Skyportals?

[WHAT!!]

I was wondering if anyone could explain how to create the effect seen in Hipshots "solar" where he made a skyportal using a set of brushes that rival the size of a lionel train set. He hasn't been around for me to ask him directly and I can't find any tutorials on how to do it. Anyone have any answers?

[rgoer]

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Q3Map2#_skybox_tutorial

[sock]

Here is the original thread by Hipshot with an example file:
http://quake3world.com/forum/viewtopic. ... &hilit=sky

I used a similiar system in my latest map, example file:
http://www.simonoc.com/pages/design/map ... source.htm

Sims

[WHAT!!]

How do I load up Hipshots map? I copied the .map file and tried to open it but it doesn't show up in radiant at all.

[WHAT!!]

Also, there is no _skybox entity anywhere in my entity list.

[sock]

Also, there is no _skybox entity anywhere in my entity list.

Yeah I know, the hipshot zip file is not easy to understand, it took me a while to work out what he was doing. He has missing stuff from his zip file as well, as you found out! :P

Use my link above. the source zip file has everything setup in the correct folders. Download it, extract it to your q3 folder, update your shaderlist.txt file, start your editor and load my final map file (thirdsign_3w.map) Over in the corner is the skyportal box.

Sims

[WHAT!!]

Yeah none of this stuff works when editing with warsow (qfusion) and I half of the textures don't work for some reason. The _skybox entity .def file, where does that go?

[Hipshot]

My initial test was to see if I could eliminate the black lines in the skybox that some ATi users experience.
What I did was that I modeled a simple cube (6 walls), mapped it on all (in)sides with a sky shader, so it looked like skybox, turned it into a ASE and smacked the whole thing inside a skyportal. A bi-product was that I could scale it however I wanted, also I could rotate it a effect I wanted to do a long time, but it was too hard to rotate the skybox texture manually.

My rar/pk3 should contain everything I used to create this, ase, map, example bsp, textures and shaders.
However, I can of course not guarantee that it works outside of Q3, like in Warsow. But in the end, it's just a cube with a sky texture mapped onto it, everyone can do it, they don't need my example =)

Code: Select all

hipshots_skyfix.pk3
-textures <- textures, doh... 
-Source <- ASE and map file
-scripts <- shaders
-maps <- bsp
-levelshots <- pretty obvious

[rgoer]

if Q3Map2 can compile War§ow maps, then _skybox has to work. I'm not exactly sure where you put the .def file though, sorry

[WHAT!!]

Hipshot can I get your email or contact information? I have a ton of questions regarding some of your maps and I'd love to pick your brain

[jal_]

Warsow can display Q3map2 skyportals (acidwdm2 had one of those, as example). Warsow also supports dynamic skyportals by doing the following:

- Create a room in your map to be the skyportal. This room must not be connected to any other part of the map.

- Inside the "sky room" create an entity "misc_skyportal" or "props_skyportal" (they are the same) to be the position and angles where the skyportal camera will be.

- Optional misc_skyportal parameters "fov": If you want to enforce a stronger or weaker fov than the player view, set it here. If not set, it will use the user fov and fit the rest of the map.

- Optional misc_skyportal parameters "scale": Scale the view in the portal, can be used to make the skybox content look like being closer or further from the map.

- Optional misc_skyportal parameters "noents": If set to 1 the entities in the skyroom will be skept at drawing. It is faster, but you can't use them to create movement.

Notice that you can use entities in this skyportal (as long as you don't enable noents, of course), so you can put the whole thing into a func_rotating or add a giant pendulum on the sky.

Note: On the parts of the map which will show the skyportal, keep using a normal sky shader to cast the light. It will be skept from drawing, so it doesn't matter how it looks, but it will be used for compiling. On the skyroom you can use any skyshader and it will be drawn this time. It, of course, doesn't need to be the same sky shader at both, it doesn't either need to be a different one.

[jal_]

Also, there is no _skybox entity anywhere in my entity list.

Entities are just text. If you don't have a entity in you list create a similar one (let's say a misc_portal_camera for the case) and rename it.