I'll continue to work on it. 

I'm not sure if you are gonna find anything that satisfies you. The skyline gets zoomed in on depending on the map size. I first noticed this back when Kieme made that horizon mod with the power lines for BS. Sometimes it would look great and others the structures would look squat and fat. I suppose the quickest way to test this would be to experiment with blank maps, expand and subtract the tiles until you get the resolution you want. It may end up being a specialized background that only looks nice under specific circumstances. Good luck with it!

 

Mord.

[Wicky]

Skylne buidings look like originally taken from a relatively low res image simply expanded

When searching Google Images say for 'city 360 skyline panorama'  make sure you go to 'Tools' > 'Size' > 'Large' 

and you can find pcs like this of NY  -which even though it has a sunset / sunrise warm colour cast could be a starting point with some proceessing to make more neutral.

[Wicky]

[MOS:96B2P]

9 hours ago, Mord said:

I suppose the quickest way to test this would be to experiment with blank maps, expand and subtract the tiles until you get the resolution you want.

Thanks Mord.  I'll continue to test it and see what comes of it.    

 

5 hours ago, Wicky said:

When searching Google Images say for 'city 360 skyline panorama'  make sure you go to 'Tools' > 'Size' > 'Large'   

Interesting.  I'll give this a try also. 

[Wicky]

[MOS:96B2P]

A bit tedious but getting closer with the skyline.

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Reckon you need to take a look at the warp/transform tools to straighten things out and you'll pretty much be there. 

[Wicky]

The lens correction filter tool in photoshop should help sort out the distortions. Or puppet warp tool to straighten.

Edited July 30, 2019 by Wicky