[WIP] High quality skyboxes

[L0ki194 82]

If we could only do a similar thing for Nar Shaddaa now 

 

Nar Shaddaa ULTRA-Realistic Skybox?

[Kexikus 995]

If we could only do a similar thing for Nar Shaddaa now 

 

http://knightsoftheoldrepublic.filefront.com/file/Realistic_Nar_Shaddaa_Skybox;88468

 

And I'm glad you like it^^ And sorry about your jaw L0ki194

[Red Hessian 9]

Epic! Can't wait to see it in vanilla colors.

[Sith Holocron 2,478]

Is there a BOS:SR "sunset" alternate for the Taris skybox?

[Kexikus 995]

Is there a BOS:SR "sunset" alternate for the Taris skybox?

Yes, that'll be one of the optional add-ons I'm making for my pack to Work with other mods like BoS:SR, Green Dantooine or Joraks textures.

[Sith Holocron 2,478]

Thanks for the reply!

[Quanon 263]

Wooot, great stuff! Looks sweeeeet! Glad to have helped!

[VarsityPuppet 1,085]

http://knightsoftheoldrepublic.filefront.com/file/Realistic_Nar_Shaddaa_Skybox;88468

 

And I'm glad you like it^^ And sorry about your jaw L0ki194

 

Yeah, but I'm talking about including the building models in the scenery

[Kexikus 995]

So, the high resolution version of LTS_Bsky01.tga (that's the texture for the layers of buildings) is pretty much done

The thing is, that the way this texture is used ingame really sucks. It's just cut off for no reason, sometimes on the side, sometimes the lower part is missing... And yes, you can actually see these cuts even with the vanilla texture -.-

And that brought me back to an idea that was briefly discussed before: Add actual 3d buildings to the Taris area models. That'd probably look way better anyway and it would also require editing of the 2d building layers, so they could be modified in a way that has no obviously cut offs. The problem is that I don't know how to do that, so I thought I'd just let you know that I'd definetly appreciate a mod like this

 

Yeah, but I'm talking about including the building models in the scenery

 

That's something I wouldn't even know how to do

[Kexikus 995]

Well, I got stuck trying to make the vanilla Taris skybox, so I decided to make something else first and here's the result: Kashyyyk is done

 

 

 

 

Kashyyyk has only two textures that are actually used for the backdrops. One for the distant trees (marked blue and obviously called LKA_tree05.tga while tree01 to 04 aren't used^^) and one that shows only three trees and is used to have some trees closer to the playable area (marked red). The latter one is originally only 512x512 (even though a 1024x1024 version of the same texture exists...) and I'm not even sure if the resolution I remade the texture in (2048x2048) is enough. Maybe I'll make it bigger but I don't know yet.

[Kexikus 995]

More progress

 

 

As you can see I added an animation to the underwater background used on Manaan. My original plan didn't include this but when I searched for ways to create underwater backgrounds I found a cool After Effects tutorial on youtube that explained how to make an animated underwater scene and so I decided to give it a try, using After Effects trial version. And I think it turned out pretty cool, even though it still needs some tweaks

And for those who don't like it, I'll also include a version without the animation/lightrays.

 

Oh, and I haven't made any progress on the vanilla Taris skybox

[Jorak Uln 458]

It sound really cool. I think its always a step further to use these effects...

But Youtube doesnt seem to display the animation clearly, so i can only guess how it would look like. could you post some pics?

[Malkior 476]

Does it add onto the maelstrom-like rolling background found in the Vanilla? (You have to look pretty closely to the background, but it also animates)

[Kexikus 995]

I had no problems seeing the animation in the youtube Video (it zooms in in the end, that might help) but I'll post some Screenshots once I'm at home.

 

Edit: Here they are:

 

 

 

And yes, the background still rotates. And on top of that there are now moving light rays. They only appear every few seconds and only take up a small part of the texture so that they're not too distracting.

 

Edit 2:
I made some adjustments to the brightness and colour of the texture, so here's another screenshot. I think it looks way better this way and I might even edit the distance fog to make the area(s) blend even better with the water background

 

 

 

 

 

[Quanon 263]

Stunning work Kexikus! Going to use OMG here!

Do you have linky you can send to that specific tutorial? 

 

I see some awesome possibilties here! Moving storm clouds on the ravaged world of Malachor, moving mist layers...

The sea, waves moving on Manaan... A very slow sunset on Korriban...

 

Not sure ofcourse if it's possible, but this could reall 100X times improve atmosphere on most planets

Very creative thinking! Hands down, think a new modding god just stood up

[Malkior 476]

That last one definitely encapsulates the Deep Underwater feel that I was thinking of. Initially it looked too light considering how deep the rift was, but now looks about perfect.

[Kexikus 995]

Stunning work Kexikus! Going to use OMG here!

