Reverse 3D skybox; could it be?

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Mar 4, 2008
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Or make a hologram model?

Maybe assign particle affects that move according to proportionate movement by players. But that'd be kinda difficult. I'm not sure how that'd be achieved without looking into it personally (see Booj, perhaps).

You could just have a model which skin changes depending on ownership of an area.
 

Thingy Person

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Sep 6, 2009
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Back when I had no idea of how maps in Source work, I was enthralled by how players in the 3D skybox get projected to OMGhuge proportions. Wouldn't it be fun (and unproductive) to see players scavenge around an actual representation of the map at ant size?

Maybe either the key area or the appropriate team's spawn should be disconnected from the rest of the map through teleporters. How about a map where Red has to defend multiple points, which they can only reach with teleporters? The live maquette would help them in deciding which one to take.

I think the table or whatever should have the midpoint of its surface at the map origin for easy developing, while the sky_camera is at the central point of the play area, preferably under a displacement so that it doesn't get lodged in solid. The scale should be 0.0625, if that's possible.

Of course, it had better not be detailed to excess, seeing as the whole map gets rendered at all times.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Mar 4, 2008
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Players wouldn't be able to see themselves miniature. Also, the 3dskybox gets rendered twice. Once at normal size and once on a larger scale (x16) so the "map-map" would be rendered twice.

Just noclip into 2fort's skybox (or any maps skybox for that matter) and see for yourself. You'll see yourself rendered huge.
 

Untouch

L4: Comfortable Member
Jan 25, 2010
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Just tried it and no, 3d skyboxes project around the whole map no matter what.


You can't position them unless you want to nodraw the whole map.
 

A Boojum Snark

Toraipoddodezain Mazahabado
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Nov 2, 2007
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Impossible, for one very important reason. World renders in front of sky no matter what. So there is no way you could have the projection appear inside a room, because even if you put a cube of toolsskybox in the room, the room would be rendered on the top layer.

Beyond that, the world would require a sky_camera in it, which would mean the entire map would be leafless and render in it's entirety.
 

A Boojum Snark

Toraipoddodezain Mazahabado
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Nov 2, 2007
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I don't think, I know. Go load a portal file into Hammer. There are none created in any volumes that contain a sky_camera. This can also be seen in-game using mat_leafvis.

That said, the OB VBSP does have a -forceskyvis flag in it, but I've only experimented using it for real 3D skyboxes (no luck making it result in anything useful) but perhaps using it with a sky_camera in the actual playable area would give results. However I have a feeling that would actually be detrimental to this idea because the entire map wouldn't be rendered at once, which is the point of what the hologram shows. (don't forget the render order makes the whole idea not work anyway)

edit: actually come to think of it, you could only theoretically have this in one place, since the sky will only have one relative projection, so it wouldn't work to have one for each team.
 
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Thingy Person

L1: Registered
Sep 6, 2009
45
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Impossible, for one very important reason. World renders in front of sky no matter what. So there is no way you could have the projection appear inside a room, because even if you put a cube of toolsskybox in the room, the room would be rendered on the top layer.

You could, however, put the toolsskybox cube in a corner of the room and have that part of the room in the play area at a scale of 16:1. Basically, you put a huge table and walls under/around the playable area.

Ignoring the optimisation issues, of course. The map would have to be greatly underdetailed, keeping it from being a serious map effort.
 

lana

Currently On: ?????
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Sep 28, 2009
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Just noclip into 2fort's skybox (or any maps skybox for that matter) and see for yourself. You'll see yourself rendered huge.

But you won't. You can never ever see the player model unless your viewpoint is changed, such as when taunting. Not even reflective glass can save you!