Modded Skybox

The last few look very cool. I hope the game has a basic black option for the skybox. Good job! I have to try this out when i get time - one day...

what is this sky box you speak of?

skybox = background, sky

Its the word the artist uses



yeah i really hope so too.

And who said the black skybox (blackground) was so bad? i think it looks cool

thanks multi! i being a laymen didn't know what the heck you all were talking about.

so far the sky boxes seem just about right, I still think the green one is REALLY green, and i have yet to play a game where I get the orange one, has it been removed?

nope, its choosen randomly, just restart the game until you get what you want.

I just want the skyboxes to fit their respective stars.

and black hole stars with black backgrounds would be nice here or there.

Where can I find the image for those last few? >.>

If you want all black and stars you can disable the color portion of the skyboxes altogether. Looks like Multi figured out how You can also choose which of the beta 1 skyboxes (there are 5) you wish to you use without relying on chance - it's not much more complicated.

Looks like the fat lady has sung.

Blair is a fat woman?

For the last images i was fooling around with photoshop.

There is a problem with modding the skybox, when you start a new game its fine. But if you save and then load it, fighters loss there moving trails, and cap ships trail will be white.

But for those who want to try it, heres the file right click and save
Rename it if you want to change other skybox's

They are called
SkyboxBackdrop2.dds
SkyboxBackdrop3.dds
SkyboxBackdrop4.dds
SkyboxBackdrop5.dds
SkyboxBackdrop6.dds

just remember to backup your files

Damn. it is only 2k. Well I put iit into my textures folder and changed the references in the skybox file to all reflect 6 but it does not seem to work and I was looin gfor a black background.

only thing you gotta do, is just copy the file into the texture folder and overwrite the other one.

You realize that if there was a black hole nearby that it would suck down every solar system in the vicinity? Plus, by its very nature, it would be nothing more than a black spot?   

Depends on how big/massive the black hole is. You could also use a neutron star radiating in non-visual wavelengths or a burnt-out brown dwarf.    (I think this one is "tongue in cheek") Watch out trying to cross the star grav well - that center step is a doozy....

Double post

haha good point!

Another way to skin the cat is:
Goto the "Mesh" folder and backup the 5 "SkyboxBackdrop#" mesh files
Make 5 copies of the "SkyboxStars" mesh file
Rename these copies as "SkyboxBackdrop2", "SkyboxBackdrop3", ...., "SkyboxBackdrop6"

Another interesting file to play around w/ is "SkyBoxProperties" in the GameInfo folder. As always backup your original file. Note there are two "SkyBoxProperties" files in this folder, the one you want is 1.92 KB and is a "SkyboxBackdropData" file. Just use notepad to open it...the file seems to define some of the lighting properties (exert below).

diffuseLiteColor ffe7e3d6
diffuseDarkColor ffd9ce9f
ambientLiteColor ff29699c
ambientDarkColor ff143f62
specularColor ffffffff
dustCloudColor ff3c7da8 - I hate the dust clouds so I changed this to "000000"

wtf is ffe7e3d6?

I'm not a fan of variety so I changed the lighting info so that it is the same for each of the skyboxbackdrops.

a few more screenshots from the black skybox (background)

Hmmm... something strange on my end then and it is a cherry install to boot. I copied it over and started the game and got lots of colors as always. I then went into the config files and changed all the boxes to read six and I still got issues and even warnings that it could not find the dds file. I'll look into things after work when I have time.

Anyway, your screenies look fantastic. A solid black background is by far the best in my opinion.

SkyboxBackdrop2.dds is the blue
SkyboxBackdrop3.dds is the orange
SkyboxBackdrop4.dds is the green
SkyboxBackdrop5.dds is the orange but different
SkyboxBackdrop6.dds is the dark blue

its because the game is randomly choosing what skybox you get.
To my experince, it has something to do, with what team color you get.

So to use SkyboxBackdrop6.dds you should get a red team color, for a better chance.

But the easiest way is to make more copys of the my file, and rename it, and overwrite all 5.

Do you think you could post a more thorough how to mod?

I managed to replace the backgrounds with the file you provided, and did end space to look as dark as it should be, but the stars didn't show up well.

How did you manage to get the stars to look so good?

I tryed to DL the file as well and overwrite the other. Same thing happend... only black without stars... That is really weird.

Heres the file again, but zipped, its tested and should work.
SkyboxBackdrop6.zip zipped

Let me know

I thought that might be the case as well, but Blair said it's completely random.

But you could still see the material and gravitational distortion surrounding it, which would be cool .