3D Skybox in the Blender Game Engine

[AniCator]

Check it out!
Making a 2D/3D Skybox in the Blender Game Engine is ultra easy!

Watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgkeTBwdqhg

It isn’t that hard. I wonder why no one has ever tried it. (or has published it)
This is basically what the Source engine does. Only I use another scene for it.

Actually this was a 2D skybox but I converted it to a 3D one.
The 2D skybox uses a very basic copy orientation script. For the 3D skybox I added a copy position feature.
You should be able to do it yourself now.
The skybox is about 10 times smaller than the main scene. All of the high buildings are part of the skybox.
There are some lag issues though because I have to use a Python script to update the skybox every tic. But I can’t execute two commands on that single tic.
For example:

• At frame 1: It gets the orientation and position of the main camera.
• At frame 2: It sets the skybox camera’s orientation and position to the data it got from frame 1.
• This means there will be at least one frame of lag. It’s hardly noticable in the 2D skybox but in the 3D skybox it’s a lot more visible.

I rendered the scene using Blender’s screenshot feature which took a screenshot every frame. I also set the logicTicRate to 30 for a steady framerate.
Then I glued all the screenshots together and that’s basically what you got to see.

Original post: http://www.anicator.com/2009/07/24/3...r-game-engine/

- AniCator

PS: I'll post a .blend within a few hours. It'll be another version that doesn't use GLSL.
PPS: Special thanks to facundocouzo for putting this up: http://blenderartists.org/forum/atta...0&d=1248777614
I wonder why I didn't think of that.

[Nikolay740]

looks cool

[AniCator]

The purpose of this script is to make it possible to just work on your levels/maps/worlds without worrying about wrapping around a sky afterwards.

Download .blend file

- AniCator

[micah702]

Thanks, Christian Baker!

[AniCator]

I'm working on a tutorial at the moment.
Skyboxes make creating levels easier. You won't have to worry about it any more. You won't have to worry about the size of the skybox or the clipping distance the camera should use so it would still see the skybox.
The sky will always be there.
I'm probably going to play around a bit more with the skybox. Put in some extra effects.

[moffboffjoe]

uh, I've not watched the tutorial but why don't you just vertex parent the skybox to the characters center?

[Rorkimaru]

Originally Posted by moffboffjoe uh, I've not watched the tutorial but why don't you just vertex parent the skybox to the characters center?

The idea is that everything in the real world is rendered in front of the skybox.


Using this technique you could layer a third scene (yes I hear the frame rate crying too) in front of the game scene and place cool sun flare sprites in it. Nice solution to a problem I remember having with flares

[Teo_GreenGage]

great! I believe that this is a MUST for every sky type(space, earth, underwater) because of the fact that yu don't need huge camera draw distances and also the skymap is not affected by the mist. Parenting can create problems at fast speeds.I used this setup for a space scene a few months ago and is superior to the sphere/cube placed in the same scene, lifesaver.

[Nikolay740]

I am wondering, why skybox, why not skydome?

[moffboffjoe]

I am wondering, why skydome, why not skybox?

[Nikolay740]

because for flight sims and big out door scenes skydome would be better I guess
skybox is good for FPS, racing

[moffboffjoe]

you just answered your own question then

[AniCator]

It is possible to replace the box with a dome shaped mesh.
I'll cover it in the tutorial.

[facundocouzo]

hey! I fixed the lag stuff, now it does it on the same frame!

[Teo_GreenGage]

hehe that's so cool- now you don't need 2 scripts, i guess it's more optimized this way!

[Wahooney]

I've used the same methods to create a 3d skybox and I also have the lag problem. I considered facundocouzo's solution too, but in my case my camera is attached to a dynamic object which can be knocked around, so that pretty much negates fac's solution... So like Kain in Kung-Fu I'm still wandering the earth, searching for answers

[Fred_Pyo]

Very interesting! I remember this hot topic regarding sync'ing skyboxes back in the old days... before bullet was used as the physics engine... Nice solution facundocouzo! This would be great for most games (fps for instance) where the camera is human controlled.

Linking the camera... haha... great!

[facundocouzo]

@wahooney: by attached do you mean parented, children, using a camera actuator, scripted?, I think it would be pretty simple to get it working (obtaining the camera's local position, or using an empty , etc)
you could post an example

[Wahooney]

@facundocouzo:it's just simple parenting, camera linked to a geometric object. The thing is that the player can get knocked around, fall, jump, etc. and although it might be possible to coordinate jumping using your system, falling and being knocked around are damn near impossible.

[AniCator]

Wahooney: You can use an empty as a reference object for the position. You parent the empty to the player object and then you use a script to copy and paste the position of the empty to the camera's position.
I can't write a script right now because this pc is a little bit to slow for that.