What are people using to edit or change skyboxes? Is it the XSI tools same as Models?

from Sins Forums

I have this little idea, haha, well, not quite so little, a shaker-upper, just to be fun, and i suppose if i were smart i wouldnt say it out loud, if someone with better skills than me wants to run with it.  Haha, but if i get to play it, i might not be able to complain, since i didnt do the work. Anyway, i want to see if i can modify a skybox. Sorry, i should look up the subject first and see if i can educate myself. Oh.... and by the way, is it the same tool to edit/modify/create planets as well?  :)

Anyway, thanks for listening anyway.

Sincerely,

-Teal

 

modding
1,723 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

AFAIK the skyboxes are just normal images that you can modify in Photoshop and the like. They should all be .tgas in the Textures folder somewhere.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Annatar11, reply 1
AFAIK the skyboxes are just normal images that you can modify in Photoshop and the like. They should all be .tgas in the Textures folder somewhere.

 

:)  Annatar you are WONDERFUL!!  :)  I can give it a go without all this complicated software. :)

But now i have to see if my artistic abilites suck as bad as my modding!  Oh no!! 

Well...

we'll see... haha, i am crazy to even think this, but it would be way cool if i can even half pull it off.

:)

-Teal

"The Dooooooooommmmm.... Mod !!!"

:)

 

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Actually they are .dds textures, not .tga. But yes, you can edit them in any image editing program which can work with .dds format images.

There are two types of images associated with skyboxes; environments and backdrops. Backdrops provide visual stuff - what you see in game. Environment images provide lighting tint, so that objects such as ships, planets and structures reflect correct environment and thus blend into the setting better.

One thing to keep in mind is, you need to be able to work around the seams which will pop up because backdrop imagery is mapped to a sphere with flat polar caps (not the usual spherical mapping which stretches polar texturing). Second issue is image quality - I recommend using Nvidia's Texture Tools 2 because they give a better compression quality than what you get from their Photoshop plugin. Since the backdrop images get stretched over a relatively large surface, you need to keep the image as high quality as possible and still in acceptable resolution.

 

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Thanks for the correction :) Don't dabble in graphics much!

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Thank you very very much Manshooter, i appreciate it. Im brand new at this, haha, so i will probably have to read everything i can get my  hands on, and fail alot, until i can figure out how to do this even partially acceptabley. But i appreciate the help and the pointers. Take care and i'll let you know how it goes, haha, probably you wont want to hear me complain, so it may be awhile before you hear anything positive. :)  But thanks again.

-Teal