sky Created 15 years ago2008-12-28 15:48:35 UTC by Frozen Storm

Is there a way to see what the sky will look like ingame in hammer? I have a sky called city and I want to know how it will look like ingame combined with a manually made road that's supposed to look like it leads into the city.
And I want to be able to edit it without compiling every time to see if it looks ok. So is there any way to load the sky into the hammer?

no.

just take the part you're tweaking into a smaller, seperate map so that it'll compile in only a few seconds.

There is one really, really dodgy "technique" I've heard of people doing, and I'm not even quite sure why I'm going to suggest it, but:

Make a wad of your sky textures (resize as necessary) and fit them to an enormous hollow box around your map, so that you have at least a bit of an idea where it might line up in correlation to the skybox.

Just.. don't compile with that bloody big box around your map and erase all traces of ever doing it once you're done.

ok. I'll try it out when I manage to create a skybox (I just found out that this one sucks...).
Thanks.

which of the skybox parts is the southern one? ft or bk? Because on a forum I found on google it said that rt=east, lf=west and then ft=south, bk=north which I find a little weird since east is to the right if you're facing north...

I can't see how thats weird

rt(right) = east
lt(left) = west

argh... lol
that's not the weird part. The weird part is that north is bk (back) and south is ft (front). But if east is on your right then north is in front of you...

haha, oooooh x)

Actualy if you face north and hold your arms at 90 degrees, your right arm is indicating east.

god you're an idiot, striker

Everyone knows north is straight up, and south is under your feet.

If you made a big box around your map like that, wouldn't you have to set the view distance incredibly far in hammer, which would kill your 3D view framerate?

Anyway, you can't just put the box anywhere. You'd have to be certain that the box is centered on your camera position in Hammer, because it's not moving with you like in-game. You'll just have to keep on repositioning it.

Oh, and last time I made a skybox I used Skypaint to configure it correctly. It's really weird though, because no matter how hard I tried, I could always see the seems where the images met up. I guess all the images have to be fisheyed or something.

If you made a big box around your map like that, wouldn't you have to set the view distance incredibly far in hammer, which would kill your 3D view framerate?

I always did that anyway, never really noticed an impact.

And yeah, like I said.. it's a dodgy idea that'll only give you a very rough idea where things would line up. And also, like I said.. I'm not entirely sure why I even suggested it.

The way I see it anyway, the skybox texture should only ever have sky, anything else looks horrible in it. God I love 3D skyboxes.

a very rough idea where things would line up

that's ok, I don't really need it to be super-exact.

Oh, and last time I made a skybox I used Skypaint to configure it correctly.

Oh, I'm just editing the original city skybox (the one that's already implemented into hl) so that the city is only on one side (and not on all four) and a couple of other little changes. And I'm using photoshop 4.0 for it

@Strider: That's a neat idea i will try it = )

I could always see the seems where the images met up. I guess all the images have to be fisheyed or something.

Yeah me too. i wish there was a photoshop plugin or a better program developed to make half-life sky easy. Maybe someone knows of one? It seems like it'd be a relatively simple thing to code but meh.

If you made a big box around your map like that, wouldn't you have to set the view distance incredibly far in hammer, which would kill your 3D view framerate?

Depends on your video card. my old computer would not have liked it one bit, and the 3D view in hammer would be very "jumpy". Shouldn't be a problem with a decent gfx card.

Shouldn't be a problem with a decent gfx card.

which I unfortunately don't have...

Actualy if you face north and hold your arms at 90 degrees, your right arm is indicating east.

The way I did it, my right arm was indicating north. It depends on which way you hold your arms, left or right. And so endeepens the problem =)