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Author Topic: Sky boxes (again)  (Read 12025 times)
Speaker
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« on: December 22, 2008, 02:46:34 AM »

This topic have already been discussed at some length. The reason I bring it up again is that there are some new developments.

I have made an effort to collect good & free sky boxes from the net. During my search I found sky boxes created by the author called 'The Mighty Pete'. He has posted some 150 (!) high quality boxes at the following WEB site:

http://wadfather.planethalflife.gamespy.com

The license on this site says 'public domain but non-commercial only'. So I have contacted him and asked him if it would be OK to distribute these boxes under the GPL and he agreed. I also asked him whether he used TerraGen for the construction, and it turns out that he did not. A copy of his e-mail on these subjects is at the end of this post. He requested not to disclose his e-mail address. So anyone wishing to independently confirm my claims must visit his WEB site:

www.petes-oasis.com

There is a working e-mail address on this page.

In conclusion, I believe that none of the arguments about TerraGen and source availability apply, and these sky boxes are actually good enough even for Openarena. Admins, please comment.

Meanwhile I started to download the boxes. I plan to make proper Q3A shaders for them (they don't have one at the moment). When the shaders are ready, I will put the stuff into reasonably sized archives and post download links. You can then take them or leave them, or... ;-)

--------------- copy of message from 'The Mighty Pete' follow ---------------

Well there is no source files for the skyboxes I didn't use that
program to make them in the first place. If you want to use them in
your game that's fine with me provided I get credit where credit is
do. Try to keep my e-mail address out of it. If people want to find me
they will find me.

If you want to put them under the gpl that's fine. They're older boxes
I have many more new ones. It's not like I'm running out of them or
anything.

I think the way we did it with World Of Padman is fine too. It works,
people play it. It was alot of work making that game. It's still worth
giving it a spin. There is a lot to that game. There is also in game
video's that you might want to check of the in game action.

Your Pal

The Mighty Pete
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Cacatoes
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also banned for baiting another to violate rules


« Reply #1 on: December 22, 2008, 04:35:39 AM »

He really should correct the terms, as "public domain" allows commercial use or any use.
I'd contact every author to have a confirmation of their license, which is a non license in that case.
Maybe they could allow commercial use without restriction, but just add a note saying they'd like to be informed of that use if possible.

There is indeed no sources, still, OA "more or less" requires some.
I'm not sure there are sources for every of these, but there is at least some intent to have some.
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Todo: Walk the cat.
Speaker
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« Reply #2 on: December 30, 2008, 04:23:38 AM »

Hi,

I have finished putting together the final version of my sky box archive. Actually, it is not a single archive any more. Each sky box has its own ZIP archive that contains the textures, the shader and readme/license info. The collection at present has 220 individual sky boxes. I would appreciate receiving feedback, i.e. if you find any of the boxes defective, please, let me know so that I can correct it or remove it from the collection.

There is an info archive called 'q3skyinf.zip' that contains a gallery and license information in tabular format. This file can be downloaded here:

http://menczel.extra.hu/q3skyinf.zip

Here is the README of this info archive:

-----------------------------------------------------------

Q3SKYINF.ZIP
************

Created by: Laszlo Menczel aka Speaker (menczel AT invitel DOT hu)
Date:       12/28/2008

This archive contains information on the sky boxes that I have collected
from the net. The boxes are available for download at the following link:

http://menczel.extra.hu/q3sky.html

I hope that these sky boxes are going to be useful for mappers all around.
If you have a nice skybox (made by you or downloaded) which is not yet in
the collection, just let me know and I will include it if you wish.

The folder 'gallery' contains a representative image for each sky box in
the collection, The text file 'license.txt' contains a table in which the
sky boxes together with their license type are listed in alphabetical order.

DISCLAIMER
**********

These skyboxes have not been produced by me, I take no credit whatsoever
for them. I have collected them together for convenience and made a few
slight modifications / improvements.

LICENSING
*********

I tried to determine the licensing terms for each sky box (by checking the
accompanying READMEs and the authors' WEB sites). I have contacted some of
the authors to ascertain the license terms. The boxes are divided into the
following groups according to licenses:

ambiquous ----> no clear license terms, but probably safe to use in
                non-commercial projects
             
noncomm ------> free to use in non-commercial projects

gpl ----------> may be freely used in any project and may be distributed
                under the GNU General Public License version 2
             
unrestricted -> free to use in any way you can think of (just give proper
                credit to the author)

You can check the individual 'readme' files included in the separate
skybox archives. If in doubt, connect the original author, provided that
the e-mail is still valid which is not very likely :-(

SHADER SUPPORT
**************

Each skybox has a working Q3A shader script. Some of these scripts were made
by me because the corresponding original works did not include any. I have
checked the sun's direction & elevation values in every single skybox in the
archive and added the appropriate values to the shaders. I have not adjusted
the color and intensity of the sun, you have to do it yourself.

In a few cases it was impossible to identify an unambiquous light source (sun)
in the skybox. in these cases I left the direction/elevation values at 0/90,
you will have to set them to your preferences.

I used a simple test map for checking the sun's settings. The MAP file and
textures necessary to build this test map are in the folder 'skytest'. I also
included a text file containing instructions on how to use the map.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
****************

Thanks to Grasshopper (member of the Nexuiz message board at 'alientrap.org')
for helping me in determining the licensing terms of the boxes.

-------------------------------------------------

I will try to move this stuff to LvL, but I am not sure if they are willing to handle this kind of artwork. I will let you know.
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P . Scimmia
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Grrrr...ciao


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« Reply #3 on: January 01, 2009, 10:00:35 AM »

beautiful ...
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Speaker
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« Reply #4 on: January 01, 2009, 12:15:57 PM »

beautiful ...

Thanks.

I have just discussed this collection with Tigger on the 'quake3world' forum, and it seems that LvL is going to host it. :-)
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Speaker
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« Reply #5 on: January 27, 2009, 10:25:39 AM »

Hi,

The sky box archive has finally been added to the LvL collection. It is over 450 MB in size and contains 240 freely distributable sky boxes. About 1/3 of these may also be distributed under the GPL (expressly permitted by the authors upon my request).

The LvL archive is a single big file. If anyone wishes to get just a few individual boxes, they can be downloaded from my WEB site as separate, small ZIP files. For details see the README of the LvL entry called 'q3sky'.

Enjoy!
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pulchr
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« Reply #6 on: January 27, 2009, 03:26:32 PM »

very interesting!

do you have any links?
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fufinha
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« Reply #7 on: January 27, 2009, 03:42:06 PM »

http://lvlworld.com/#c=m8&i=2023&d=25%20Jan%202009&m=All&p=review
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fromhell
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« Reply #8 on: February 01, 2009, 01:58:24 PM »

Where's the source used to generate these?
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asking when OA3 will be done won't get OA3 done.
Progress of OA3 currently occurs behind closed doors alone

I do not provide technical support either.

new code development on github
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