Seven animated skyspheres space/fantasy themed now available.

Animated star fields, asteroids and gas clouds. Some with moons and planet geometry built directly into the sky sphere.

Red nebula


Asteroid belt


Asteroid belt 2


Blue nebula


Full of stars


Event horizon


Gas giant


Individual $3.50
Pack $15.00

https://www.tgcstore.net/pack/10950

Very nice. I may have to get this for our game - which takes place on alien worlds. Love to see a video of these in action.

Mike

I was thinking the same, amazing stuff, but I'd love to see a vid of them in action before I pull the trigger

amazing

Wow Rolfy!!! Amazing!

Video added to first post, ensure your youtube quality setting is HD.

Awesome stuff Rolfy.

they look good,very relaxing to watch.

Dave

I'm buying it.

Could you create sky systems that are meant for other worlds, but can be used realistically with terrain.

For example, 'full of stars' is perfect, but i'd love to put a planet (with rings) just below the horizon that imparts how big it is. Better yet, maybe someone can create a construction set to create sci-fi or space skies and not just sky boxes.

Not a fan of your ringed planet - too angular for me. I'd like it to be a perfect sphere and the rings more impressive, otherwise, all of the others are fantastic.

Mike

Hiya Rolfy, quick question:
I purchased your skydome pack, but whenever I try to load one to test it the game crashes with a runtime error.
I think everything is in the the right folders. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

I will be doing more of these.

@zero_HP. What version of GG are you using? Looks like GG isn't finding the shaders, all of these should be in effectbank/reloaded folder.
They have names prefixed with sky_ such as sky_gasgiant.fx, ensure these are where they should be

It's the latest version, through Steam so auto updates.
All the fx files are in the reloaded folder, everything seems to be where it should be, but it just refuses to load

Try the galaxy seed sky and let me know if that works for you.

Hold the phone!
How could I miss this?? This is the kinda stuff again they should have on GG's Steam Library page.



-Wolf

Yeah Galaxy Seed works fine, just the ones I got last night that give me the error.
I've tried putting them directly into the skybank folder as well as creating a folder for each sky inside the skybank and putting them in there. Neither works for me.
And the fx files are definitely in the reloaded folder. I notice that the Galaxy Seed files are in their own folder inside the reloaded folder, whereas the ones from that pack go directly into the reloaded folder. Should they have their own named folder like Galaxy Seed?

All .fx files should be placed into correct folders and all skyspheres are placed into own folders in skybank so you shouldn't have to move anything around when downloaded from store, I have tried several beta's and the last public preview and can't see anything broken. You should delete the skysphere folders in your skybank and re-download to be sure there are no corrupt downloads..
If this doesn't cure it you may have to verify integrity of your files.

Keep me informed.

When you say .fx files placed into correct folders, do you mean an individual folder per sky in the reloaded folder? so a folder named whatever the sky is?

All .fx shader files for the skyspheres should be in effectbank/reloaded folder only, they don't require individual folders.

I also missed this one ... Incredible work as always ..

I've got them working now, was my own silly mistake: I hadn't named the folders in the skybank properly (to match the .x file)
One slight issue though, they generally just look a lot flatter/less dynamic then the video you linked, and there are also a couple of allignment issues with some of them. Like the pics I linked, you can see a seam on one of the skyboxes, and also on the one with the moon there are a few white dots around the moon (as pictured) which make it look less 'real'.
Also, the asteroid belts all spin at horizon level.
Is this all normal or is my computer messing things up?
They looked so crisp and lifelike in your vid and pics, but like I said they just look a bit flat in my GG. Maybe I need to adjust some settings, or is this how they normally are?
No criticism at all, I just thought i'd check I've not messed them up

Adjust brightness and contrast settings a little to fix them up, it makes a big difference and you should get them looking same as the vids quite easily

The moons have a sphere 'mask' around them so the shadow remains static as the moon/planet rotates so you see a little alpha around them, this is also removed a lot by adjusting contrast, a small amount does the trick.

You can change the scroll direction in the shader but probably not recommended since these spheres are made up of many layers of geometry and texture direction is somewhat fixed to the poles to prevent distortions.

All the same if seams persist for you I will take a closer look at things.

I agree it would be nice if we could rotate in all axis for skyspec settings, particularly for this type of media, but unfortunately for now you can only rotate horizontally. If it is really important to your game I could rotate the mesh itself if you wanted a more diagonal direction on any of these.

BTW, I originally could not use ANY of Rolfy's and others skybox products UNTIL I realized they were in a folder with other folders (so, for example, Rolfy folder and then all the individual products in their own folders).

This would crash GG every single time. I finally moved all folders to the root sky folder so there were no nested folders and now everything worked.

Designers - make sure you realize this when you upload your creations. NO NESTED FOLDERS.

Mike

I have noticed seams in some skies and I also noticed banding when gradients were involved (mostly in your non-animated skybox products). I cannot use those as they look very unprofessional. Also, the full of stars preset has some moons that have a 1 pixel white ring around them that shows up with the animated sky - you may want to go to photoshop and crop with a circle lasso that one pixel border out.

