Battlezone Forums

Hey guys,


how can I create a .sky file for a new bz2map? I saw that there are many skies already saved in the bzeditor- but I wanted to make one by myself as I saw the great skies from spAce and some others.

So is there any program do create such a file?

Its all done via the console in the editor, and saved with your map file when you save Best way to learn it is quite simply to dig-in.

Everything from lighting angle to sun color to ambient color to sprites is declared by the .SKY file.

Open the console and type in "LS" (minus quotes) and hit enter, you will get a full list of the console commands. They are fairly self explanatory!

(If you're in playing the latest public version, be sure to drop back out and in the editor before saving).

This link is also helpful for learning how to map edit.

http://zeroangel.overminddl1.com/featur ... /index.php

ah, OM's site is back up at last...

Some of those Ls commands may not work as expected, particularly the ones for lighting sky's or domes. Its been a while since I have been in there and allot of the old boogs are now cosmic debris along with BZU, so feel free to make a list of things that don't seem to work.

Funny.

I can't know how they should work and so I can't know whats wrong.

But- TheJamsh: I saw you can make great skies. Could you make a short tutorial how-to do a sky?

I'm in the process of writing an 'advanced map-making tutorial' at the moment, but it covers more broad areas and not nitty gritty things like skies. There's so much that can be done with them

I can't know how they should work and so I can't know whats wrong.

Yes, but you can assume that they should do something, if they don't or you don't understand what they are doing, make a list or ask a question about them.
Some of the sky command functions are a bit confusing if your not used to them.

hi cyber how are you:)
Well there are endless things you can do with skies ...add planets ,animations ,change the sunlight,or the color ect ect...you could write 100 pages on it....yeah you need to experiment in console a bit to see for yourself
have you ever heard of InfiSYS.<------its a blank map by space and in it is included a renamedome.xsi file,renamedome.bmp file ,along with 3rd party programs make even more realistic skies

Advanced Domes by Space

I have used special fish eye images with domes, sad fact is that I don’t have enough energy to write a tutorial about the texture creation part, too advanced to be written with crappy english (not my native language).

For this tutorial I had to find a free (no software costs) and easy method to create fish eye dome textures. So, a software called terragen cant render true fish eye images, but it can do something near alike. You can get terragen from http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/

Creating backdrop sky textures in terragen is very easy, setup camera rotation straight up (pitch 90°) and set camera zoom to value 0.25. After few minutes of fighting with the crappy software I ended up with this:


Play around with settings, add mountains if you want, you can create nightscapes ,whatever. If you make mountains, make sure that they aren’t too high, keep them close to borders of the image, so that in BZ2 they look like they are distant.
Make sure that you have sun in the middle of image’s y-sector, BZ2 sun light source can be made to match the sun in the image that way.
Also make sure that you have all scene render qualities set to highest, setup clouds as 3d. Forgetting details ends into odd pixelized look.
After you have a nice scene to render, save it as 512x512 image in BMP format.
(Note, if you wanto add fish eye effect or spherize filter, render higher res version, like 1024x1024)

If you wanto load a custom dome to a map without using InfiSYS as a template, you have to play around with “dome.uvspeed” values in the console and bring the dome to a complete stop and angle. You can also copy InfiSYS SKY file to another map (replace other map’s SKY file).

If you want to do a dome texture that stretches better to dome XSI geometry, you can try spherize filter that can be found from Gimp (free software) and Photoshop. The spherize filter isn’t the actual fish eye effect that works perfectly, but it brings more realism for sure. When you add filter such as spherize, you should have higher res editing material where to apply the filter, 1024x1024 should be enough. After applying spherize filter, resize texture back to 512x512 resolution before setting it for BZ2.

If you wanto do a dome texture that stretches perfectly to dome XSI geometry, heres example image that was combined and edited from multiple photos:

After you have done a texture, you have to open renamedome.xsi with notepad or wordpad. You can find renamedome.xsi from the tutorial files, the dome is also used and seen in InfiSYS starter map.
After you see insane load of numbers, look for a line that looks like this yellow one here:
Edit that line to match your dome texture’s name. After renaming, save the file (use “save as”) and give unique name for it, like yourbsdome.xsi, whatever.

Now you have a custom dome, bravo ! Throw it into addon/YourPath and load up InfiSYS map into BZ2 Editor. Once you there, open console (ctrl+§) and type: “dome.name yourbsdome.xsi”. After done that you are hopefully happy about results. You can play around with fog color so that it will match your dome, do it by typing different values to console, like: “sky.fogColor 160 163 186”
If your dome is forming up too “high” or too “low”, play around with “dome.height” in the console.
If you wanto load a custom dome to a map without using InfiSYS as a template, you have to play around with “dome.uvspeed” values in the console and bring the dome to a complete stop and angle. You can also copy InfiSYS SKY file to another map (replace other map’s SKY file).

