Please, Unity, make better default skybox

Dear Unity engineers,

please make better default skybox. The one is currently present in the editor looks really ugly with those gradient colors and browny floor.

 

But that's what sky looks like when the weather is clear...

 

The default is a lot like a bike seat on an expensive bike.
Its ugly, its uncomfortable, but everyone serious about riding will be switching it out immediately anyways.
Why does it matter what the default is?
We could use your favorite as the default if you would like, but then all these half assed asset flips being released will destroy your precious skybox by association.

 

Why would Unity improve the skybox when they could make money from you buying it on the asset store?

 

The HD render pipeline will have better sky one day. Other priorities for them first though.

 

Alternatively, you could just do it yourself and the defaults would stay nice and tidy for everybody.

 

It'd be nice if the skybox had native support for a cloud texture. Anything else I think would be a bit much for prototyping.

 

You can alter that builtin one how you like. It's not a picture, it's procedural. Check the lighting window.

And: they have made a better procedural skybox in SRP, however same thing (for now).

It's in research if HDRP team get time, last I heard. They do work hard and I'm surprised they have any time TBH.

Because people think they know Unity and run to Asset store, instead of seeing what they can do with the built in features. That builtin skybox is procedural and can be altered how you like. For free.


TLDR people need to learn what the hell they're even doing in Unity.

 

They should use the AzureSky developers system. It is a powerful physical sky with clouds, weather and day night cycles and is highly performant. Seems not much diff between it and the regular procedural skybox in performance terms.

 

There is also free skybox on the asset store ...
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/?stay#!/search/page=1/sortby=price/query=skybox

 

You can probably make as nice skies with the defualt proc sky but I just bought a nice HDR package to get quick instant results, should go back at some point and look at the proc stuff.

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/textures-materials/sky/hdr-skybox-4k-20-maps-61304

 

All the free ones are static, which makes a day-night cycle in your prototype (which may well be a key feature) impossible without dropping some cash. Just a static cloud texture like is planned for HDRP, but for all the pipelines would be ideal.

 

Yeah but cloud is an entire different set of matter, proper lighting on cloud that is compatible with day/night/weather cycle is actually non trivial. Not sure a set of static texture cloud is enough. Also cloud are quite diverse so if they provide you the wrong kind with the wrong style you are kinda out, cloud seems way too specifics to include.

And the current skybox already mimic basic day light, when light is below the horizon the sky turn dark, the sun is also signal by a gizmo in the skybox directly. So for a prototype you only need a basic directional light you will rotate by code, I mean it's a prototype, your character are just scaled white box.

 

I think the default skybox is fine.

However, I think the colors it chooses are kinda bad. I don't know what paper they used for the colors, but in general, Unity's default skybox is much more purple-y than most is produced by most analytical physical sky models.

 

The default skybox always fubars PBR though, reflections etc

 

You just fake it. Default S*** like this should only be an approximation, not a full physical simulation. Just have it affected by tint and use the cloud alpha channel to do some really loose calculations. I'm not saying they should have a full competitor to Azure or Tenkoku, just that they should have something so the prototyping stage isn't so much "okay, immediately replace the skybox"

 

For me default should be a dark gray solid color, or plain black. To appeal goth developers :B

 

https://github.com/keijiro/CloudSkybox

 

This guy needs to be pinned somewhere, so many good repos I've used

 

Yeah, Keijiro is really a genius. Plus: he works for Unity (Japan)

 

He has a Twitter account where he posts videos and links to the repository for his latest projects. He's been focusing on ECS and the HDRP lately. It's all very impressive to watch.

https://twitter.com/_kzr

 

Thanks, followed

 

I would prefer no default skybox. Turning it off every time I create a new camera is a waste of precious seconds I could be using posting on the forums instead.

 

If you think the default now is bad, you should load up an old copy of Unity 4. I actually think the default one now is actually pretty good for a default. The brown shouldn't matter, since you should never see it if you have a terrain. It even has a built in day/night cycle if you rotate your directional light. Really the only thing I'd like to see is some stars at night lol.

 

The list of things I want from Unity that comes before the default sky box is incredibly lengthy. Nested prefabs, the darn profiler not always defaulting to run in the editor, it actually remembering that I had the game window open on my top monitor and not the bottom when I switch layouts, and most recently dropdown menus that appear on the wrong screen... the skybox takes 3 seconds to switch and you can easily have your preferred skybox package at the ready to import into any project on creation.