skybox using terragen3

[sniffles]

Hello,

I googled a bit and found several good tutorials on how to create a skybox using terragen 2. But I don't see how to do it with terragen3. I tried messing with the camera rotations, but the seams are not lining up (even when flipping them around in photoshop).

Can anyone tell me the correct parameters to use in the camera? I tried rotations of 0, X, 0, where X is 0, 90, 180, 270. Then Y, 0, 0, where Y is 90, -90...but it just seems a little off, and is definitely noticeable in game.  Thanks!

[sniffles]

I figured it out. I just needed to set the camera setting of "use horizontal fov" to 90, and all lined up!

[paq]

Hi sniffles,

I did few skybox using terragen.
I end up using 5 renders like you said, but with a little larger fov (105).
Then I stitch the 5 images using PTGui.

The reason is that there is often small brightness variation between the 5 renders, because of the GI system. Overlapping the output help to get nice blending.
The workflow also work with .exr 32 bit output, so you can generate high dynamic skies and tonemap them as you like.

Finally I still prefer this old method than the spherical camera, because I can spread the 5 renders over different computers.

[sniffles]

Can you please tell me what the older method is, and how to use a different camera? I don't see where in Terragen to select a different camera type. And thank you for the overlapping idea. I just tried it, it works great!

[paq]

Hi Sniffles,

What I called 'old method' is the one you actually describe (rendering 5 images, then compose them in a stitching software).
Terragen 3 has a spherical camera now, and even a fish-eye one, so there is no longer need to stitch 5 different renders.

But again, the "old method" has some advantage, like I said :

- you can spread the render over 5 computers,
- you can handle much more complex ecosystem as Terragen will only populate what is seen by the camera.

[bigben]

You can spread the render of a spherical camera over multiple computers using cropping