Sneak Peak at the new EB skies

[Goth47]

Here is a quick look at some of the new skies that have recently been created for EB. 5 new skies have been created so far with another 11 in the pipeline.







Hope ya like em

Goth

[blank]

That's great - i always hated the weird neon-colored, cloudless RTW skies

[pezhetairoi]

Not that I'm complaining, but, these skies are missing so much! Where are the purple skies with the racing wispy green and blue clouds that whip across my native Bartix? Where are the freak winds and the lightning bolts? :( Oh, for a sight of my beloved Bartix again... I have been gone for so long!

[Olaf The Great]

Not that I'm complaining, but, these skies are missing so much! Where are the purple skies with the racing wispy green and blue clouds that whip across my native Bartix? Where are the freak winds and the lightning bolts? :( Oh, for a sight of my beloved Bartix again... I have been gone for so long!

You forgot the lightning storms and hostile Blood elves in Netherstorm

[blank]

You forgot the lightning storms and hostile Blood elves in Netherstorm

while we're at it, let's also have meteor rains and burning skies - think how cool it would look

[paullus]

Goth, your computer makes such prettier screenies than mine. the clouds look amazing. i saw them yesterday walking around campus, i swear. great work!

[Sarkiss]

skies are beautiful, units look a tad too dark for some reason though. like they are in the shadow.

[Kampfkrebs]

they ARE in a shadow. This is goths light mod, another pretty cool thingy made by him.

By looking at this picture you can barely imagine how beatiful a big battle looks!

[Tellos Athenaios]

Oh c'mon you already *know* that, don't you?

Yeah, those skies look... real-life like. Absolutely gorgeous.

[NeoSpartan]

They skies look awesome man.

However I would like to give u 3 tips to make them even better.
-As the sky moves to the foreground make sure it looks more hazzy, and also make sure that the light blue of the skie lightens a little bit in the background. U kinda have that going on but not too much.

-Make sure the "intesity" of the colors in the sky match the intensity of the colors on the ground. RIght now a lot of the pics have an intensily bight ski with an opaqe ground. Its too much contrast and it doesn't look "right". Again, look outside when the ski is bright and look at the ground too, they will both have a similar intensity. Unless ur looking at a shadow.

-Make sure that the cloud on the background IS NOT the same size as a cloud in the foreground. More specifically, the "curves and semi-circles" on the clounds of the background should NOT be the same size as the curves and semi-circles in the clouds in the foreground. In fact they should barely be visible or not at all. Due to the distance and the hazzing effect the atmosphere has on light.

Keep this things in mind and give them a run.

A tip I use when drawing is to take the picture when I am done. Rest my eyes for a couple of minutes. Then take the picture and look at it Up Side Down AND/OR look at Picture Through a Mirror. This helps to tell u what is "wrong" with the picture. Don't hold it in that position for too long because your eyes will get used to it and ur brain will start "fixing" the drawing for u and make it look right.

Hope this helps.

[Geoffrey S]

-Make sure the "intesity" of the colors in the sky match the intensity of the colors on the ground. RIght now a lot of the pics have an intensily bight ski with an opaqe ground. Its too much contrast and it doesn't look "right". Again, look outside when the ski is bright and look at the ground too, they will both have a similar intensity. Unless ur looking at a shadow.

I agree with this point. The contrast seems to be the only blotch on an otherwise very impressive improvement in graphics; I particularly like the second shot with the dustclouds.

[madmatg]

you gotta be lyin cause i swear you photoshopped in some pics of the sky!

[The Celt]

Neat skies goth! Do you have anything for stormy weather? I've always hated that pitch black/pinkish blue haze that engulfs the map when it rains.

Oh c'mon you already *know* that, don't you?

Alright alright I'm sorry I opened my mouth....gosh...no more sneak peak mod lendings for me....

[abou]

Meh, I don't think the skies look so bad...




Although maybe the brightness on that first one could be turned down a bit. The thing is, it is an early morning battle so that is difficult to gauge things and how the skies in the morning should look.

[Goth47]

Hi guys
Thanks for all your comments, just a few things to point out about these skies, they are in fact made from real life 360 panoramic photos . I have made these from photos taken from sandal castle in wakefield UK and have had to manipulate them alot to get rid of seams etc when joining them together(average of 14 photos to make each sky panorama).
Neo spartan has picked up on a very good point about light not matching the skies, this is because at the moment all the skies are in the heavy category of skies and descr_daytypes is forcing the game to use only heavy skies . This is just so that i can test the skies, when the sky pack is finished , all the skies will be placed in their proper places and so should match the lighting better. Also pictures 3 to 6 were taken on the highlands battlefield and most of the units are in extra shadow to start with but i am a fan of darker pictures. However as Kempfkrebs pointed out all lighting effects have changed anyway, to add realism to battles.
Unfortunately Neo Spartan your other advice would not work with these skies mainly because they are not artwork but photos of real skies, one thing i have noticed with cloud formations and sky lighting is the huge variety of different cloud types there are and my attempt will be to provide a wide variety of different skies, not just one type of cumulus sky with a nice blue background and white puffy clouds. In the final version there will be storm clouds, evening skies, cumulus clouds,strattus clouds, nimbus clouds,cirrus clouds and a mixture of all these.
Geoffrey S noticed the dustclouds in picture 2 . this is another feature created for the next edition of EB(though i am not sure it will be in the final build yet). The new dustclouds are designed to create a further realism effect into EB battles.
Really neat screenshots abou

