Skybox Help

[ForbiddenDonut]

I am rather new to making skyboxes (all my previous mapping experience is based on Portal hah), so I am unsure on what is the best way to tackle this issue I am having:

Basically, there's a skybox wall running along the roofs of these frontal buildings. Behind the skybox wall, some of the buildings are getting rendered and some are not. I have not yet done a 3D skybox, so I don't know if it remedies the situation.

It's not of huge concern as I'm not working on aesthetics at the moment, but if there are any suggestions to fixing this I'd love to hear 'em.

At the moment, my solution is going to be raising the roofs of the frontal buildings.

 

[xzzy]

Skybox brushes are kind of funny in the sense that they block vis during compile, but don't block rendering if background geometry is concluded to be "potentially visible." What I'm assuming is happening is that the game thinks those background buildings are visible by way of that hill route on the lower left of the image.

If you don't want those buildings to render, you'll have to use hint brushes to convince the engine that those buildings are in fact not visible, or use player clips to keep players from getting high enough to see beyond the foreground buildings. A third option would be to make the foreground buildings taller so that players can't see over them.

If you do want them to render, or want more of your rooftops to render, you'll have to cut holes in the skybox to tweak the vis calculations. Viaduct is the best example I know of this.. dig up a decompile and pay attention to what they did with skyboxes and hint brushes along the roofs of the buildings. It's a pretty clever solution that allows rocket jumpers to see across the map, but unnecessary geometry doesn't get rendered when the player is on the ground.