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This is helpful but confusing for my situation...  I'm trying to create Water as the horizon, but this does not explain how. - Solo

Here's an example of water as a horizon, with an object circling above the water: [http://www.sdknuts.net/akg/tutorials/wiseTrains2.asp]

This doesn't explain how you get buildings into the skybox, because the models are far to big, and they can't be scaled down, yet I'm positive they're used in skyboxes in smaller forms.

: They have miniature skybox models...this is true for headcrab canisters too -ts2do

== Is light_environment necessary in the 3d skybox? ==

I've tried a skybox just once so far and inadvertently, but perhaps fortuitously, left out the light_environment from the skybox. I didn't realize it until I was well along. The skybox props appear to be lit properly (i.e., consistently) in the map without the extra light_environment. If the light_environment isn't necessary, that's better as the "main" light_environment can then be "tuned" for the final map without one having to remember to adjust the skybox light. &mdash;'''[[User: BJ|BJ]]'''<sup>([[User talk:BJ|talk]])</sup> 18:49, 14 May 2006 (PDT)

     BJ,
         The ''light_environment'' entity is a light controller that casts directional lighting '''from the skybox'''.
       This means that you only need one ''light_environment'' entity in the level, and anywhere a skybox is, there will be light
       coming from it.  Thus your level and 3d skybox will have matching lighting with only one ''light_environment''.
         I hope this answers your question adequately,
               --[[User:RigorMortis|RigorMortis]] 21:57, 1 Jan 2008 (PST)

== 3d skybox texture scale when using transform ==

Its been a while since I had to create a 3d skybox and I know that during the bestatest of the sourcesdk (in januari 2006?) textures didn't scale properly when scaling brushes to the 3dskybox size. I disabled the betaskd back then and did it in the oldsdk but that option is not possible anymore and it looks like textures still don't scale right now or is there a new trick to it? --[[User:Bluestrike|Bluestrike]] 05:19, 1 Oct 2006 (PDT)
: Ok enabling texture lock is the new trick. --[[User:Bluestrike|Bluestrike]] 15:34, 1 Oct 2006 (PDT)

== Changeable skybox ==

In the Source engine, can the skybox be changed ''within'' the level? I'm thinking specifically of a sequence a la the Resonance Cascade or A Red Letter Day, in which the player character is transported to various locations, but the effect I want is that both an Earth sky and a Xen sky can be seen without changing the actual map. (I suppose that since you're in a "randomly warped around" sequence, you're only going to be in each place for a few seconds at most, so I can fake it with a Xen sky which obscures the Earth skybox, but ...) &mdash;[[User:Yar Kramer|Yar Kramer]] 20:25, 6 Nov 2006 (PST)
:The 2D skybox isn't dynamic your gonna have to fake it. --[[User:Angry Beaver|Angry Beaver]] 21:10, 6 Nov 2006 (PST)
::There's a console command along the lines of <code>sv_sky</code>, I believe. --[[user:TomEdwards|TomEdwards]] 04:05, 7 Nov 2006 (PST)
:::Hmm. Not sure if that actually changes the skybox. Either way, though, I think that, with what I'm pretty sure I'll be doing, faking it will be my best bet. Though it just occurred to me to wonder if I might be able to do a similar effect with the ''3D'' skybox, i.e. having a 3D skybox entity "below" the main map which would surround the "Xen" section ... which, um, would amount to the same thing, except sort of semantically, as it were. &mdash;[[User:Yar Kramer|Yar Kramer]] 19:38, 1 Dec 2006 (PST)
::Next question: is it possible to get objects in the 3D skybox to move through the 3D skybox area along with the player's movements so that these objects would appear stationary with respect to the player, apart from rotation? Or possibly how to move [[sky_camera]] from one place to another and make it ''stay'' there independent of the player's movement (but still rotating)? &mdash;[[User:Yar Kramer|Yar Kramer]] 15:45, 6 Dec 2006 (PST)
::: [[logic_measure_movement]] with !player maybe? I know the biggest problem of the measuremovements is that it does update physics hulls properly but that shouldn't matter if its in the skybox. --[[User:Angry Beaver|Angry Beaver]] 08:52, 7 Dec 2006 (PST)

==NPC's?==
Is there anything ''wrong'' with putting npc's in 3d skyboxes? Will the game crash or something?--[[User:Darthkillyou|Darthkillyou]] 16:26, 29 Jul 2007 (PDT)

No not at all but they will appear larger than normal. the 3d skybox scales them to a larger size and therefore they are Godzilla like in size.--[[User:MrTwoVideoCards|Gear]] 19:09, 29 Jul 2007 (PDT)

Oooh... okay, time to make some giant odessa maps :D--[[User:Darthkillyou|Darthkillyou]] 08:08, 30 Jul 2007 (PDT)

I once had the ''extremely'' wacky idea of having, in a multiplayer map, an ''accessible'' 3D skybox. Think of the posssibilities! &mdash;[[User:Yar Kramer|Yar Kramer]] 00:49, 17 Nov 2007 (PST)

