Custom Sky Textures - Not Working

Sarah

L1: Registered
Aug 6, 2008
42
0
Hello everyone !

First and foremost I apologise for this question as I fear there may be a very simple answer. I'm new to working with hammer so I've gone wrong somewhere. I downloaded 'StarryNight' found here
I then put all the extracted files into my materials folder and looked in the texture browser in hammer for them. They were there but appeared as pink and black blocks. I changes my sky texture through map properties by just adding 'starrynight' in the appropriate field. Complied the map and I couldn't see anything there, just a black background that moves around as the player does.

Additionally I know I have to compile these textures into the bps, yet I have no idea how to. I tried to follow some tutorials which had me create a bat file in soucesdk bin folder. Maybe someone could post a "how to" guide in the texture section with all the downloads to help newbies like me :)
 

DJive

Cake or Death?
aa
Dec 20, 2007
1,465
741
hello and welcome to the community!!

you want to extract those files here.

"C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\*yourname*\team fortress 2\tf\materials\skybox" Folder.

as for packing them up in the .bsp you need pakrat which you can get by this link
http://www.geocities.com/cofrdrbob/pakrat.html

If you select auto it will scan for all textured used not part of the game and add them.
 

Sarah

L1: Registered
Aug 6, 2008
42
0
Thanks ! I'll download pakrat and get right on to that. One thing though ...I don't have a skybox folder so should I just make one ? I mean, oringinally I had it in the same folder path up until /materials then had /customtexures.

Basically does it matter where in the materials folder ?
 

DJive

Cake or Death?
aa
Dec 20, 2007
1,465
741
yep make one, your skybox files should go exactly like

"C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\*yourname*\team fortress 2\tf\materials\skybox"
 

Sarah

L1: Registered
Aug 6, 2008
42
0
Thank you !! that was the problem, it wasn't in a skybox folder .. silly me :)

Edit: Now I've decided it doesn't fit the theme of my map anyway. So I've been trying to make my own texture. I've made it, size 256x256 , converted it to a vtf, made a vmt, put them in /materials/skybox/... it loads in the thumbnail image on the browser (although with a T logo in the corner ?). I applied it to a test surface and it's not tiling, so effectivly fails as a sky texture. Any ideas where I'm going wrong ?
 
Last edited:

ChronoTriggerFan

L420: High Member
Feb 3, 2008
434
73
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/HDR_Skybox_Creation

From what I'm reading, your making 1 texture, and for a skybox, your going to need 6. The tutorial should be all you need, with an HDR bonus!

You better make your map have very bright lights to compensate for the dark environment as well, or the map won't play very well. look around cp_oilrig to see what I mean by this
 

Sarah

L1: Registered
Aug 6, 2008
42
0
Hey thanks, that's exactly what I needed ! As for the risks I run trying to make it a 'night' map.. I'll see how I go. If it really doesn't look right then I'll just make it a day map. I did try to find a night sky tf2 type texture that's already been used and been effective but I can't find one anywhere apart from the originally mentioned. Which doesn't fit the map style sadly.

Lighting has always been a weakness in my maps I'll admit, so attempting this is either going to a) improve my lighting work or b)totally fail. So any tutorials or anything that could help I'd love to read, sadly I've looked at almost all tutorials that can be found and none really touch on 'night atmospheres'.

You know, thinking about it I have this gut feeling I should give up setting it at night right now :thumbdown: