Author Topic: Cow 3 mission 1 .....my first skybox  (Read 3779 times)

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Offline ShadowWolf_IH

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Cow 3 mission 1 .....my first skybox
My first skybox effort:

You can't take the sky from me.  Can't take that from me.

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Offline General Battuta

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Re: Cow 3 mission 1 .....my first skybox
Wow. Er, did you manage to get that to wrap without a seam?

 

Offline ShadowWolf_IH

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Re: Cow 3 mission 1 .....my first skybox
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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Re: Cow 3 mission 1 .....my first skybox
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.

 

Offline ShadowWolf_IH

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Re: Cow 3 mission 1 .....my first skybox
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.
« Last Edit: February 02, 2010, 12:34:51 am by ShadowWolf_IH »
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Offline Enioch

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Re: Cow 3 mission 1 .....my first skybox
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:



Much better, if I may say so myself. :P
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Offline ShadowWolf_IH

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Re: Cow 3 mission 1 .....my first skybox
Simple contrast adjustment?
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Offline Enioch

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Re: Cow 3 mission 1 .....my first skybox
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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Offline ShadowWolf_IH

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Re: Cow 3 mission 1 .....my first skybox
uh....I once made cookies.  seriously, I have no idea what you just said.  lol
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Offline Enioch

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Re: Cow 3 mission 1 .....my first skybox
 :lol:

OK, Photoshop 101:

Here's your original image:



And its histogram (you open the image in photoshop and go to Image-Adjustments-Levels):



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:



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...



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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Offline Thaeris

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Re: Cow 3 mission 1 .....my first skybox
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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Re: Cow 3 mission 1 .....my first skybox
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.
Previous Projects: Ancient-Shivan War | GTF Durandal

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Offline ShadowWolf_IH

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Re: Cow 3 mission 1 .....my first skybox
more views of the same box



and

« Last Edit: February 04, 2010, 06:14:32 am by ShadowWolf_IH »
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Offline Enioch

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Re: Cow 3 mission 1 .....my first skybox
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!
'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'  -Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"

So don't take a hammer to your computer. ;-)

 

Offline ShadowWolf_IH

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Re: Cow 3 mission 1 .....my first skybox
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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Offline ShadowWolf_IH

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Re: Cow 3 mission 1 .....my first skybox
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
You can't take the sky from me.  Can't take that from me.

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Offline Enioch

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Re: Cow 3 mission 1 .....my first skybox
Might be a problem with my codecs, but I can't see anything. The movie plays, but there's no video... :doubt:
'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'  -Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"

So don't take a hammer to your computer. ;-)

 

Offline ShadowWolf_IH

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Re: Cow 3 mission 1 .....my first skybox
hm....i don't know, i used fraps.
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Offline ShadowWolf_IH

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Re: Cow 3 mission 1 .....my first skybox
If you are interested, you can see the latest incarnations in this thread.

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=68090.0
You can't take the sky from me.  Can't take that from me.

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