Also, select those moons and then do a modify-border with a value of 5 or so pixels and then use a gaussian blur of two to make the moons kind of meld into the background - good for smooth outlines as compared to sharp ones.

Also, on some of the animated sky boxes, there is a massively bright nebula or something - way, way, way too bright - makes the animation look not so good. Tone it down - especially on the sky with a big ringed planet - once that overbright area goes almost behind it - it does not look so good.

Also, create a nice nebula animated skybox. That one would be killer. Finally, create a identical skybox to 'full of stars' but add very far away asteroid belt - not so close up.

This is all meant as constructive criticism as someone who bought a ton of your excellent products.

Mike

^Yeah I agree with all of the above.
I've actually been messing around with some of them, getting rid of some of the obvious pixels, making the asteroids smaller/farther away, and also moving them up a little so they are not obscured by the horizon line. A few things I couldn't do anything about like the seam lines on some of the skies.
It's a shame really, as the Galaxy Seed sky looks jaw dropping. These are good though, just not anywhere near the quality of Galaxy Seed sky as it looks simply awe inspiring

Store vendors have a set of rules for uploading and we don't nest these folders ourselves, this is something you would need to take up with the store admin. All the same it does remind me that store downloads do indeed get put into Artist folders though I always thought they went into skybank as they should. I haven't tried myself to nest folders inside the skybank nor purchased and installed others so no idea if that would prevent them working properly.
Store vendors can download any products they have in the store but it isn't installed into GG folders same way and just same zip as the upload so I would never have known of it without being told. What I don't get is why it only gets mentioned now as all store skyboxes should have this problem and probably always been a problem then, as I say this would be something for store admin and not myself or other Artists personally.

Gradient banding is always a problem but pretty sure I didn't have any in any of my skyboxes, I am always aware of it and try to avoid it. Though I have encountered it myself in some which were fine one day and not the next. Re-installing the textures fixed it. GG does have some on screen banding present in default settings which is probably the lower resolution light rays, still if you show screenshots of any you reckon are obvious I could take a look and fix 'em up. I can't fix anything unless I am told there is a problem and it sounds like you have been having issues for some time some of which might be nothing to do with product at my end. If there is a problem at my end I will fix it I can't do anything more than that but you need to be more specific with which ones your talking about.

The idea of fixing by cropping 1pixel and using gaussian blur would be fine if the moons/planets were images....they aren't they are geometry. So maybe I need to brush up my shader skills for that one or maybe I will just avoid putting anything like it into any future versions should I feel the urge to continue making media for GameGuru.

I will take a closer look at the textures to ensure there are no artifacts or seams and fix those up if I find anything obvious.

Yup, as Rolfy said, with a few exceptions we don't have a choice with the folder structure of store items, this is because the gameguru downloader needs them in a specific format so it can install them properly. It's a pain, but not much can be done about it. Your best bet, if you have issues with store bought items, is to post on the store forum, Jason (the owner of the store) still helps out on the web side of things here, but he's more active on his own forum.

https://www.tgcstore.net/forum

Hi Rolfy,

your models and skies are absolutely amazing, your talent astounds me and you are one of the guys that inspired me to try making models myself,
the banding and gradient issues have not always been in GG its only happened in the most recent updates I for one have to use tab tab and change the terrain type to something else then change it back to get rid of 'grey' banding on the terrain (bug was submitted weeks ago) I am hoping the port to DX11 will sort most of these graphic glitches, seams are visible in all skyboxes not just yours, some skyboxes are worse than others.

Messing with the sliders can help with a lot of the glitches but it does not cure them.

once again thank you for all of your hard work

Thanks Graphix, I didn't reckon on banding in my skyboxes it isn't there when I create them and always been aware of avoiding it. Maybe if someone has an issue they could message the Artist instead of throwing this sort of thing around on the forums where they can kill a product for no good reason. Don't really care that much these days all the same as my input to GameGuru media is diminishing pretty rapidly.
If it is a Game Guru issue then Lee is pretty swift to ensure that it is fixed for next update. but I can't let him know if there is a problem unless I am aware of it. I have notice a banded screen moire in GG for some time myself but it wasn't noticeable to me in game with any of my skyboxes.

Just a heads up, Artists are required to create media for the latest official release, nothing beyond that whether beta or public preview, we can test our stuff in beta's and report any issues with it but for the store the requirement is last official release.

This all is why I am totally against comments or reviews on store products with GameGuru being in constant flux and Artists being blamed when things don't work as they expected, particularly when a half dozen beta's and a public preview are floating around, still if I stay out of it till things are a lot more stable then I can avoid any unwarranted comments about the 'professional' quality of my media. Anything else said has been a matter of 'taste' or requirement not an issue but an aesthetic 'want'. I can go over textures and ensure the alpha is what I intended but that's it.


This I can do....but only after Lee fixes any issues with graphics which as said above might have to wait till beta releases of the DX11 update and any following 'official' release. There is no point in me creating these right away if they aren't working properly for you just now.

