At last, I have unleashed my unholy atmospheres upon the unsuspecting masses!
Seriously, though, this is a project I've spent a great deal of time on over the last few years, with much support and enthusiasm from friends and onlookers in the community. Many thanks to all of you, you know who you are, and many apologies for the long delay. This is only a portion of what I had originally intended, but after too many real life and computer-related obstacles, I decided it was best to share what I have, as-is, while some of those same friends are still around.
First, most of the images are high res, at 2048x2048. It was necessary for some of the more detailed images. Also, I've made my skybox.2da CSP 2.1 compatible, for ease of use. Just place this hak in your module's custom content above CSP, and you're good to go. If you don't use CSP, no problem. I've prefixed all the CSP entries as such, so just don't select them when building your areas.
I've included almost all of my experiments that were in a useable state, including some odd interior attempts, and a reference sky I had hoped to use in a tutorial someday. It's quite handy for laying out skybox textures, showing compass directions and optimal viewing areas.
I've also included a short demo module, so you can check out some of the skies in-game, and get a feel for how they look with different areas.
These are my gift to all you module and PW builders in the community, to use as you see fit. I'd prefer they didn't end up in any non-module specific combo haks without my knowledge, but otherwise, pillage away, I realize there may only be one or two that may interest some of you, and this is a large hak, so take what you need. I'd love to hear about it, though, so drop me a line.
I have to give special thanks to Chaos_Theocrat for the initial inspiration and encouragement, and many thanks to Mask, Lord Rosenkrantz, Tybae, and the rest of the gang at rpgmodding.com for the help and support while I was working on these. And a huge thanks to Estelindis, who is too kind for words. Something she said last year stuck with me enough to make me finally release these now, along with a recent e-mail from another member of the community inquiring about them. So here they are. Enjoy!
Posted by Henesua at 2011-01-15 23:37:39 Voted 9.00 on 01/15/11
Very nice. Thank you for these. You've pushed forward some great ideas here. The eyes in the skies are interesting, and I am considering how I might use them. Also for setting this up to work with the CSP is pure gold.
I found a few strange artifacts on some of the skyboxes however. Not sure why they are showing up. It looks like the sky box has a very high specular in these cases. I'll see if playing with lights fixes this.
Posted by Kalindor at 2010-12-02 16:03:47 Voted 10.00 on 12/02/10
At last! I now have my grubby little fingers all over Izk's awesome infernal skyboxes! Weep, universe, for it is the winter of your despair!
Posted by KENLAMELLA at 2010-10-24 19:12:43 Voted 10.00 on 10/24/10
These are amazing! What a treat for NWN! Imagination has no boundaries and these take us to new heights! Skies the limit! :) _________________________ Farewell and a long farewell it shall be. Some of us are not destined to meet again.
Posted by PLUSH HYENA of DOOM at 2010-10-14 00:31:59 Voted 10.00 on 10/03/10
@chaos_theocrat, thank you for your kind words, and as for the mention, I was just placing blame where it was due, lol. The Dore "White Rose" sky was originally your idea, and an excellent one, and it was enough to encourage me to make an attempt at doing cc work, instead of just messing with the toolset all the time, wishing somebody would make some weird, wild, and unconventional stuff for this game. Which brings me to PHoD...
@PHoD, thanks! Undead skyboxes, you say? I'm intrigued, or did you mean that metaphorically? I'm also curious about the Geiger skies you mentioned a while back, IIRC. Any luck with those? It'd be interesting to see some wild biomechanical nightmare skies from you. ;) _________________________ Silent Hill-ish Hak | Skybox Experiments | Creature/NPC Reskins Vol 1 | Works In Progress
Posted by PLUSH HYENA of DOOM at 2010-10-03 20:19:36 Voted 10.00 on 10/03/10
These skyboxes are amazing! Utterly astounding! Is there any way you could convert them to work with NWN2? _________________________ The Wizard's Apprentice - A single player adventure for spellcasters guaranteed to rumple your robes and warp your wand!
Posted by chaos_theocrat at 2010-09-09 22:18:16 Voted 10.00 on 09/09/10
Spectacular! Having watched (and played my own humble part in) the development of this set of skies, I am happy to finally see that *indeed* the finished product is magnificent! Izk is a very talented modder, and this gift of his to the community is a wonderful gift indeed. Thank you Izk, and may all your future works be as equally well-receieved as this has been!
P.S. Thanks also for mentioning me in your description. That was most kind of you. :)
Posted by Killmonger at 2010-08-29 18:25:57 Voted 10.00 on 08/29/10
Just Fantastic !!! And the demo's atmospherics were cool too!! Your work is excellent. Thanks for sharing. From one throw back of the 80's, to another, Excelsior !!!
Posted by JackTaylor at 2010-08-27 11:42:55 Voted 10.00 on 08/27/10
D&D has always been a vehicle for the imagination more than any other sense. Thus, any 'visual' imagery is possible, with no special effects budget to hold us back. These skyboxes are a perfect example of imaginative imagery, and I love 'em! Hey, if someone's going to have a nightmare, hallucination, or message from a god, I'd like to be able to have a sky like that eye! There are uncounted uses for such work, as long as imagination is an ingredient.
Thanks, Izk, for the hard work that goes in to this stuff, and for releasing 'em for everyone to play with them. Great work!
