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C0DES

6 Nov, 2019 @ 1:07am

3d skybox tutorial info available?

Hi,
I am developing a SteamVR home environment and have been trying to get a 3DSkybox working in it.
So I followed the source engine docs for setup of 3dSkybox.
First off, it seems that the setup for vis culling has changed in this version of the engine, so getting our skybox camera to cull out the rest of the map is somewhat tricky. I ended up using a heap of nodraw brushes and turned on the vis culling option, which itself caused some interesting artifacts.
Once the setup is somewhat working, I can see things from the skybox in the level, at the 16x scale, but there is a rendering issue with projected shadows only showing up in one eye.

Oh, I noticed there is a 'Map Type:3DSkybox' option in the map properties, but how would one reference another map for the 3DSkybox if you are to create a separate map for it?

Has anyone got it working for SteamVR? I'd be very interested in any info you can point me to!

Regards,
Codes

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Showing 1-4 of 4 comments

Rectus

6 Nov, 2019 @ 2:48am

I don't think the 3D skybox system has been fully updated to work properly with the VR renderer.

The Source 2 visibility system is completely different form the one on the old engine, so boxing things in isn't required anymore. It probaly makes things worse since it needs to calculate visiblity in a larger area.
It's possible to do distance based culling instead. You can change the rendering distance with the Far Z value in the env_gradient_fog entity (not sure if there is any other way). An option might be to set fade values for meshes and props, but I'm not sure is that affects the skybox render too.

Another thing to think about is if you actually need a 3d skybox. The map size doesn't have any hard limit, it is possible to have meshes and static props outside the grid. You just need to turn up the Far Z value to make it render if you need anything huge.
I noticed pushing it and making an enormous map increases the compile size a ton though.

Last edited by Rectus; 6 Nov, 2019 @ 2:48am

C0DES

6 Nov, 2019 @ 7:23am

Hey Rectus,
Thanks for the prompt reply, bad news, but I guess if the map doesn't have any hard limits anymore then it's kinda redundant.
A note in the wiki might save some people repeating the same investigations over again, can just anyone, such as me edit the wiki?
I've got a heap more questions on various topics, you might see me around this forum a lot!

Rectus

6 Nov, 2019 @ 11:01am

Yeah, anyone can edit the wiki. I was thinking about adding an article with a list of what entities do and don't work, and what to replace the non-functional ones with.