You completed the dome part, great !
hope this opens more posibilities for you
regards SUB-0

Do you have the saved version of that tutorial, or the images for it? I would like to put it up on my website.

Hi Zero Angel i have read your post btw

And yes i do as a matter of fact ...i can email you the whole tutorial in word document ...if you have word program? Or send you all the images numbered seperatly...along with the tutorial and the location of each pic in notepad

Also i have few other things from sapce such as his video tutorial ...ON how to make your own wire icons that you see in hud ...pretty good ! well i'll look for anything of value ...as far as tutorials go from that mod ...other stuff have all his stock textures such as clouds sprites ect ... a big folder of just ze stuff...everything at your entire disposal.

BTW let me know if you have word program

regards SUB-0

I have something even BETTER than word. It's called Openoffice.

Sure, send me the Word document.

lol Zero Angel i looked ture my list of friends on msn and you changed your nick ...since i have many in this list i could not find your email....could you email me just a hello so that is can send you that file also i will send you somthing els not sure if there still is a download link to this file InfiSYS.zip which is the blank map that tutorial was made for...

regards SUB-0

Yeah, sorry about that. One of my messenger clients periodically changes my handle to my first name. My email address is zeroangelmk1 -at- gmail -dot- com

SUB-0 wrote:hi cyber how are you:)
Well there are endless things you can do with skies ...add planets ,animations ,change the sunlight,or the color ect ect...you could write 100 pages on it....yeah you need to experiment in console a bit to see for yourself
have you ever heard of InfiSYS.<------its a blank map by space and in it is included a renamedome.xsi file,renamedome.bmp file ,along with 3rd party programs make even more realistic skies

Advanced Domes by Space

I have used special fish eye images with domes, sad fact is that I don’t have enough energy to write a tutorial about the texture creation part, too advanced to be written with crappy english (not my native language).

For this tutorial I had to find a free (no software costs) and easy method to create fish eye dome textures. So, a software called terragen cant render true fish eye images, but it can do something near alike. You can get terragen from http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/

Creating backdrop sky textures in terragen is very easy, setup camera rotation straight up (pitch 90°) and set camera zoom to value 0.25. After few minutes of fighting with the crappy software I ended up with this:


Play around with settings, add mountains if you want, you can create nightscapes ,whatever. If you make mountains, make sure that they aren’t too high, keep them close to borders of the image, so that in BZ2 they look like they are distant.
Make sure that you have sun in the middle of image’s y-sector, BZ2 sun light source can be made to match the sun in the image that way.
Also make sure that you have all scene render qualities set to highest, setup clouds as 3d. Forgetting details ends into odd pixelized look.
After you have a nice scene to render, save it as 512x512 image in BMP format.
(Note, if you wanto add fish eye effect or spherize filter, render higher res version, like 1024x1024)

If you wanto load a custom dome to a map without using InfiSYS as a template, you have to play around with “dome.uvspeed” values in the console and bring the dome to a complete stop and angle. You can also copy InfiSYS SKY file to another map (replace other map’s SKY file).

If you want to do a dome texture that stretches better to dome XSI geometry, you can try spherize filter that can be found from Gimp (free software) and Photoshop. The spherize filter isn’t the actual fish eye effect that works perfectly, but it brings more realism for sure. When you add filter such as spherize, you should have higher res editing material where to apply the filter, 1024x1024 should be enough. After applying spherize filter, resize texture back to 512x512 resolution before setting it for BZ2.

If you wanto do a dome texture that stretches perfectly to dome XSI geometry, heres example image that was combined and edited from multiple photos:

After you have done a texture, you have to open renamedome.xsi with notepad or wordpad. You can find renamedome.xsi from the tutorial files, the dome is also used and seen in InfiSYS starter map.
After you see insane load of numbers, look for a line that looks like this yellow one here:
Edit that line to match your dome texture’s name. After renaming, save the file (use “save as”) and give unique name for it, like yourbsdome.xsi, whatever.

Now you have a custom dome, bravo ! Throw it into addon/YourPath and load up InfiSYS map into BZ2 Editor. Once you there, open console (ctrl+§) and type: “dome.name yourbsdome.xsi”. After done that you are hopefully happy about results. You can play around with fog color so that it will match your dome, do it by typing different values to console, like: “sky.fogColor 160 163 186”
If your dome is forming up too “high” or too “low”, play around with “dome.height” in the console.
If you wanto load a custom dome to a map without using InfiSYS as a template, you have to play around with “dome.uvspeed” values in the console and bring the dome to a complete stop and angle. You can also copy InfiSYS SKY file to another map (replace other map’s SKY file).

You completed the dome part, great !
hope this opens more posibilities for you
regards SUB-0

Thx SUB-0, I think this post will be useful. I am gonna try it out asap
Thx mate