[WIP] High quality skyboxes

[Quanon 263]

@Kexikus: Wow, indeed, they fit nicely already with the game. Nice work. very impressive. Guess I got the colors mixed up with Korriban.

 

[Kexikus 995]

So, I made some improvements to Tatooines landscape - quite a few actually^^ and I think that it's no pretty much ready for rendering and the last photoshop touches.

But first here are some previews:

 

 

 

First of all a wide shot of dunes as far as the eye can see with only a cliff in the background. (I'm thinking of adding Tatooine's iconic rock formations with PS to improve this cliff a bit.)

 

Further to the right we have even more desert with a single moutain in the background.

 

And finally some more mountains in the background as well as the twin suns. (I'll add some glow to the suns with PS since TGs glow is way too strong to use it for a skybox in KotOR, simply because KotOR brightens them so much that the sky turns white.)

 

 

 

I'd say that this does Tatooines landscape justice while looking quite nice at the same time. But if anyone has ideas for improvements, feel free to let me know and I'll try to add them.

 

And for anyone who's interested, here's the node network that creates this scenery:

 

 

 

 

[Red Hessian 9]

Fantastic! I don't think you need add anything else. Looks perfect!

[Kexikus 995]

Thoughts?

 

[Malkior 476]

Love how it recedes into the background. The giant cliffs in the horizon are a nice touch. : ]

[milestails 264]

Adds so much depth!

[Red Hessian 9]

How about a download link?   My Override folder is drooling

[Sith Holocron 2,480]

He's probably not ready to release it yet. More planets to do and so forth. . .

[Kexikus 995]

Sith Holocron is correct.

But I actually thought about making "alpha" releases or something like that but Tatooine isn't even done yet (the horizon needs to be lowered for example), so for now I won't do that. There is however a download link for the Manaan skybox somewhere in this thread.

Not sure if I'll do other pre-releases but as I said, Tatooine isn't ready yet and I intend to work on another planet first before coming back to finish the textures.

 

Something completely different: Is there any digital artist out here who could paint a realistic skyline for Taris on top of a sky I'd create or who could add the crashed Hammerhead cruiser for the Unknown World? Or does anyone have any idea how to do that differently?

[Kexikus 995]

It's been a while since my last post and progress has indeed been very slow, due to me doing other stuff instead

 

But I started working on Dantooine and while I'm not really happy with my results yet, I still think that I'm on the right path. So I wanted to show you what I did.

 

The first picture shows the basic landscape everyone would probably expect: Rolling hills, plains and some mountains in the distance:

 

But I want some more variety in the landscape you'll see and that's what you can see here:

This second landscape was inspired by a picture I can't find right now, or I'd show you what it's supposed to look like

 

Any criticism is very welcome. (Note that the colors are not done yet)

[Red Hessian 9]

Both look great to me. But if you're going with the original Dantooine look, I'd take the first one.

[Kexikus 995]

The idea was always to combine those two designs with the goal that the landscape seen in the second picture gives a little more variation to the one seen in the first picture.

And while it took some time, I finally managed to combine them so that I can now continue with the colors. I'll show some more screenshots once that's done.

[Kexikus 995]

Here's another WIP shot of Dantooine. More vegetation, clouds and a moon are still missing.

 

(Right now I'm going for a "Green Grass for Dantooine" look, the vanilla version will follow later.)

[Sithspecter 909]

That looks very nice!! Excellent work.

[Quanon 263]

Starts to look good to me. Nice depth with those far of mountains.
It's just a matter of color matching. But I guess thats work for later

[Jorak Uln 458]

Good work, Kexikus! I like Tatooine most but am exited what you will pull out for Dantooine. Are you planning to do Nar Shaddaa as well? 

[Kexikus 995]

I don't think so, no and there are two reasons for it: First of all, I'll start with KotOR 1 and the second one is that there is already Sharen Thrawns really, really amazing skybox. But I intend to make a new skybox for Taris, although I have no idea how I'll accomplish that yet^^

[Kexikus 995]

Here's another update: I found a tree model for Terragen, that looks almost exactly like the trees seen on Dantooine in both KotOR games, so I was able to add those for details. I also roughly positioned the sun and added clouds. All that's left now is to add the two moons (which shouldn't take long) and work on a few details. And here's what it looks like now:

 

 

You can see some of the trees I mentioned above and a lake I added for some more variety.

