Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: ShadowWolf_IH on February 02, 2010, 12:06:42 am
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My first skybox effort:
(http://mt.hard-light.net/devel/screen0185.jpg)
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Wow. Er, did you manage to get that to wrap without a seam?
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not tried yet, but it is superimposed onto a nice starfield background, i was trying different pics i found, and the starfield background for each came together seamlessly.
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Looks pretty but it seems out of place in a sort of magnified by a telescope sort of way...just doesn't seem to fit very well.
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I agree. I'll keep that in mind and be sure to shrink any of the images down before superimposing them onto my standard backgrounds. See if that works. I know that the backgrounds themselves wrap nicely. My thought was simple, strategically place similarly lighted images onto the already wrapping background that I am using. No worry about seams that way. I think the finished products will look good. Considering I'm just a fredder trying to do other things. My whole idea for cow 3 is that I want to do everything except models, testing, and of course even with my range of accents and impressions I can't do all the voices. In fact the cbanim I built in fred and posted a week or so ago is the opening cbanim.
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I'll keep that in mind and be sure to shrink any of the images down before superimposing them onto my standard backgrounds. See if that works.
Not absolutely necessary.
Your BIG problem is that space is black and that you haven't given that part of the image any 'true black'. Thus, the image looks 'washed out'. Play with the levels in photoshop for a bit. This comes out:
(http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/9027/screen0185.jpg)
Much better, if I may say so myself. :P
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Simple contrast adjustment?
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No, 'Levels' adjustment. I didn't try adjusting the contrast, but I suppose it could yield similar results.
What I did was slide the 'black' stop to the right, to reach the histogram 'spike', and then slid the 'gray -midpoint' stop to the left a bit, to preserve the original coloring. That made the dark grays 'true blacks'.
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uh....I once made cookies. seriously, I have no idea what you just said. lol
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:lol:
OK, Photoshop 101:
Here's your original image:
(http://mt.hard-light.net/devel/screen0185.jpg)
And its histogram (you open the image in photoshop and go to Image-Adjustments-Levels):
(http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/4629/photoshop1a.jpg)
What the histogram actually does, is tell you how much of each color you get in your image. On the far left is black and on the far right is white, with grey (50% Brightness) in the middle. So in your image, the histogram starts out fairly 'low', which means there is not a lot of absolute black, but then it 'spikes' somewhere in the 'dark gray' area.
But the human eye is pretty good in figuring out if somethings dark or really really dark. And space is really really dark. So, you gotta change the dark grays into blacks, but without affecting the rest of the colors much. How do we do that, I hear you ask?
Like this:
(http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/4153/photoshop2.jpg)
You move the 'black' stop to the right, until you reach the histogram 'spike'. That tells Photoshop: "This is where I want you to put the absolute black. Every shade on the left of this stop, is to be black (RGB: 0,0,0). Oh, and you should move the 'gray' stop, so that it stays in the middle between the two extreme stops."
So, now, you have some perfect black. But you've also messed up the brightness of the rest of the image, because the 'gray' stop has moved as well. :hopping: So, we move the 'gray' stop back to the left, just for a bit...
(http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/4439/photoshop3d.jpg)
And that will lighten up our nebulae, without affecting our perfectly black backdrop.
And that's it. :)
Fiddle around with the levels, to get the values that work the best for you.
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You might want to tone down the stars a little. If you're not careful, you'll create an environment that looks very much like the distant space past the Knossos portal in BP:AoA. And that's not a good thing...
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That is very pretty, ShadowWolf. For your first go at creating skyboxes, most excellent. I very much like it.
Keep it up, and you're bound to make some beauties in no time.
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more views of the same box
(http://casofwar.hard-light.net/CoW/screen0188.jpg)
and
(http://casofwar.hard-light.net/CoW/screen0189.jpg)
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Muuuuch better color scale. Nebulae seem a bit weird though. They seem a bit...dunno, solitary. They begin and end too abruptly, in my opinion.
And the one on the right looks a bit like an ear :P
The planet is great.
Stars are pretty cool too.
Although you should keep this in mind:
You might want to tone down the stars a little. If you're not careful, you'll create an environment that looks very much like the distant space past the Knossos portal in BP:AoA. And that's not a good thing...
Anyway, really good job!
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Thanks.
The Nebulae are real, I don't make them, so blame god for the abrupt endings. :) That's the butterfly nebula and I can never remember the name of the other. We'll call it the ear nebula since you dubbed it that. Anyway, and the planet is earth. The star field is the same one that was used in the first image i posted, it is one of my standard backgrounds, and the others are comparable in composition.
But thanks for the input guys, i do appreciate the help.
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OK i uploaded a small movie of the skybox in mission. I do plan to replace the planet that you'll see, and i plan to edge fade the nebula from the screenshot above, just to handle the abrupt ending. Other than that, whaddya think?
http://casofwar.hard-light.net/CoW/sky1.rar (http://casofwar.hard-light.net/CoW/sky1.rar)
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Might be a problem with my codecs, but I can't see anything. The movie plays, but there's no video... :doubt:
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hm....i don't know, i used fraps.
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If you are interested, you can see the latest incarnations in this thread.
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=68090.0 (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=68090.0)