Changing Skybox?

[Lionhardt]

Hello,
I would like to change the skybox on a map. I found this tutorial and followed the explanation on how to do this in the section ALTERING THE BACKGROUND AND SKYBOX. But it does not work... or I am doing something wrong. I put the textures folder into the supcom vanilla installation root folder. So it looks like E:\Program Files (x86)\THQ\Gas Powered Games\Supreme Commander\textures

I picked a SkyCubeXXX.dds as the skybox. But it still shows the default skybox.

Any ideas as to why that is?

[Lionhardt]

Nobody who knows how to properly change the stupid skybox?? At least one of the experienced mappers has to know that, come on.

I have tried a dozen variantions of locations with and without subfolders, from FA and from vanilla folder, etc. to load the texture from. Nothing works!

[Plasma_Wolf]

I never even tried to fiddle with it. I just changed the lighting. Sometimes.

Anyway, is there a way of changing the camera angle in the map editor. I should be able to see the skybox then, and see if anything changes, right?

Edit: I've just checked and it works perfectly for me. Unzip the file (I assume you've done that), browse for a skycube in the folder \gamedata\textures\textures\environment and then you should get a different sky. To check if it really works, you can do the same thing with the background image (which is unused in FA) and then you can see in the effect in the editor right away.

[Lionhardt]

No, it does not get rendered in the editor. At least not by default. I don't know if there is a way to make it be rendered. This makes it suck even more. You have to copy the folder each time you change the configuration back into FA from vanilla, fire up the game and load into the map -.-

You rotate the camera with ALT + MMB btw.

[Plasma_Wolf]

Thank you.

Also, I just do the editing in the Supreme Commander folder, not the FA folder. Then I start up SupCom (vanilla) to see if things look and work as I intended. That saves useless copying.

Finally, to render the skycube, go to the view menu. Click console, so that the console will activate. There, type ren_skycube
Now you only have to find a skycube that isn't ugly.

[Lionhardt]

Well, now it gets rendered in the editor (thx for telling me how, very useful!) but still not in FA inagme. Have you checked if your change also applies ingame?

[Sulo]

Well, now it gets rendered in the editor (thx for telling me how, very useful!) but still not in FA inagme.

Sure you didnt disable skybox rendering in game or set other graphic settings to not max?
Sounds stupid, but it shows in editor so..

[Lionhardt]

Yea, I got everthying on max. And other skyboxes on other maps show just fine.

Here is the map files. Mabye you can check, wheter it got the default skybox on your machine or a desert one, which I have currently selected.

[Plasma_Wolf]

Try the ren_skycube in the console while you're ingame (the ` button - or whatever you have left of the "1" button) will get you the console. It may be difficult or impossible to type depending on whether the computer thinks the ` should be typed in the console (if that's the case, type ` again and you'll see two of them in your typeline, then you can finally do something).

Also, I now know not to bother with this because everything I've seen so far is extremely ugly and I don't think it matters much for the lighting (if it does, change the bloom by + or - 0.01 in the lighting menu to deal with that problem).

Edit: I see a big red background when I play the map in SupCom...
I also get nothing (all black) in the map editor (Oops, I have to get the console and type ren_skycube again).
Edit2: I did manage to see the Desert SkyCube in SupCom vanilla, but not in FA... Perhaps it didn't go right with the copying. At any rate, with some fiddling, it should work.

[Lionhardt]

Very odd. I have neither selected a all red background nor skycube.

When I use ren_skydome (dome! I have not got a ren_skycube command ingame) the default skycube disappears and I get a black skycube. But never the ine I picked.