A short explanation:
I created my own skybox for a map, didn't like it, but at the same time grew fond of the desert sky, which I used for testing purposes.
So I decided to use the desert sky instead, but as it looked too much like a box with textures on it, I cleanded it up a bit (at least I tried ).

The reason I upload it seperately is to propose these images to replace the current ones. Because if my revision really is used in the official release, I don't have to put them into my map pk3.

(UPDATE: Included in Nexuiz 2.5)

Changes include:
New sky, the blue I mean ("smears" and jpg compression effects removed)
Cleaned up desert
Some "bending" correction of the desert
A bit more contrast and colour intensity
Now uncompressed tga's

Before


After


No foreign materials used, so no licensing issues. Work done with GIMP.

wheew !
one of the things i always wanted to have changed for my map "Strength", for which i originally made the skybox.
Due to the deadline back then i couldn't do it in time, and afterwards i was too lazy because there was no real need to change it as you hardly see the desert from inside the map.
It's great that you have done it now!

So now i'm interested: How did you get the perspective right with GIMP ?

/me votes for the new sky \o/

I usually create a panorama image so I can get it seamless, then cut it into pieces, and bend the pieces with "Filter > Verzerren > Verbiegen" (the English translation would be something like "Filter > Distort > Bend")

There was a lot of experimenting necessary to get the correct bending (which I did when I worked on the blue sky for Cleft Village), and of course it then needs filling at the top and bottom. It also gets some nasty fragmentations, so I usually scale it up before the bending (if I haven't big original files), and afterwards scale it down again, as the fragmentations are "absolute" in size and affect bigger images less than small ones.