The Horizon Project
STARTED BY: Deathbliss

UPDATE 7-8-2007

Got caught back up. Saved the first square horizon mesh along with the day/night versions of the new rounded one together in a new static mesh package, "HP_meshe". Once I have enough textures together I will make an HP_Tex package and include that in any future builds of this project. Added the new horizon mesh to a day/night version of the test level, and as you can see it's quite an improvement. I just need some better textures to make this look much more realistic.

NOTE! I am not using the HP_mesh package in the map yet! Doing this the other day was part of what was giving me a lot of trouble. I include the mesh package JIC it is needed, and as a way to store all the Horizon Project meshes.

UPDATE 7-7-2007

Removed the null texture reference. Did some other stuff but lost all that work due to technical difficulties.

UPDATE: 7-4-2007

Removed the Hour_kraden textures - you will get a null reference for now but just ignore it. I'll fix it better later when I remember how :(

So here is the fragile fruition of my efforts. The goal is to create as near a 3D skybox as possible for UT 2004. To that end I have created a mesh which I have called horizon that provides 4 layers to a sky. The current, as of this writting, build of horizon is a square that gently rounds out to the mesh's maximum height. But I'm not very happy with this design, so I will most likely go back to a dome style. Also I think the slant is still too great, although much improved on earlier work. To display the capabilities of this new mesh I have made a test level. You can open it up in the editor and see for yourself the advtanges of removing a UT style skybox from alevel can be. You can use coronas for the sunlight for one thing. For another the sky feels more realistic. But this does come at a cost. Using this method means you have to design your level with some forsight as to what will be on the sides, and where the player will be able to view your skybox. Using this method you have to make the sides seperate from the top, and sandwhich your level in the middle.

Still this is a flat, 2D sky with 3D aspirations. A better approach would be the design of special particle textures, and using UT 2004's particle system to create a truly 3D sky. But this is beyond my capabilities, and I realize my limitations, so that is why I decided to release this to the public.

So this is pretty much as far as I can go. I leave this knowledge with you now. If you wish to contribute to the project with high resolution, tiling cloud textures, better corona textures, scripting wherever you see the need, and so on please PM me your contributions at Unreal Playground, or send them to deathbliss@yahoo.com, or upload them over at my site: http://nucleus.planetunreal.gamespy.com/phpfusion/news.php

With your help we can breath life into the skies of UT 2004 again -
- Deathbliss