-skyfix woe

[a13n]

Hi, people.
-skyfix woe!
1st look at these pics.

-skyfix off


-skyfix off ZOOM


-skyfix on


-skyfix on ZOOM


As the pics above show, -skyfix does not fix anything.
To make matters worse, it generates ugly seams!

My gfx unit is geforce3 with the driver version 6.13.10.4109.
Can I release a bsp w/o -skyfix?
Or does this do harm to the richer people who have been equipped with latest gpu & driver?

[spookmineer]

From what I know, they handled the clamp feature "correctly" in the newer drivers. If you update the drivers, you will get the same result as most others here.

According to some, it is possible to prevent the lines by somehow extending the textures of the skybox (not sure how this works).

And I read somewhere, for some reason the default Q3 skyboxes don't have this problem , but I haven't checked (and new skyboxes look cool anyway).

[Todtsteltzer]

I never had problems with skybox seams and the GeForce card(s) I have/had. The problem only appeared on ATI cards AFAIK.
Then the -skyfix switch came and now I have the problem, too, with every map that was compiled with -skyfix.
I don't know if -skyfix solved the seams problem for ATI cards but it definitely made it worse for nVidia cards.

[a13n]

Do I have to retouch each image as described here though this problem seams to be different from the one in this article?
http://simland.planetquake.gamespy.com/ ... skybug.htm

[EDIT]
O.K.
I replaced the skybox textures with simple pure flat color to see if the seams would be still there.
No.
In fact far much closer look to the seams(cg_zoomfov 1) made me think that they seemed to come from the opposite side of the texture.
So retouch or point release is required, I guess.

[Hipshot]

I think this is a much better solution for a simple env map wihtout much special effects, can also be tilted however you like...
http://quake3world.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 412#432412

[a13n]

d/l'in.

BTW why do you insist on rar? :icon25:

[a13n]

@Hipshots
By using your ase model as a template, I managed to erase the seams between each texture.
But this isn't the way it has to be, is it?
I mean it's way too troublesome just to set up a skybox.

In addition, something was not quite right.
The whole image looked somewhat distorted.
It still looked like a simple box if watching carefuly.
Or my eyes were too strained?
[EDIT]
Solved by enlarging _scale value of _skybox entity.

[+JuggerNaut+]

d/l'in.

BTW why do you insist on rar? :icon25:

why do you insist on .pdf?

[a13n]

It's an old story.
And I did it just once or twice.
I think it can't be called insistence compared to Hipshots' rar.

PDF has its own advantage over simple text file at the expense of file size.
On the other hand, if you decompress hipshots' rar above, you'll be suprised that the rar and its content, pk3, has the same file size.

[wattro]

pk3 is already a zip, you can't really compress it much further

[a13n]

I know, I know.
AFAIK most files are zipped again, not rar'ed.

[Anwulf]

Personally, I wouldn't worry about it. I've been stuck with ATi cards for years now. In the end, you're playing the game, not the sky. I can see the lines; I'm not bothered.

[a13n]

Personally, I wouldn't worry about it. I've been stuck with ATi cards for years now. In the end, you're playing the game, not the sky. I can see the lines; I'm not bothered.

Agreed.
But once set up correctly, I found it not so much annoying to use this method though it consumes a lot of memory in radiant if the resolution of skybox is high because qer_editorimage does not work against map models.
Maybe I should try with patch meshes instead of a map model and remap it to smaller image in radiant or move them to a different directory while using radiant.

@hipshots
Should the template shader name be prefixed with "sky_"?
If I change the name to arbitrary one such as "replace", portal sky does not work.
All in all thank you.

[Shallow]

But once set up correctly, I found it not so much annoying to use this method though it consumes a lot of memory in radiant if the resolution of skybox is high because qer_editorimage does not work against map models.
Maybe I should try with patch meshes instead of a map model and remap it to smaller image in radiant or move them to a different directory while using radiant.

There used to be a trick where if you had two sets of the same textures, one in a pk3 and one in folders, the game would always load the ones in the pk3, but Radiant would always find the ones in the folders. Dunno if this still works with newer Radiants, but if it does it may be an easier solution to memory usage issues.

I remember someone (possibly Tequila?) explained a technique where they worked with a set of textures with grids and arrows on to help them with texture alignment, but had a pk3 of the textures too so it all looked normal in game. (That was for just general alignment rather than sky specific. I'm rambling as usual )

[a13n]

It sounds pretty interesting and worthy trying though this might increase the possibility of missing textures at release time.
Also if q3 runs with sv_pure 0, which is essential to testing a map, does it still read the contents in a pk3 first?
Anyway thank you, Shallow, for the tip.
I'll try it to see if it really works.

[EDIT]
As worried, q3 preferred dummy textures to the ones in a pk3 with sv_pure 0. :=(

[a13n]

Note that hipshots' skybox model only works for 1024x1024 textures.
With 512x512, ugly seams still seem to remain.
Maybe I need to open the ase box with text editor and change the values of texture cordination, I guess.