Disclaimer!!!!!!! I am Arttu, a texture artist trainee at VrKiwi. This process is made from the view of a 3D/texture-artist so if you find something that doesn’t work or there is a lack of info feel free to correct the text below. 🙂

 

What is Skybox

A skybox is a method of creating backgrounds to make a video game level appear larger than it really is. When a skybox is used, the level is enclosed in a cuboid. The sky, distant mountains, distant buildings, and other unreachable objects are projected onto the cube’s faces (using a technique called cube mapping), thus creating the illusion of distant three-dimensional surroundings.

The Process

REFERENCES

The game is set in a snowy mountain regions. The regions have their own characteristics to separate themselves from each others. I started the process by searching reference material and asking other artist what their preferences were for the mountains. I used the 2 pictures below as my main sources of inspiration to guide the visual aesthetic.

 

3D MODELING

 

I used Blender’s Landscape add-on to create different shapes of mountains. I tweaked the parameters to get the results I was happy with.

Above you can see the results from the modeling.

 

After modeling I quickly unwrapped the models in Blender to begin texturing in Substance3D. 

Texturing went through many iterations until finding the right aesthetic for the mountains. The main goal was to make the mountains have stripes on their sides. The overall style was to remain painterly and not too realistic. 

 

I layered all the different aspects of the mountain to their own layers to ease the inevitable tonal changes. 

 

After I had textured all of the variations I tested them out together in Blender to see how they would fit together.

I rescaled the models in Blender to fit in the Unity Scene because the scale of the mountains was supposed to be massive to give player the feel of scale. Remember to press ctrl + A and apply scale to actually apply the scale, dimensions and rotation.

BUILDING THE SCENE IN UNITY (From here on out it’s a bit “freeform”  :)))

 

I made a scene in Unity to create the skybox in.

I imported all the materials and textures to Unity. They’re located in Models -> Mountains

 

I started to set the mountains into the scene. I matched the scale with previous SkyboxMakingScene.

I made a day and night variations for the Skymap.

The background sky for the day versions was already made. 

 

For the night sky I needed to make variations to the pre-existing night sky image. 

I used CLIP Studio Paint to add a hint of sunrise to the pitch black sky. The image dimensions are 8192×4096 pixels. Make sure that the horizon is in the middle of the picture. Otherwise the details are going to end up at the bottom of the Skybox. (See the picture above) Be mindful of the bottom and the top of the image because they WILL get bent.

 

HOW TO MAKE SKY IMAGE IN UNITY

 

After I imported the image to Unity, I changed the Texture Shape to Cube. 

Change the Mapping to Latitude-Longitude Layout (Cylindrical). 

Change Filter Mode to Trilinear. 

Make The Compression High Quality. 

Click Apply to finish.

HOW TO MAKE SKY MATERIAL

 

If you want to make your own Skybox Material, here’s how you can make it:

Create new Material.

Change the Shader to Skybox/Cubemap.

Add your sky image to the Cubemap (HDR) slot.

ADDING THE MATERIAL TO THE SCENE

 

In the Hierarchy-panel there is FogSettings. From there you can edit the Fog’s distance(Fog Start and Fog End)  and change the Cubemap and Skybox material. 

Drag your material to the Skybox Mat slot and THERE YA HAVE IT!!!!

 

RECORDER

 

You can find the recorder in Windows -> General -> Recorder -> Recorder Window.

Set the recorder in the scene as you wish.

 

Go to the recorder window and put the settings as they are in the picture below. 

Take number slot chooses what number of the image will be.

 

When settings are done press Start Recording. It might take a while to start but you know that it’s snapping pictures when you go to the recording folder and see images popping up. 

 

After the image has been generated press the Stop scene-button on the top of the scene window. 

 

This is what the outcome should look like:

After you’re happy with the image Repeat the parts to see the result in the scene:

 

How to make sky image in unity

How to make sky material

Adding the material to the scene

 

And That’s how the skybox is made in CAVE DIGGER 2.

cheers,

Arttu Tuovinen

Random development quote: “Eri mummot haisee eri jutuilta“.