Skies in games - best practice

Sharvo

Hello all,

So one thing that I don't really understand to much is how to make skies for games. I understand some of the techniques, but was wondering if anyone else has some good techniques to make them.

I have followed the 3dmotive free tutorial on sky domes and they do look good.
I have also looked at the one here on the forums with the day/night cycle which is fantastic as well. And had a glance at the wiki section on skies and there is a lot to take in.

But that is pretty much where my understanding is. I know a few companies that use a cylinder as the camera is always locked and you cant see up - which was very basic but did the job. I also know of one that produces clouds through a custom system - that I don't have the knowledge as of the moment to recreate.

So I was just wondering what peoples best practices were for making skies in games.

Hope you can help.

Tiles

Best practice is : use what does the job and fits your needs. A simple skycube with six static textures can still be good enough when you don`t nee day/night cycle. This simply depends of what you want to achieve.

Eric Chadwick

Yep, totally depends on the game. Look on the wiki for whitepapers... there are some about advanced skydome techniques. Also,get a game editor and look at the shipped game levels, udk, cryengine, etc

Oh also, on the MMO section of my site I have a video showing an animated volcano skybox, with wireframes etc. Might help.