Do you have linky you can send to that specific tutorial? 

 

I see some awesome possibilties here! Moving storm clouds on the ravaged world of Malachor, moving mist layers...

The sea, waves moving on Manaan... A very slow sunset on Korriban...

 

Not sure ofcourse if it's possible, but this could reall 100X times improve atmosphere on most planets

Very creative thinking! Hands down, think a new modding god just stood up

 

Glad you all like it

 

Here's the tutorial I used: https://youtu.be/pjdmXYRzAWg Or that's atleast the base for what I did, as I took away the background animation, the rising bubbles and the vignette in the end^^

 

And you're right, animated textures really bring life to the game. The problem is that those textures get really big. For my underwater scene I use 64 frames, each being 1024x1024, so that's a 8k texture and it's actually noticable that the areas load longer than before^^ Also, those animated textures produce very big files in most cases and I don't think it's possible to animate only a small part of a texture to reduce the file size.

 

But I am thinking about ways to use animated textures, even though it's probably not a good idea to animate an entire skybox. One thing that came to my mind is the lightning on Malachor for example.

[Jorak Uln 458]

Glad you all like it

 

Here's the tutorial I used: https://youtu.be/pjdmXYRzAWg Or that's atleast the base for what I did, as I took away the background animation, the rising bubbles and the vignette in the end^^

 

And you're right, animated textures really bring life to the game. The problem is that those textures get really big. For my underwater scene I use 64 frames, each being 1024x1024, so that's a 8k texture and it's actually noticable that the areas load longer than before^^ Also, those animated textures produce very big files in most cases and I don't think it's possible to animate only a small part of a texture to reduce the file size.

 

But I am thinking about ways to use animated textures, even though it's probably not a good idea to animate an entire skybox. One thing that came to my mind is the lightning on Malachor for example.

Great work! Im glad you got on the animation route now as well

 

about animated textures - ive recently tried some different resolution experiments - i dont know if your program have a force square size button, but if you uncheck it and make resolutions like 900x900 with 49 pics or 950x950 with 36pics etc. you will get noticable more performance.

 

Cant wait to see more animated ones...

[Sith Holocron 2,478]

One thing that came to my mind is the lightning on Malachor for example.

You mean like this mod?

[Kexikus 995]

You mean like this mod?

 

Exactly like that, yes^^

(I knew about this mod, but I never realised those were animated textures.)

[Fair Strides 509]

And you're right, animated textures really bring life to the game. The problem is that those textures get really big. For my underwater scene I use 64 frames, each being 1024x1024, so that's a 8k texture and it's actually noticable that the areas load longer than before^^ Also, those animated textures produce very big files in most cases and I don't think it's possible to animate only a small part of a texture to reduce the file size.

 

Well, if it helps, the animated textures should still work the same if you convert them to DDS with the conversion tool in the Downloads section... You'll still need the .txi file of course, but the size should be anywhere from 15-35% of the original... The only downside is that you'll want to keep tga versions on-hand for editing...

[tjsase 116]

Great work on these skyboxes! I love how you corrected the purple fog on Korriban, that always bothered me!

[kfweasel 0]

All of these look tremendous! I can't wait till you've got 'em all done!

[Kexikus 995]

Well, if it helps, the animated textures should still work the same if you convert them to DDS with the conversion tool in the Downloads section... You'll still need the .txi file of course, but the size should be anywhere from 15-35% of the original... The only downside is that you'll want to keep tga versions on-hand for editing...

 

I just tried that for the animated texture and the filesize went up from 50MB to 85MB^^. But it worked for other non animated skybox textures, so I'll probably use it for them.

[Kexikus 995]

A very long time ago, Jorak Uln asked me if I wanted to add some clouds to my Tatooine skybox similar to those seen in SWTOR. Back then I was kinda reluctant to do so but I promised to give it a shot and see what it looks like. Later when I had some more experience with clouds I did just that but it looked simply horrible so I scrapped the idea again. But now with almost every skybox done and even more cloud experience (Unknown World, Taris, Manaan remake) I decided to try again and they did turn out really nice this time. So I went ahead and made a complete skybox for Tatooine that has some clouds.

 

 

I'm still not sure if this will replace my original version without clouds or if it will be an optional download, so let me know what you think. Either way both will be available, one in the main pack and one optional.

 

Also, you might have spotted something in my short text above: "Manaan remake". I did indeed a remake of the Manaan skybox with completely new and awesome looking clouds but you'll have to wait for the release to see that The old version will also be available as optional file.

And I also finished the vanilla Taris skybox. No screenshot right now, maybe later

 

That's it for today. The only two skyboxes still missing are the Unknown World ones and I can't continue with them right now, so I'll probably start with the BoS:SR support. Does anyone know where I can still reliably contact silveredge9, as I could use his permission to edit some .are files of his mod?