How do i create a spherical skybox?

[Ithurius (Frost)]

Hey all, lately I’ve been working on a space game and i need to know how to create a spherical skybox so that my planets can have proper skies whilest still having a space skybox everywhere else. I also need the planet to be visible viewing from off of it. Any pointers or advice is appreciated.

[Scottifly]

Could you just use the normal skybox and check to see if a player is within the atmosphere of a planet?
If they are calculated to be in that sphere display that planet’s skybox. If they are outside the sphere display the space skybox.

[Hazelfluff]

Not sure but an inverted sphere may work.

did you look at anyone else’s post?

How do you make a sky dome?

Thanks for linking my 3DSkybox, This was actually something I had experimented with a while ago to simulate cube-map reflections, in fact, I made a mock-up model. The basic premise of this is that you put the reflection skybox (cube-map) as an actual skybox object within game.Lighting, and then to change the visual skybox, just modify the decals within the modified 3DSkybox object - which is then placed within a player’s Gui (game.StarterGui) - just ensure that the mesh-part is located at 0,0,0 …

[BendsSpace]

You could get a free model from the toolbox and change the images on them. I believe that some of them use decals for each face, so you can just replace the image ids with those of your skyboxes.

If they don’t use decals, you could export the model as a file then edit the texture png (hopeful it would come out in an easy to edit format).

Edit:

@Scottifly

They didn’t actually ask for a skybox, they asked how to make the skybox change to a space skybox in a sphere around a planet.

I thought they were talking about those older-style planets where the planet is a sphere and around the planet is an inverted sphere with a sky texture on the inside, so from inside the inverted sphere the player sees the planet’s sky.

Changing the skybox based on the distance is a great way to do it though. With separate meshes the sky can fade into view which can be cool, though it’s definitely more work to set up.

Here’s some rough code for changing the skybox:

-- LocalScript that goes in **StarterPlayerCharacter**

local PLANET_RADIUS = 500
local planet = workspace.SomePlanet  -- Set to some basepart with position at the center of the planet

local ReplicatedStorage = game:GetService("ReplicatedStorage")
local Lighting = game:GetService("Lighting")
local RunService = game:GetService("RunService")

local spaceSky = ReplicatedStorage.SpaceSky  -- Store your space Sky instance in replicated storage
local thisPlanetSky = ReplicatedStorage.SomePlanetSky  -- Store the sky for this planet in replicated storage

spaceSky.Parent = Lighting

RunService.Heartbeat:Connect(function()
    local character = script.Parent
    local hrp = character:FindFirstChild("HumanoidRootPart")
    if not hrp then return end
    
    if (hrp.Position - planet.Position).Magnitude < PLANET_RADIUS then
        thisPlanetSky.Parent = Lighting
    else
        thisPlanetSky.Parent = ReplicatedStorage
    end
end)

[Scottifly]

They didn’t actually ask for a skybox, they asked how to make the skybox change to a space skybox in a sphere around a planet.

[scw_048 (Hanksus)]

well, i have a problem
i wanted it to be BRIGHT but roblox set the light range limit 60 that is kinda useless
and i tried make it neon, if only vertex color ofc i can use roblox material
but i got texture, maybe here anyone to tell some way make it light up?

[Scottifly]

What happens if you increase the Transparency of the Texture?

[scw_048 (Hanksus)]

the shadow still there, roblox light not enough large, have texture cant make it neon
idk if there is more way to make it

[Scottifly]

I was talking about no light.
Make the sphere have Shadows false, make it Neon, and increase the Transparency of the Texture until the Neon starts to show through.

Although, in a case like this I guess the neon’s going to be visible from the outside…

[scw_048 (Hanksus)]

let me test if 0.5 alpha sphere + texture will work like i can use neon…

becasue i realize i can make texture and material both stay at same time

seems it works

no… it dont work, no matter its neon it still have shadow if i put texture on
i think i need make the skybox texture 4 decals and put in my neon part

i give up, 4 decal is worse

[Scottifly]

Did you try making the light ‘CastShadow’ property false

[scw_048 (Hanksus)]

its just make it wont make more shadows, but mesh same

[Scottifly]

I meant the Shadows property of the Lighting that is illuminating the sphere.
EDIT GlobalShadows

[scw_048 (Hanksus)]

uh… future? i dont really get how you wanted to fix it

[Scottifly]

GlobalShadows is a property of the Lighting service, not lights that you add to the game.

[scw_048 (Hanksus)]

well, this is how i wanted my room looks like

but the cube room is small enough to use pointlight my is not enough,
thats why im looking for make whole part looks like neon no shadows

i want still have global shadows

[Scottifly]

Ah, ok, you didn’t mention anything about rooms and other shadows.

If you need more light in a room (or in the sphere) that’s bigger than 120 studs across you could add a few more PointLights spread around the room with the Range Property set the the maximum of 60 studs.

[scw_048 (Hanksus)]

hey… i have a good idea, i was learning viewportframe hours ago
i think i can use it with skybox in viewportframe

well, not skybox, sky is just for color i need a mesh/part to make sky but thats ez so its fine

yeah thats the solution

[Hazelfluff]

have you tried coloring the mesh with vertex colors?

How can I achieve a gradient neon effect

Yes, after you model a mesh you should be able to vertex paint it in the same modeling program and then export it to Studio as you normally would. The emission is basically the MeshPart set to the Neon material. Take note that this will not work if you texture the mesh. I found some… interesting example meshes to help illustrate my point. They are all set to the Neon material. [gromit] Left: untextured mesh without vertex colors. It glows, but there is no color differentiation because th…