Skybox (2D)

In Source, the skybox is a series of six images, joined together to make a cube. The cube is then locked to the player's viewpoint and acts as the most distant area of a map, usually the sky. Because the skybox is fixed to the player's viewport, it never changes perspective, allowing the cube to appear as a seamless whole.

Creating a 2D skybox

1. Prepare your TGA files (i.e. skynameBK.tga, skynameFT.tga, skynameUP.tga, skynameDN.tga, skynameRT.tga, skynameLF.tga)
2. Convert the TGA images to VTF (this will create a $SKYNAME.txt which you will later edit then rename to $SKYNAME.vmt)
3. After conversion, open the .txt and add:

"UnlitGeneric"
 {
 // Original shader: BaseTexture
 "$basetexture" "skybox/$SKYNAME"
 "$nofog" 1
 $ignorez 1
 }

• For each file, append the appropriate image tag to the sky name (i.e. bk, ft, rt, lf, up, dn)
• Rename the .txt files to .vmt
• Now go into your mod's materials folder and create the folder skybox.
• Copy your new VTF and VMT files into the skybox folder.
• In Hammer, go to Map > Map Properties > Skybox Texture Name and type in your skyname, without the side tags.