:The Mario Kart map for TF2 does this.--[[User:Aybraus|Aybraus]] 15:24, 1 Dec 2008 (PST)

Not much possiblites there.--[[User:MrTwoVideoCards|Gear]] 01:30, 17 Nov 2007 (PST)

Yeah, but they'd be ''awesome'' possibilities! ;-) &mdash;[[User:Yar Kramer|Yar Kramer]] 11:03, 17 Nov 2007 (PST)

I see only one possibility. Some giant players who do not seem to see you. Yay. --[[User:Baliame|Baliame]] 11:17, 17 Nov 2007 (PST)

Fine! ''Be'' logical, sensibal, and showing the least mount of restraint! ;) &mdash[[User:Yar Kramer|Yar Kramer]] 17:16, 17 Nov 2007 (PST)

You kidding me? That's the greatest idea ever!!! (It's already been implemented in some maps too! Though with only part of the 3d skybox) --[[User:AsianBorat|AsianBorat]] 12:07, 5 Jul 2008 (PST)

:Well, they did this in that one Arena Map for SiN Episodes 1. (A guy was locked outside of his lab or something lol) --[[User:Frostbite|JakeB]] 12:38, 5 Jul 2008 (PDT)

:You know, couldn't you make the models to scale, and then place those models in the skybox?  They would then appear the correct size.  And since less Triangles would be used on these small models, you could feasible have many more.  As in, I think, 16 times as many, since the 3D Sky Box is 1/16th.  Assuming you figure out the AI, you could have ''tons'' of people walking about.  They wouldn't really be interactive, I don't think, but if Left 4 Dead has 30 zombies as the z_commonlimit, according to my logic, you could have 480 people walking about.  Think about that. --[[User:CorporalAris|CorporalAris]] 21:41, 1 Dec 2008 (GMT -6)

::"People" are more than just their models. The engine would have to keep track of 480 different sets of AI &mdash; not a trivial task at all. &mdash;[[User:Yar Kramer|Yar Kramer]] 11:37, 3 Dec 2008 (PST)

::: Yeah, I suppose.  Personally, if I were a coder, (I do a bit, but not C++), I would just make some VERY simple routines for the 480 people.  Make it a bit easier on the system.  Maybe not even 480, maybe less, but hell, it would be way less on the graphics. --[[User:CorporalAris|CorporalAris]] 14:34, 4 Dec 2008 (PST)

== Reverse 3D Skybox ==

This is probably merely inspired perversity (well, perversity, anyway), but is it possible to have a "reverse" 3D Skybox? That is, if a player has somehow gotten into a 3D skybox in, say, a HL2DM map, is it possible to give them a sort of "god's eye view" of the normal area, while everyone in the normal area sees a giant player watching over (and possibly shooting innefectively at) them? Even as I'm typing this, my instincts are telling me that the answer would involve way too much effort and programming for something that there's no way I could possibly gain any practical benefit from. (The "so obvious it can't possibly be right" answer, simply putting in a second [[sky_camera]] in the main area of the map, didn't work, nor was I seriously expecting it to.) &mdash;[[User:Yar Kramer|Yar Kramer]] 18:23, 16 Mar 2008 (PDT)
:Eternal Silence does that trick for its space stations, so it is possible. --[[user:TomEdwards|TomEdwards]] 04:17, 17 Mar 2008 (PDT)
::Oh, I have no doubts that it's ''possible'', knowing the Source Engine, but I suppose it's not possible to do in Half-Life 2: Deathmatch (i.e. "without programming"). ;) &mdash;[[User:Yar Kramer|Yar Kramer]] 10:07, 23 Mar 2008 (PDT)
:::You'd have to modify the code which handles the 3D skybox to show the map when in the 3D skybox in relationship with the origin point of the map (0,0,0) and the sky_camera entity, basically, the reverse of the 3D skybox effect. [[User:Solokiller|Solokiller]] 11:12, 23 Mar 2008 (PDT)
::Exactly. &mdash;[[User:Yar Kramer|Yar Kramer]] 17:25, 24 Mar 2008 (PDT)


::ES has a sky box and a space box. The space box, simply  has teleports in and out of it. When teleported in, the models immediately scale down to 1/16th size. All space scenes are in the same area, just scaled down. The skybox is projected in the space box. Regular area, and space area are visually connected with projections. --[[User:Sbrown|Sbrown]] 10:41, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

:::Um ... yes, but my question was, could you do this in a HL2DM or TF2 map without modifying the code any, and just using inputs and outputs? &mdash;[[User:Yar Kramer|Yar Kramer]] 02:54, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

== Left 4 Dead ==

It should be noted that L4D's skybox scale is set to 1/32. --[[User:Sniperchance|Sniperchance]]

No 3D skybox models available in the L4D sdk?  Anyone know where they are or how to get at them?