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Skybox Editor Tool

What can this tool do? Well, using this tool you can:

• Change the Sky texture, thus changing the mood, day time of a map
  
• Set a matching fog color
  
• Add a 3D Skybox to a map that does not contain it (props, buildings in the background, outside of playable area)

It's worth noting that this tool, unlike the built-in Sky Editor, works on every map with visible sky.
The 3D skybox feature does not work on 3D skybox containg maps but in that case you don't need it, because you can just fly out into the skybox and change it.

Go to Entities/Jakub Baku and spawn the Skybox Editor. Press C and right-click the entity, then click Edit Properties... Press "E" while aiming at the entity (use it) to open up the Skybox selection menu. Just click a skybox you want and it will be applied.

Properties:
General

• Skybox Texture - ex. "skybox/sky_day02_07". You can find a list of skyboxes by using (pressing E) the Skybox Editor. Do not include ".vtf" or "ft", "bk", "up" postfixes. You can also pick a sky texture from a menu (press E on the entity)
  
• Skybox Rotation Speed - speed at which the skybox rotates. 0 for normal, stationary skybox. It makes up for an interesting effect with the clouds slowly moving in the background.
  
• Greenscreen Skybox - skybox turns monochromatic, good for chroma-keying
  
• SkyboxColor - the color of the "green screen" skybox

Fog

• Override Fog - should this entity affect the fog
  
• Auto Fog Color - if enabled the fog color will be matched to that of a skybox. Disable it for manual color selection
  
• Fog Editor settings - the same as in regular Fog Editor

Sky Camera (Advanced!) (more on that below)

• Enable Sky camera - should the 3D skybox be rendered
  
• Disable updating skybox - if checked the entity won't refresh the skybox models. You can build a skybox, enable that option and then remove the props.
  
• Skybox scale - controls how much bigger will 3D Skybox models be (does not affect the default map 3D Skybox)
  
• Skybox Radius - searches for props to render in 3D skybox in that radius (relative to the editor entity)
  
• SkyCamera as origin - if set the 3D Skybox will be rendered relative to the Sky Camera entity

This tool works really similar to the Hammer Editor's sky_camera entity, so if you're familiar with 3D skybox creation in Hammer it will be easier for you.

What is a 3D Skybox? It's a 3D background of the map giving an illusion of the map being much bigger. Some maps do not contain such thing and there's just an empty void outside of a playable area. With this tool however you can change it!

First, spawn a Skybox Editor, set it up as you like it and then check the Enable Sky camera option. Now you can start building a skybox around the entity. Make sure that the props are in a Skybox Radius. You should see a much bigger version of the prop floating somewhere around. Adjust the position so that the prop is not "clipping" into the world and it stays outside of the map in the skybox. Repeat the process for as many props as you like. You can weld the props to the entity for easier transportation and ability to duplicate it.

Second, what is a Sky camera? It's a "dummy entity". Normally the props are rendered in a 3D skybox relative to the editor entity itself, however there are cases where you want them to be rendered relative to some other point - let's say you have your skybox built in a remote location but you want to render it relative to center of the map. No big problem - just spawn a Sky Camera at the center (or wherever you want), fly back to the editor entity and check the SkyCamera as origin. The skybox will be rendered relative to the Sky Camera now. It's worth noting that the "system" will choose a last spawned sky camera (the newest one if multiple exist) and it will do so only in the moment of enabling the mentioned option, so if you've made a new sky camera make sure to disable and re-enable the SkyCamera as origin.

• 3D Skybox does not work on maps with default 3D Skybox but that's okay, because if there is a 3D skybox then you can edit it just by flying there and placing props.
  
• Some weird reflections in water, I can't fix it, it's a problem with GMod's rendering. Sorry :P The reflections are no longer buggy, but the skybox is not reflected in the water
  
• Some skyboxes have visible "seams".
  
• It prevents a "unable to shade polygon normals" error, so it's really good!

- No day/night cycle, no dynamic weather and tornadoes. This addon is s**t.
- It's a skybox editor, there are many other addonds for day/night cycle. I won't add it. It's not a purpose of that tool.

- How does auto-fog color work? How does it know what fog color should be used with a selected skybox?
- Well that's easy, I just have a big, 200+ entries list of [texture, fogcolor] pairs. Every texture has an manually asigned color picked by me and 10 of my friends. We've divided the work and were able to complete the job in a little under 2 days of almost constant work. Yeah, just kidding. I've used a feedback loop based neural network.

- 3D Skybox is laggy! It stutters.
- The skybox is laggy so that your game is not. It's refreshed every 0.3 second (if I remember correctly) so it's not super taxing on resources and there's quite a few things to do during refresh. BTW Skybox is supposed to be static, and not some kind of dancing Ryszardo Miłosz.

- Can you add a portal to Siren head dimension opening from the sky? Or Five nights at freddy's orbital attack?
- . . .