I used to render my skyboxes in Blender 2.49, but it seems odd using 2.49 when 2.7x us around.
Is there any way to render/bake skybox in 2.7x using this kind of technique:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Build_a_skybox
If there is another way getting the same result (6 images or cross), I am open to suggestions.
Cycles and BI. Thanks!
Works like it had been previously - tbh, i did not look at tut.
Choose World tab, then immediately Texture tab. Change to Environment texture. You need to set Object in the center from where Env cube map will be shot. Plain Empty is fine. Pay attention - there is a black square with wide arrow at the texture dropdown, right - this is to clear and save Env maps.
Near below are image resolution textbox (default 600 is just, well…) and text box to input center - Empty name.
As soon as you hit Render, first, Environment map is created (no camera needed, it will be taken automatically), then image renders (and here you need camera).
After render finishes click on that black arrow, save or clear Env map image. Square order was changed at some point, you have to figure this by putting some objects on scene sides. All what’s left is to properly map some Cube to that image.
Sphere was different, guess you had to set fisheye camera focal 15, or maybe 6. Can not recall that.
I do not think it’s possible to bake Cube map in Cycles. Never run across such info. It was possible to paint sphere in realtime while being inside it and use sphere as a improvised World light source - sort of painting light, when you see how some object starts to light up while you stroke sphere surface. Guess it’s not possible anymore too due to some changes in Cycles, not 100% sure.
Thanks, I will try that!
It’s odd that Cycles can’t do that. I figured with baking introduced, it should.
Considering how long it takes… BI does this just fine and there hardly will be anything different you could do in Cycles. Usually one can find suitable HDRI and go with this. Different for games i figure.
Aye. I just wanted to render out skyboxes for my game. Probably can stick with BI for that purpose.
I think that this will help:
Bump OP - I’m searching and testing and trying till I’m dying… and so far hav not found any way to do a cubemap skybox rendering of a scene in blender cycles.
Any clever input would be highly appreciated, but make sure you understand that this neds to be not a dome or BI: We are talking Cycles and an environment cubemap - so you can use it in a game and though it’s a box it looks like a round world inside 
Thanks!
Would it be useful to have a cubemap panorama option in Cycles?
I have a patch lying around that adds cubemap rendering, but I thought it’s not really used anymore…
If you already have a cube map, you can convert it into another type of panorama to use with Cycles.
I’m actually talking about rendering a cubemap (as in: adding “cubemap” as a camera panorama setting), not about using a cubemap for rendering (as in environment texture).
I tried that method described by yaniv and indeed it doesn’t render cubemap like BI does 
EDIT:
So I got skybox from Blender Cycles into my game:
Sad that it’s not possible to do straight rendering into 6 images. What I did was render out fisheye panorama:
I used 2048 x 2048 image size, but it should be larger if you need 1024 x 1024 skybox.
Then I used HDRShop v1.0 (free one) from here: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=130228 to convert “mirror ball” into vertical cross skybox:
Sliced it in GIMP, adjusted certain projections as indicated on the image, and re-scale it to be 512 x 512 (didn’t want to mess with larger size and re-render).
I definitely wish Blender would just render into skybox images (6 separate images)
P.S. Cubemaps conversion “guide”: http://viewportshader.com/help/XS2Help/Creating_Your_Own_Cubemaps.htm
Cubemaps, as in taking a high-detail Blender environment and capturing it as six separate images that can be mapped onto a cube is hugely important for games and for 3DXML, which bogs down with spherical maps but has a node for cube environment maps. It would be nice to have a plugin or simple settings to achieve this, especially when trying to use a spherical render from, say, Terragen to create the environment. It would be good to reduce that to a cube…
