Creating Skies
In this tutorial we are going to learn how to create a skybox. Skies in Unreal are done much differently than in other games such as Quake. Before starting this tutorial you should know how to create a room, add lighting, and a player start position.
First thing we need to do is create a decent sized room(I chose to use 512x1000x1000). Subtract the brush from the world. You will now have what appears to pretty ugly box. Do not bother changing the texture for the ceiling.
You may notice when applying the textures in a room of this size that the textures do not map correctly. If this is the case then right click on the surface and select Surface Properties. Select the Scale tab, and edit the simple scaling box to the desired factor. This factor will probably be 4 for this room.
Now right click on the ceiling one and select Surface Properties from the menu. Check the Fake Backdrop option and hit close for one. Do not worry if you are confused at this point, it will all become clear as this tutorial continues.
Now we need to create a new cube. This cube should be smaller than the original cube that we created(For this example I chose 256x512x512). Drag this cube off to the side of our original room(hold CTRL to drag) to a position similar to the pic below. Go ahead and subtract this from your world. Assign the ceiling with sky or space texture to fit your preferences. You can find good textures for skyboxes in either the SkyBox or Genfluid texture sets.
Right click on the ceiling in your new "skybox". Select Surface Properties from the menu. Now click either the U Pan, the V Pan, or both of these properties. This will cause the sky to scroll either vertically or horizontally. Be sure to add a light into your "skybox" room.
Now we are ready for the final step. Browse through your Classes. Highlight Info->ZoneInfo->SkyZoneInfo. Now right click inside of your skybox and select Add SkyZoneInfo. You are now ready to rebuild geometry and test your map.
Okay. So it now appears as if we
now have a room without a ceiling in which we can see the sky.
But why? The SkyZoneInfo is similar to WaterZoneInfo. The fake
backdrop option acts as a viewing portal to our skybox.
You may download the file associated with this example by
clicking here.