I'm sorry if my comments were taken offensively, I meant no disrespect to yourself or your products.
I honestly think your work is strong enough to stand up to a little constructive criticism, and despite my negative comments i still think the pack is good, and worth the money in the store. I didn't mean to potentially put anyone off purchasing your stuff.

No offense taken and constructive criticism and issues are welcome to help me improve product.

The problem I have is the angry tone used when folks are dissatisfied but haven't messaged me either here on the forum or on the store to say so. You aren't giving a guy a chance to provide support before launching into it. I would prefer a purchaser who contacts me directly and gets an issue resolved than one who simply jumps all over me in a product thread.
Would have been nice if you could have been able to say in this thread that you had issues that were resolved after contacting me and you were happy with support rather than jumping the gun and simply panning me.

No offense meant or taken just try to raise a ticket if you have problems and ask that it be resolved, if you do so and are ignored or no attempt to fix it is forthcoming then you would have the right to jump into the forum thread and complain. Let's face it there was no reason to assume you are stuck with product that you didn't want or is broken particularly since I wasn't informed till after the fact and given no opportunity to see what the problem was

Check out reviews on the Unity store and you will find that they post 'stopped working in version xx' or whatever where they understand that versions can break things, compare this being a completely unfinished engine with a lot of major changes going on and you will notice they have completely different approach. I guess it may be my own fault for posting anything here and will learn from that and not announce things in future.

Ditto to Zero_HP. I meant no offense and will continue to buy your products. I just wanted to help out since I am a graphic design artist and have even taught Adobe products in night school for many years. I honestly don't feel my comments were angry - just matter of fact. I am definitely guilty of being too in your face matter of fact and very assertive. My apologies if I in any way sounded angry or worse. I am quite happy, TBH.

I have no idea how to make skyboxes, animated or otherwise. If I did, I would make my own and even some to sell.

People like myself rely on people like you to create these excellent products. However, if this is something I am going to release as a game on STEAM to the general public, I want to ensure that the game looks as good as possible. Hence my criticism.

Mike

I get that but you came across as angry about it, not saying folks shouldn't complain if product is faulty but maybe do it in a more relaxed "I know this will be fixed if I let him know' approach.
I tend to to take alittle pride in my work and if the fault is with me then I will do my darnedest to fix it, can't do much about Lee or the store breaking things though other than letting them know the same thing. Don't jump to conclusions over 'blame' or whatever.

Sorry, I didn't realise it could have come across as that. It was mainly that this forum is the main one I frequent, so it's my main port of call for info and help, so it didn't occur to me to raise the questions elsewhere. It was more that I was already talking to you asking for help on getting them in the right folders that I just naturally continued the conversation and raised the little issues I could see. You are totally right, I should have raised those issues elsewhere, but honestly it wasn't really a complaint, just an observation. No hostile tone intended at all.
Don't let this effect showing off your products on this forum, as that would be a great loss to the community here and I'd hate to be responsible for that in any way.

My absence around here is more of a personal choice, I continue...so far....to create and support media for GameGuru but to be honest I prefer to work in a far more complete engine for now so always intended to limit new stuff anyhow.

I actually didn't have a clue that the store downloader was putting skyboxes into a nested artist folder which is completely wrong So wasn't sure why you were having problems but at least that will be looked into. I'll bring it to the attention of store admin myself. I will also send a bug report to Lee about skyboxes showing banding in recent updates and beta's but no idea when he will have fix if it is needed, I have checked recent beta's myself but see none of this so it might be a specific graphics driver to blame depending on your card series that doesn't agree with GameGuru or something else entirely, point is I don't see this at my end.

HI Rolfy,

Can you please email me with details of any folder issues you're having and we'll look into it.

dave@tgcstore.net

Thanks,

Thanks Dave, already confirmed this with Jason and skyboxes have always been put into an artists folder apparently. There are no plans to change this as it would break previous skybox purchases.
I couldn't understand why folks would wait so long to state an issue as bad as this if they were having one with it, I created my own artist folder within skybank and put my recent skyspheres into it to test this out and confirm they work and they do just fine but since I am getting complaints about other issues I don't see at my end I had to be sure it wasn't just working for me and nobody else. looks like the problem is with a small number of users only and not something across the board so if some users have this issue they need to take it up with support or Lee himself. particularly if they see it with all store purchased skyboxes. It isn't something I can fix for them

Perhaps if you guy's could put in place a way for Artists to install from the store so we can test media after upload we might get a chance to find any errors before submitting for approval. The difference in upload folder structure and installed has always been a problem causing me to wonder if it all going to work as it should. It is too hit and miss for me when much of my stuff isn't 'basic'.

Purchased these the other day and just wanted to thank rolfy for the creativeness put into these!

Made a little video with them-- kept getting distracted watching them and had to edit 12 minutes of recording into 2. I feel like anyone playing a game with these is going to sit there staring at the sky for an hour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhW1ZU7Wm4E
(Headphones Warning: Music might be a bit loud.)

Edit: Why isn't the YouTube embed working? Mods feel free to fix this if you come across it.