JFK _________________________ My other sword is a +5 Holy Avenger
JFK Swimming Skinmesh Fish Link
JFK Makeshift Weapons Link
Posted by Jezira at 2010-08-27 05:34:58 Voted 10.00 on 08/27/10
Many, many thanks for the kind words, Pstemarie and Este! You and my other old friends at rpgmodding helped make my madness possible! ;)
PS: I keep looking at the download counters wondering why they're one off. Perhaps I should've mentioned it's a two part .rar, and you need to download both halves to make it work. Oh well, nobody's complained yet! _________________________ Silent Hill-ish Hak | Skybox Experiments | Creature/NPC Reskins Vol 1 | Works In Progress
Posted by Estelindis at 2010-08-26 16:24:54 Voted 10.00 on 08/26/10
Magnificent - incredibly imaginative work! Thanks for creating and sharing these amazing skyboxes. They really help us to escape into other worlds in our building and playing. :-) _________________________ KotOR Heads FR Deity and Faction Cloaks Fall-from-Grace Soundset
Posted by Pstemarie at 2010-08-26 15:02:26 Voted 10.00 on 08/26/10
For some reason my vote didn't get logged. _________________________ --
Pstemarie - Project Q Team Artist
Posted by Pstemarie at 2010-08-26 14:56:23 Voted 10.00 on 08/26/10
Izk these skyboxes are truly works of art. You should be proud of such a fine achievement. _________________________ --
Pstemarie - Project Q Team Artist
The interior skies were experiments, and I have to agree, their usefulness is probably limited. I do like the way the brick one turned out though. Check out the Steamworks in the demo to see what I mean. I was rather surprised with the way it looks there, as I'd never bothered to test it with that tileset.
Has anyone played with the demo, btw? Be sure to turn your sound on. While I do have a real module I've been working on for quite some time, it was fun to make that simple little demo, just to exercise a little of the "atmospheric" design I've learned over the years. It was even a bit of a challenge, just because I was limited to using the default tilesets, which aren't exactly "cosmic". It may be the only module I'll ever get to finish, who knows. :)
As far as classic D&D goes, I have nothing against it, really. It's part of my heritage. I go back to AD&D in the early 80's. I just find it's so much more fun to step outside of the stereotypes of the genre once in a while. NWN itself has the potential to be so much more, WWII, sci-fi, etc. I don't know if it still exists, but GURPS comes to mind, which IIRC, was a universal role playing system that allowed for play in all kinds of different scenarios and worlds. That's the way I think NWN should be. _________________________ Silent Hill-ish Hak | Skybox Experiments | Creature/NPC Reskins Vol 1 | Works In Progress
Posted by Saduj at 2010-08-23 20:58:10 Voted 10.00 on 05/06/12
Posted by boodah at 2010-08-23 08:35:22 Voted 10.00 on 08/23/10
Breath-taking beautiful work here. Glad you're back to the community, mad one.
Posted by Aeryn at 2010-08-23 08:28:50 Voted 10.00 on 08/23/10
Very nice, especially useful for space stuff. _________________________ Dark Horizon
Posted by Graymaster at 2010-08-23 07:49:31 Voted 10.00 on 08/23/10
Cannot go so far as to agree with "the hell with classical D&D" but will say that adventure is what you make of it, and your offerings allow for endless imaginings. Well done, though I must agree that the Interior boxes are a bit beyond most commonplace scenarios. Even still, that is much too minor a point to influence my vote.
Posted by ValynDyral at 2010-08-23 06:12:24 Voted 10.00 on 08/23/10
Gorgeous. To hell with "classical D&D", it's 2010, we can (And in Izk's case, have) done better. _________________________ Arcadia City Tileset
Posted by Ben Harrison at 2010-08-23 03:02:07 Voted 10.00 on 08/23/10
Taking into account planar travel, D&D allows players to go anywhere and see pretty much anything, so spectacular skies certainly fit that theme. Even without taking into account that many NWN worlds aren't D&D (or one of its campaign settings) at all...
The interior wall skies' texture details are at an odd scale (ie, immense), but perhaps that's the idea. I can picture them being really useful in a "giant's castle" type of scenario.
Very nice work, Izk. _________________________ [Blog] [Mods]
Posted by BigfootNZ at 2010-08-22 20:48:54 Voted 9.50 on 08/22/10
These are great, I made an Ethereal Plane skybox years back but these are better, I especially like the Earth Sky and Fountain sky, horse head nebula, would work great for a Spelljammer excursion onto an asteroid.
The Burning eye would be great in a Far Realm campaign, or as a layer from the Abyss... Id say if people cant seem to see these skybox's potential its more an issue with the user than the maker.
Hmm those wood and brick ones could be used for a trip into a miniature world inside a magic box, although they would be harder to incorporate.
@Ioinne, thanks for the vote, and forgive me if I sound defensive. I often encounter the idea of "classical" D&D around this community, and what people say it should be, and it does bother me sometimes. Mr Gygax himself said all those rules were just a guideline, and we're only limited by our own imaginations. I'm an unconventional artist who makes unconventional stuff for unconventional worlds, what can I say? :) _________________________ Silent Hill-ish Hak | Skybox Experiments | Creature/NPC Reskins Vol 1 | Works In Progress
There's already skies for that in CSP. These are for planar travel, communing with deities and demons, voyaging to the bottom of the sea, etc... which actually are frequent staples of classic D&D, if I remember right. _________________________ Silent Hill-ish Hak | Skybox Experiments | Creature/NPC Reskins Vol 1 | Works In Progress
Posted by loinne at 2010-08-22 17:55:01 Voted 9.50 on 08/22/10
Epic, but it's hard to make it useful in classical DnD adventure.
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