Hi,
I have finished putting together the final version of my sky box archive. Actually, it is not a single archive any more. Each sky box has its own ZIP archive that contains the textures, the shader and readme/license info. The collection at present has 220 individual sky boxes. I would appreciate receiving feedback, i.e. if you find any of the boxes defective, please, let me know so that I can correct it or remove it from the collection.
There is an info archive called 'q3skyinf.zip' that contains a gallery and license information in tabular format. This file can be downloaded here:
http://menczel.extra.hu/q3skyinf.zip
Here is the README of this info archive:
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Q3SKYINF.ZIP
************
Created by: Laszlo Menczel aka Speaker (menczel AT invitel DOT hu)
Date: 12/28/2008
This archive contains information on the sky boxes that I have collected
from the net. The boxes are available for download at the following link:
http://menczel.extra.hu/q3sky.html
I hope that these sky boxes are going to be useful for mappers all around.
If you have a nice skybox (made by you or downloaded) which is not yet in
the collection, just let me know and I will include it if you wish.
The folder 'gallery' contains a representative image for each sky box in
the collection, The text file 'license.txt' contains a table in which the
sky boxes together with their license type are listed in alphabetical order.
DISCLAIMER
**********
These skyboxes have not been produced by me, I take no credit whatsoever
for them. I have collected them together for convenience and made a few
slight modifications / improvements.
LICENSING
*********
I tried to determine the licensing terms for each sky box (by checking the
accompanying READMEs and the authors' WEB sites). I have contacted some of
the authors to ascertain the license terms. The boxes are divided into the
following groups according to licenses:
ambiquous ----> no clear license terms, but probably safe to use in
non-commercial projects
noncomm ------> free to use in non-commercial projects
gpl ----------> may be freely used in any project and may be distributed
under the GNU General Public License version 2
unrestricted -> free to use in any way you can think of (just give proper
credit to the author)
You can check the individual 'readme' files included in the separate
skybox archives. If in doubt, connect the original author, provided that
the e-mail is still valid which is not very likely
SHADER SUPPORT
**************
Each skybox has a working Q3A shader script. Some of these scripts were made
by me because the corresponding original works did not include any. I have
checked the sun's direction & elevation values in every single skybox in the
archive and added the appropriate values to the shaders. I have not adjusted
the color and intensity of the sun, you have to do it yourself.
In a few cases it was impossible to identify an unambiquous light source (sun)
in the skybox. in these cases I left the direction/elevation values at 0/90,
you will have to set them to your preferences.
I used a simple test map for checking the sun's settings. The MAP file and
textures necessary to build this test map are in the folder 'skytest'. I also
included a text file containing instructions on how to use the map.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
****************
Thanks to Grasshopper (member of the Nexuiz message board at 'alientrap.org')
for helping me in determining the licensing terms of the boxes.
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I will try to move this stuff to LvL, but I am not sure if they are willing to handle this kind of artwork. I will let you know.
Mighty Pete replied to my request and granted permission to distribute his sky boxes under the GPL. See his e-mail at the end of this post. If you use any of his boxes, please, give him proper credit in your README. I may not give you his e-mail as contact info (he prefers that it is not disclosed), but you may specify the URL of his WEB site:
