QuakeLab2 - Making an Environment Map (or "Skybox", as I call them.) 
February 28, 1998 - Steve Funkadooda - stevefu@unixg.ubc.ca

I am not an expert! This is for anyone who is using similar software and is stuck and 
desperate for any guidance whatsoever. I know the feeling. :) This only works with non
8 bit textures enabled; I haven't included .pcx versions for 8 bit texture mode. This means
you'll need a 3Dfx card or some other OpenGL card used for Quake2.

Software used to create the mountain images/models: Bryce2 (now superseded by Bryce3D)

	http://www.metacreations.com - Retail: $199 US, $99 for registered Bryce users.
	Does various landscapes and scenes. Bryce3D introduces the capacity for 
	animation. Lots of features and potential, but surprisingly low learning curve
	as far as getting into using the program is concerned. Suitable for people of 
	all levels of experience.

Software used to extract the six 3DStudio/Targa images for the sides of the 'skybox': 

	http://www.wasabisoft.com - SkyPaint: 3rd Beta Release as of this writing.
	You can use this program as a plugin in conjunction with any supported paint 
	program, and make the images manually by hand painting if you like.

Software used to do additional manipulations to the images:

	http://www.jasc.com - PaintShopPro v5.0 Beta (PSP)
	Arguably the finest piece of shareware software available, and for the 
	dabbler or level designer who needs to do a quick texture or two,
	a very useful and not overwrought tool. 

There are other ways of doing these natural terrain/atmosphere images, but this is 
probably the easiest way to get the job done if you're not much of an artist. That is just my opinion; do what works best for you. 

1. In your chosen 3D modeling program, check and make sure you have a nice distribution of 
   mountains or other appropriate objects encircling the camera position so that you get 
   the visual effect you want. Make a BMP rendered image of what you want your 
   environment map to look like. A Quicktime VR version with the 90 degree rotation applied
   may be a better alternative although I haven't tried that. I had to manually rotate 
   the top and bottom images of the 'skybox' in PSP to make them line up correctly with the 
   'skybox' walls, because I'd only rendered to a plain BMP. 3DSMax or a plugin thereof has 
   a way of issuing the six skybox images directly. So you'd be done at this point short of
   a little retouching of the images here and there.

2. If you haven't already, install your paint program and SkyPaint. Load up the BMP in 
   SkyPaint and Save As [3DStudio/Targa]. This will result in six TGA format images 
   representing the sides of the skybox. ####_up.TGA, ####_dn.TGA, ####_rt.TGA, etc. 

3. In PaintShop Pro, do whatever retouching to the images you want to do, resize if 
   necessary to either 256x256 16 million colors (save as TGA) or 256x256 256 colors 
   (save as PCX.) The former is for non 8-bit texture usage and the latter is for 
   the more pixelicious 8 bit usage. 

4. Put the completed images into c:\quake2\baseq2\env (assuming you are using the 
   default Quake2 installation directories.) To just look at this in an existing 
   map, load the map and type "sky ####_" at the console minus the quotes. If you 
   want to set your custom Quake2 level to that sky, enter under the Worldspawn
   entity in your map editor the keypair 'sky = ####_". 

Have fun.  
Note: green_UP.TGA was modified to get rid of an irritating point effect - if you take
a look at green_DN.TGA you'll see what I mean - this isn't acceptable on the overhead
portion of a sky, of course. Then again, my hack retouching job is fairly rough and
obvious, but you get the idea. 




