[RESOURCE] Paint-your-own skybox template PSD

[Boylee]

Paint-your-own skybox template PSD
Begrudginly made by Boylee

> > Download here < <
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I did, in a way. Boylee gave me a bit of a reference that I worked from, but it doesn't really look much like it anymore xD

Boylee also set me up with a Photoshop doc that uses the new-ish 3D properties of Photoshop to project the skybox on a sphere and then it uses camera positions to create the skybox. I might direct Boylee in here to better describe how it's done. I'm not 100% sure I could have done it myself without his help.

please please please explain @Boylee , this is something i'd love to be able to do. Perhaps a forum post rather than letting it get buried in the wip thread

This archive consists of 3 psb/psd files. They are all nested like Matryoshka dolls, so renaming them will break the links. The files are as follows:

1. paint this.psb
   This file is where you paint your panorama, it doesn't contain the up or down textures, and it has the four main views labelled so you can tell which area you're painting. This file is embedded in the second file.
   
   
2. edit this.psb
   This file is where you make any necessary edits around your panorama to make it seamless and also add in a sky and ground if necessary. The original texture from the first file is deliberately offset by -512px in here so that you can easily fix up the seam. This file is embedded in the third file.
   
   
3. export from this.psd
   This file contains a 3D sphere with second file spherically mapped onto it's interior. It also contains a camera and a set of camera presets that allows you to export each texture with the correct distortion. All that needs to be done in this file is to open the 3D panel, select the camera you want to export from, and then quick export the viewport to a texture. The 3D panel with all the camera presets can be seen in the screenshot above.

Hopefully this will help a few of you out on your very own, special skybox journeys. Now get out there and paint!


Disclaimer:
When I set out to make a skybox texture, I had no clue how to get from something flat, to something box shaped with the proper spherical distortion. After a fair amount of Googling, I came to the conclusion that rather than obtaining specific software to create a spherical mapping, it would be simpler to create it in Photoshop. Turns out I was partly right. Either way, what I'm getting at is that I don't know if this is the most efficacious way of creating a sphere map and exporting it as a skybox, it's just what worked for me. If you have a better way, then by all means share it. Given that this seems to be something that I found very hard to find info about online, I thought I would share mine in the hope it would save someone else the hassle I had setting it up.

I'm assuming that if you're reading this, you're at least reasonably familiar with Photoshop, so I'm not going to be fielding questions about the software, that's what Google is for. Also, I'm not going to write a lengthy tutorial on how to set this file up, mostly because I set it up over a year ago. Instead I'm going to upload the file, and you folks can pull it apart and figure it out. As far as I can recall, the most tricky bits were actually making sure the camera was both centred in the globe and had the correct focal length.

Lastly, I am not liable for any damage you may do with these file, it's not my fault if they eat your house, or set fire to your cat.