Hi!

It's me again... and my starbox

I'm still experimenting with the process of creating and using starboxes.
Now I found out something confusing:

Until now I was generating panorama image from a flat image. I put a flat image on a UVsphere in Blender as an environment map and project it on a cube. This way I get my 6 panorama (distorted) images.

Today I read a tutorial on how to make a starbox for Ogre engine. The author made everything I was doing before, except panorama images. I mean, he made a flat image with stars in Photoshop, devided it in 6 parts and used these flat images directly in the engine.

Ok, I was curious and made 6 flat images with stars on them and applied them as a skybox. Well I'm not sure but I noticed no difference in whether I use panorama or flat images on my skybox.

So my question is: can I use flat images or should I better generate panorama images?


SONB

Hello,

So do you mean use either 6x1 images, or 1 image with 6 images inside in 1 row?

When converted to the cube map they will end up being the same thing.

Or do you mean something different?

Ahh, I'm such a noob, Esenthel.. the answer was so clear :oops:

But anyway.. What I mean is: each of the 6 sides of the skybox must have a panorama (or distorted) image and not flat, because the real sky, as we see it, is round but the skybox the engine uses is a box, with edges and corners.. Sooo.. To create the illusion of this 'roundness' in the engine, we must use distorted images on each side of the box or else we'd see these edges and corners in the sky, right? So, to 'distort' the images I project my initial texture with stars (in Blender) from a sphere onto a cube and save it as a new texture with 6 distorted images on it. Now I can use it in the engine and see no edges as if the skybox was really round...

So, my question was: do I have to distort my initial texture in Blender or can I just devide it in 6 and the engine will distort it automatically on the fly?

I wasn't right saying that I noticed no edges and corners with my undistorted (flat) texture. I didn't notice them because the texture has just some stars on the black background.

Bottom line: I must use panorama images for my skybox.

Sorry for taking your time, Esenthel..
And thanx for the fast reply!

oh I see now, no problem, glad that everything is clear