Saturday, December 8, 2007

More pics of the Custom Cave Skydome...updated Dec 12




Here are more pics of the custom cave skydome I am working on for A Time to Die, Act III. I have just updated the skydome file as of Dec 12/07 so these are brand new. Progress is slow but sure...should be able to ask a few modders to beta test this and then release it to the Vault when it is ready.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Greetings Ladyelvenstar,

Nice screens. Good luck with your mod. Are you going to release it soon?

Thanks.

Ryshara said...

No, I don't plan on releasing soon -- too much still left to do even for Act I. It is just myself right now working on it in my spare time so it is taking months to complete. I will be getting more help once Night Howls in Nestlehaven 2 is released, since the team will have some spare time to work on my project as well as other members' projects.

Thanks for the great comments!

Nalencer said...

I think that the cave ceiling skydome is a great idea. However, the texture is getting stretched majorly. Perhaps you should create a larger image.

Ryshara said...

I agree with you and I am working on it. That's why I haven't released it on the Vault yet. Thanks for the input!

Nalencer said...

No problem :)

Zach Holbrook said...

Hey Ladyelvenstar! I've found your blog. Thanks for the nice words on the forums, and keep up the great work.

Ryshara said...

Thanks, Maerduin! That means a lot coming from you - I'm a big fan of your work!

Ernie Noa said...

Nice work on the skydomes. I found your blog via Maerduin's blog. I'll at a link from my own. Good luck with your development efforts.

ENoa4

Amraphael said...

Hey, nice work! Last week I sat thinking about my Hades Area and if I just would go with a black sky without stars to ge the illusion of being under ground. This idea is so much better. Will do some tests on it myself this evening. I'll put up a link to you and keep an eye on your mod project.

Ryshara said...

Thanks, amraphael! Let me know if you have better luck at it than I do... the textures get stretched out so it takes a bit getting used to creating the right image for a cave ceiling! But I keep plugging away at it...

Amraphael said...

It works like a charm! I have one hint on making them look better.

You need at least two layers. One black or dark and one rock texture.

Make the uppermost 50% fading from black to the background (makes the roof look far away) and the lower 20% also from black to background (it's always darker where the floor meets the wall). It leaves a small strip of for the rock texture.

To make the rock surface strech as little as possible you take a pretty large, prefectly square, seamless rock texture. Resize it down so you can fit exactly 2, 4, 8 copies of them in horisontal line. That way you will get a seamless (almost) half sphere.

Then you scale down the height of this rock strip so it's about 45-50% and is visible through the black fading layer. When the sphere streches out the rock will look more accurate.

Don't use to small rock textures they scale up enormously. Make it darker than an ordinary texture. The skydome are always a bit more brighter in the game.

It's not the perfectly streched skydome but it's pretty good.

Sorry about my poor english :)

Ryshara said...

That is great advice! I will try it out and see if I can get it to work... I am not the most skilled with graphics.

I do have one tip for you. Put the rock texture on with a bit of a "wave" effect and it makes the background have a slight 3D effect.

Ernie Noa said...

I started poking around trying to find the night sky, with the stars and moon. No luck. I read somewhere this is more of a 'fog' effect that conceals the skybox.

Do you know if the night sky can be modified?