SkyZones
UnrealED2 Tutorials by EZkeel

E-mail:Ezkeel@nikodemus.co.uk
Accompanied files : SkyZone.UNR

Contents

1) Create your_sky area
2) Create a viewing area
3) Improving your skybox

Introduction

A nice scenic sky is probably one of the things that really gives your level an impressive feel, and UT does this particularly well. If you’ve never done this sort of thing before, creating a sky view can be confusing business
(it confused my brain off when I first tried to get to grips with it).

All of your sky and distant landscapes are created in a separate box all on their own. Inside this box you have a "SkyZoneInfo" item which acts as a sort of video camera. The TV screens that show what your camera sees will be the walls of the rooms in your level. If that is still confusing, don’t worry, as you start to make one yourself, it will gradually become clear what’s happening.

Again, this is just the way I did this, and there may be better ways of doing this, but I found that this worked for me.

Create your Sky area

1) The sky area you build needs to be quite a bit larger than the area in your map you want to see it from, but it shouldn’t be very high. Create a box 2048 x 2048 wide and 512 high. Choose an earthy type of texture for your ground (use GENearth.UTX), and pick a sky texture from GENfluid for the other sides of your box

2) Now you need to add some light for your sky. Place one light actor as close to the centre of the box as you can and adjust its settings to suit your taste. This is a large area, so you will probably need to enlarge your light’s radius to cover a larger area of the sky. Or you could add an extra light which you could have a different colour. Rebuild and save your level. Try and avoid having any of the sides of your box lit up as this doesn’t look to good in your map when you play it.You’ll have to experiment and fiddle to get a result you like.

See the tutorial on LIGHTING if you’re unsure.

3) Now you need to put your "video camera" in there. Open the "ActorClassBrowser" and choose "Info" then "ZoneInfo" and under that class you will find a "SkyZoneInfo". Add this item to your Skybox, and your Skybox is now ready. All you need now is somewhere to view it from.

Create a viewing area

4) Create a room 512 x 512 x 512 and in the usual way, add a light, a player start and set your game type to something like SinglePlayer so that you can actually run around in there. Rebuild and save once again.

5) Now you need to tell this room that the walls are actually the sky. Select every side of your room apart from the floor. (Keep the control button pressed as you select each surface and they should all highlight. Or you could click one of them, then press SHIFT-B and de-select the floor). Now press F5 and you should see the surface properties box appear. Make sure it is on the "Effects" tab. One of the fields is called "fake backdrop", click on that one so that a tick appears. All of your walls and the ceiling will now act as giant TV screens for your Skybox area.
Rebuild and Save, then try it out. You should be walking around on square platform which appears to be hanging high in the air with the sky all around you.

Improving your skybox

That was an extremely basic skybox just to show you the principle, but there is much more you can do to make it look more impressive. Try the following suggestions.

Scale:
Because your Skybox is a large area, you will probably need to adjust the scale of the textures in your box. Click on one of the sides so that it is highlighted, press SHIFT-B and then all the sides of your box should be highlighted. Now press F5 to bring up the properties of each sheet (it should say 6 selected at the top). You need to click on the tab that says "Scale". In the field that says "Simple Scaling" click on the drop down menu and choose 2 or 4 (whichever you like), click on"apply" and then close it. You should see your textures appearing a lot larger now.

Moving Sky:
Why have a static sky when it's easy to make it move? To do this, just click on the sky textures within your skybox and press F5 to bring up their properties. Click the field called "U-pan" and this will cause your sky to move. "V-pan" also does the same thing but along a different axis. You may find that when you run your level after changing this that the sky is moving too fast. If this is the case (or you want it slower or faster anyway) then click on the "SkyZoneInfo" actor and press F4 to bring up its property box. There is a property called "ZoneLight".
click on that and reduce the"TextUPanSpeed" (or V if used that one) to 0.5 instead of 1 and that will slow it down.

Mountains:
Unreal provides textures that are perfectly designed for this purpose. Choose the texture pack called "Skybox.UTX" and you’ll see some textures that look like a mountain range. You will be using these. (There are similar mountain textures in other files too).

Set up a sheet 256 wide by 128 high (both the ZONES tutorial and TELEPORTERS tutorial will give you more insight into making sheets). Place it so that it comes up about half way through the bottom of your skybox, fairly near the centre. Now add 8 sheets next to each other to form a large square around your SkyZoneInfo actor.

The left-hand picture is the top view and the picture above is the side view. Each of the 8 sheets should be another mountain texture that follows on from the last, otherwise you will have very strange looking scenery! Set the surface properties to be "masked" (on the "effects" tab F5) too.

Adding Actors
You can also add decorations into your skybox, and if you position them correctly they’ll look quite good. If you look carefully at the sample map, you’ll see a Skaarj scoutship placed in the mountains. You can also add pawns like birds to circle in the sky too.

It all adds to the scenery, but don’t add to much, it may slow things down a little.

Swallowing Projectiles
Isn’t it annoying when you play a level that looks pretty good and then you shoot the sky and your ammo impacts on an invisible wall? Well there is a way around this. I was pointed in the direction of using a "CloudZone" actor to do this before, but never had any success with it. Instead, I found another way to do it.

Create a sheet the same width and depth as your room (the one with the playerstart in it). Add the sheet to your world using the "Add Special Brush" icon. In it's surface properties tick the "fake backdrop" field. Once you rebuilt and saved, play it and you should see your projectile get swallowed up when you fire up at the sky. You may still hear the sound of the impact if your ceiling is close, but at least you won’t see it!
Note: This still doesn't stop ripper projectiles from bouncing off though!

Clouds
To add to the realism, you can even add clouds. Just select a cloudy texture, and like you did in the "swallowing projectiles" exercise, add a sheet near the top of your skybox. This one should also have its "U-pan" clicked on and should also be transparent.

Stars and Moons
Again, there are other textures (Skybox and SpaceFX) that have textures of stars and moons. All you need to do is add these in to your skybox tilting inwards near the top as another small square sheet.

EZkeel
(Simon West-Bulford)