Overview: A Sky Zone is a way of making a sky that appears infinite in distance to represent realist sky as we see everyday.
- First create a subtracted bsp brush in the Unreal Editor, I will use 1024 X 1024 X 1024.
- Now go into 3D Studio Max or Maya and create a sphere, cut it in half, and apply a basic spherical UVW map and export it as an ASE. This half sphere will be used as your skydome.
3. Now create a small subtracted bsp brush, I will use 256 X 256 X 256. Move it outside your big subtracted box.
4. Now you should create sunlight inside your big box. Go to Actor Class->light->*Sunlight.
5. Click the top of your big bsp box and click->add sunlight here
- Move it near the top but make sure it is not outside the box
6. Now import your static mesh sky dome and put it inside of the small box. Scale it down or up if necessary. If it the static mesh appears really dark click on it and go to display->ambient glow and make it about 60 to brighten it up.
7. Now you are going to create your skyzoneinfo inside of the small dome
- Go to Actor Class->info->*Zoneinfo->*Skyzoneinfo
- Click the top of the small box and move the skyzoneinfo inside of the small sphere. Make sure it is inside of it.
8. Now the next step is very important. You need to make the walls of both the big box and small box a Fake Backdrop so that the skyzone will show through.
- To do this click on the wall and right click->surface properties->under Flags put a check next to the Fake Backdrop.
- Do this to all the walls except the floor on the big and small box
10. Now apply a texture to your skydome
- The best texture size for a sky dome is 2048 X 2048, any smaller and you will get pixellation.
- Go into Photoshop and create a new file 2048 X 2048, with a white background and 72 dpi.
- Now make sure the second color is different than the main color and go to filter->render->clouds. I am going to use blue and white.
- Now export it as a .dds file, import it into unreal and apply it to your skydome
- You now have a sky.
11. To view the sky go back inside the big box and hit k or go to the dynamic light text in the upper left corner of your viewport and click view->show backdrop. Compile the level and run it.
12. If your sky appears as a box shape and has the texture of the box that the sky dome is inside of, you need to flip the normals of your sky dome. To do this go into Max or Maya and flip the normals so they show up on the inside of the dome, and then re-import the skydome. The sky should now be spherical.