Thanks for all the comments guys

Goth

[Tellos Athenaios]

Well, to me that doesn't look like an early morning battle - though such things also depends on the region you live in. Still, there was one sky which I immediately recognised as somewhere 06:00 - 08:00. Depends on whether or not something is winter or summer too.

[Geoffrey S]

It's not the skies I've got any issue with; they're nigh on perfect. And the morning shots are also perfect. It's the lighting in mid-day shots I'm not hugely keen on. I'm sure it'll be tweaked, and for overcast the lighting is fine, but in general things look quite a bit brighter when there are few clouds around mid-day. Things on the ground look a little too dark on the ground in some of the shots, particularly when compared to the skies.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
Well done! The mist on number 2 is especially impressive.
.

[Goth47]

It's not the skies I've got any issue with; they're nigh on perfect. And the morning shots are also perfect. It's the lighting in mid-day shots I'm not hugely keen on. I'm sure it'll be tweaked, and for overcast the lighting is fine, but in general things look quite a bit brighter when there are few clouds around mid-day. Things on the ground look a little too dark on the ground in some of the shots, particularly when compared to the skies.

The new lighting is not for everybody, this has been discussed many times before and comes down alot to monitor type and personal preference. We did a vote not very long ago about which lighting file(we made 4) people preffered and the one you see in these shots came out as the preferred one for the default lighting in EB. I will however make available the other 3 files so that people can choose the lighting of their choice so you have nothing to worry about regarding lighting. Thanks for the comments on the skies though .

@ Mouzafphaerre
Thanks mate, more to come

Goth

[NeoSpartan]

The tip for the drawing is to take the finished image and view it upside down or through a mirror. This change will tell you what is not "right"

I see what u are saying about the composition of the skies, but at this sky for example:

...


...

Look at the clouds on the foreground of the image. And look at the cloud on the background where the sky meets the ground.

See...

They are exaclty the same cloud. Same size, same level of detail, same intensity in the color.

This is the patter on size/color/detail/intensity the clouds should follow:

[NeoSpartan]

Remember IF you look at ur pictures for longer than a few minutes your brain will "fix" it for you.

[TWFanatic]

Hey, they're a helluva lot better than what we've got right now. Nice work Goth.

[Bellum]

OH! I see what he's saying. The clouds don't span out into the horizon.

But I have to agree that they are much better than what I'm used to in this game.

[Goth47]

I see the point you are making neo spartan, but the problem is more than you realise. The skies are not fixed pictures but created from around 14 pictures linked together. The panoramas created do actually include the distant clouds that you are talking about but by the time the pictures are all linked together they become extremely minute and become lost in the process of making the sky. An example of this is that the panorama is normally 200 to 300 megs in size and by the time the sky is finished we are left with 3 files of about 1 meg each.
What you have presented are single fixed pictures of sky which cover only a small area of the actual sky. None of these pictures would suffice to be a part of making a skydome(I will show pics later as imageshack is not working at the moment, if you add another 13 pictures to the left hand side of any of the pictures you have(and believe me with the scale of the pictures you will need at least double that number), you will find that the effect of scale you are looking at becomes lost because of the sheer vastness of the sky then when you run them through the skydome creator and then place them in the rtw game engine you will have exactly the same problem that you are describing as being wrong with my screenshots . What I am saying in short is that a single picture showing part of the sky is nowhere near the same as a full panorama converted into a skydome because the detail you are describing is a very small proportion of the bottom part of the picture and becomes lost purely because the detail and aspect you are trying to retain from the pictures becomes lost in the vastness.

I hope this explains

Goth

[LusitanianWolf]

Nice work goth
I'm using your lightning file nº1 and I have a question:

There will be more dust in the final version? If I remember in the topic about your files you told that it would make more dust (correct me if I'm wrong) but I think theres not dust enought. I would love to see more dust...

[Goth47]

Hi Lusitan
The new dust file isnt available publically yet, so the chances are you are not yet using the new dust file. It will be released with the next version of EB. If you want to see the new dust file in action try downloading Kampfkrebs excellent EB Trailer. You can find the trailer here ftp://ftp.europabarbarorum.org/nomadtrailerHQ.rar.
It also displays the darkest lighting file in action.

Thanks Bud
Goth

[LusitanianWolf]

Thanks!!!
I wasnt able to see the video yet because my download speed is being very slow but when I'll be able to see it I'll give you some feed back.