 

And during a break, I also made some Photoshop edits to my Manaan skybox, so that it now blends better with the ocean.

[Fair Strides 510]

Only thing I'd change is the stretching. It seems to be a perspective stretching towards the sun. Look at the clouds above it and the clouds on the right.

[Kexikus 995]

I think that'll fix itself once I render the final images, but if not I'll certainly try to fix it manually.

[Kexikus 995]

Progress

 

I wasn't 100% happy with Dantooine, so I decided to work on Korriban a bit before finishing this skybox. And it turned out that making Korriban was really easy. But once I put a low quality render in the game this happened:

I'd say it looks pretty nice already (even though the sun is not where it's supposed to be^^) but the 3d models and the background don't really blend because of their different lighting. And so I wondered if it's possible to get rid of the blueish tint of the models or if I have to edit my texture.

 

And I also finished the Tatooine skybox (lowered the horizon and made some small color adjustments).

[Bas Qui-Xoi 6]

That looks really nice

[Jorak Uln 458]

Progress

 

I wasn't 100% happy with Dantooine, so I decided to work on Korriban a bit before finishing this skybox. And it turned out that making Korriban was really easy. But once I put a low quality render in the game this happened:

I'd say it looks pretty nice already (even though the sun is not where it's supposed to be^^) but the 3d models and the background don't really blend because of their different lighting. And so I wondered if it's possible to get rid of the blueish tint of the models or if I have to edit my texture.

 

And I also finished the Tatooine skybox (lowered the horizon and made some small color adjustments).

Hey, that looks outstandingly beautiful! I especially like the sunglare - you got rid of the oversaturated red sky - and now the color scheme is finally believable and realistic. 

You mentioned the blue rocks (with the statues) - they are not part of the skybox, right? That means, they could be retextured like any tex as well. If so, i wouldnt change anything regarding the color scheme of your skybox.

Blue rocks could be easily retextured in whatever color needed...

[Quanon 263]

I think the blue might be 'fog'. There is something in .are IIRC, far distance fog or something it was called... It has a certain value that matches a color, ex blue tint.
So a minor edit to the .RIM file or .module might do the trick. 

 

Dantooine, I know it's mostly rolling hills, but I miss some cliffs, in the foreground, to match with the walkable area. Just my 2cents

[Kexikus 995]

Hey, that looks outstandingly beautiful! I especially like the sunglare - you got rid of the oversaturated red sky - and now the color scheme is finally believable and realistic. 

You mentioned the blue rocks (with the statues) - they are not part of the skybox, right? That means, they could be retextured like any tex as well. If so, i wouldnt change anything regarding the color scheme of your skybox.

Blue rocks could be easily retextured in whatever color needed...

 

Glad you like it.

But simple retexturing won't work, because all rocks on Korriban use the same brown texture. But those in the distance have some kind of blue shader on top of them.

 

I think the blue might be 'fog'. There is something in .are IIRC, far distance fog or something it was called... It has a certain value that matches a color, ex blue tint.

So a minor edit to the .RIM file or .module might do the trick. 

 

Dantooine, I know it's mostly rolling hills, but I miss some cliffs, in the foreground, to match with the walkable area. Just my 2cents

I'll check that. Thanks for the info.

And about Dantooine: I'll see what I can do, but the terrain looks pretty good ingame already^^

 

Edit: I found the label you're referring to but changing the colour and putting the .are file into my Override doesn't have any effect. Did I edit the wrong thing or do I have to repack the .rim file for it to work?

 

Edit 2: Apparently I was so tired yesterday that I modified a module from TSL (I don't even know if it was the Valley of the Dark Lords^^). So I tried again today and after some try and error with that weird colour code, I managed to edit the fog in a way that the area model and the skybox blend really nice now