[RELEASED] Skybox Creator - Video and Image Skybox Creation | URP/HDRP supported!

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Asset Description
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Skybox Creator let you create great looking skyboxes right inside Unity!
URP and HDRP supported!

No need to waste hours on searching for a matching skybox for your scene. Create it yourself! Set the time of day, clouds types, visuals and coverage and bake it to a cubemap, individual six images or as animated video for use as skybox!

Unmatched quality and performance!
Skyboxes are faster and more detailed than every other realtime sky solution. Ideal for VR and projects with small sky render budget.

Artistic user control!
Set your skyboxes the way you need to create the atmosphere in your scenes you are looking for.

Easy and fast workflow!
Skybox Creator is very easy to use and bakes your skyboxes with one click of a button.

Animated skyboxes!
Create a lively sky with video skyboxes. They work the same as traditional skyboxes, but clouds will evolve over time, stars will twinkle and more to create a lively sky your users will love! Full time of day simulation possible!
(Require free 'Unity Recorder 2' in your project!)

Export:
* As HDR cubemap with up to 2048x2048 for each side in .exr format.
* As six individual HDR images with a resolution from 8192x8192 for each image.
* As 360 video with a resolution up to 4096 in mp4 and 8192 as webm format. Support for stereo "up to down" format to be used in XR projects.

Profile System
Save you configurations as scriptable object profiles to load them back later!

Time of Day
Full time of day and date control with latitude and longitude to simulate realworld locations and update lighting based on time of day.

Sky
A full atmospheric sky solution to create exceptional sky colors based on time of day. Stars with realistic constellation that will rotate correctly based on date. Sun and Moon with phases support that will rotate correctly. Those features can be deactived and tweaked if you don't want those in your baked skies.

Clouds
Volumetric cloud solution known from Enviro - Sky and Weather with a ton of configuration settings. However Skybox Creator clouds will render in higher resolution with higher resolution 3D textures, additional detail pass and improved lighting.

Runtime:
Skybox Creator includes a runtime sky manager you can use for easy setup of your skybox and lighting used in your bake or video.
With the optional "animated time of day" option you can have animated videoskies with dynamic time of day support! (up to 10 minutes for one cycle)

Requirements:
* For LWRP/URP support Unity 2019.1 with LWRP/URP 5+ is needed,
* For HDRP support Unity 2019.3 with HDRP 7.1+ is needed,
* To capture video skyboxes "Unity Recorder 2" is needed. You can download that one free from package manager. It's optional if you don't want to create video skyboxes you don't need it.

Media
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Demo Builds
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Sea of Clouds:


Non-VR: (Unity 2019.1 / Standard Pipeline)
Download

VR: (Unity 2019.1 / Standard Pipeline / SinglePass Instanced)
Download

Dynamic Time Of Day:

(Unity 2019.3 / HDRP 7.1.8)
Download

 

Uploaded first demo build: Sea of Clouds

The dynamic time of day demo will be uploaded later.

Check it out!

 

Uploaded "Time of Day" demo build in HDRP. Please check top post.

Free cubemap created with Skybox Creator:

Download!

 

Nice! I totally have to try that in my HDRP project. I tried HDR images before, but those have the disadvantage of showing terrain in addition to the clouds. And the procedurally created sky took too much performance away from the already performance intense HDRP setup. I think your asset might be ideal for me. And the clouds look stunning.

 

Thanks!

I also uploaded first update today.

Changelog:

 

What is the license on the generated images and videos?

 

Hello, the plugin itself is licensed under 'Unity Asset Store' seat-based license. However the generated image and video files can be used freely.

 

Update 1.0.1 is online!

 

Uploaded Update 1.0.3.

Changelog:

 

Skybox Creator is currently on sale for 30% off!

 

Created and uploaded a quick getting started video showing how to record your first video skybox!

 

Hi Vondox,

I own Enviro and have always been happy with it..
Skybox Creator looks interesting, I'm just trying to get my head around how it can be used.
Obviously to make a skybox, or a video skybox, which I didn't know you could do.

It's how to do the lighting in a Day night Cycle
Obviously real-time lighting, Global illumination and shadows are very expensive compared to baked ones.

I want a day night cycle but I don't want to pay the performance cost
I don't need moving or evolving clouds
I don't need shadows tracking across the floor as the sun/moon moves
I Do like a sunrise or sunset as a "nice to have".

I was thinking of fading between a static Daytime skybox and a static Night time skybox
I think the game Division2 does something similar, it gets dark in like 10 seconds in that game.

I hope it's not an inappropriate place to ask this question, I feel it is related to your field of expertise

How would you do HDRP lighting in a day night cycle?

 

Hello, maybe give Skybox Creator a try. It's a great solution to have very fast dynamic time of day skyboxes.
About the lighting: Skybox Creator and Enviro just using the Unity lighting system and I currently don't know a way to achieve a convincing time of day lighting without realtime lighting.

 

How long is this on sale for? I have to think about it.

 

Hello, sale will end on 29. at 11:59 PM PST.

 

Thank you. I am going to buy it but I am also looking at other assets to buy, so I have time now to buy all at once before 29 Feb
I'll be using it in the Oculus Quest.

 

@Vondox

Looks interesting. How does this compare to performance vs Envrio? Also, will this run on the Quest fairly decently?

 

Hello, performance wise it is way faster than enviro for example, but you loose the dynamic weather part. Unfortunaly I don't have a quest here to really test performance on that target device. Maybe just give it a try and contact me if you run into any issues and we will find a solution.

 

Tried to put your clouds into my HDRP scene today, I'm happy. Great looking, great addition to the scene and my performance is as it was

End result should be Enviro HDRP though, but for that I need to optimize the other assets first. In that regard Skybox Creator is also great to get a first prototypic look.

 

I'm more and more impressed by this asset. It adds a lot of atmosphere with no performance cost.

HDRP Default



i. e. something is missing on top.

HDRI Skybox, created with Skybox Creator



Would have been a lot of free space on top, not anymore

Great job, Hendrik!

 

Finally there's a HDRP water asset, Crest Ocean System HDRP. The standard Unity blue sky of the beta demo scene looked good, but a tad too blank for me, so Skybox Creator to the rescue. It adds a lot to the drama in my scene

 

Hi @Vondox !!! Unity Recorder 2 deprecated? I can not find it. How is this asset used now if I want a dynamic sky?

Regards

 

Hi, no it's not deprecated. There also was a new update today! Please check that you have "show preview packages" enabled in your package manager.

 

Short information:

The Unity Recorder Update 2.2.0 from 15. April actually broke the sky recording. I already uploaded update for Skybox Creator to the asset store now.

For now please use Unity Recorder 2.1.0 or send me a private message for an hotfix.

 

Another use of SkyBox Creator in HDRP

Although the youtube compression doesn't do it justice. Here's an image:



The clouds are just beautiful

 

Here's a video with Skybox Creator in combination with Crest HDRP, I added some animated life to it

 

Hi,
i have all the old sets of HDRI Timelapses
https://www.hyperfocaldesign.com/hdr-footage/time-lapse-hdri-sky-domes/

They are

• 9500x4750px lat/long
• True, unclamped HDR, up to 16EV for bright midday skies
• Linear 1.0 Gamma
• Color Corrected with the Spydercheckr(™) Pro
• Up to 1200 frames per time-lapse, in EXR Piz Wavelet format
• Completely clean and clear horizon lines in all directions

Could Skybox creator also help me to convert these to Animated skyboxes?

There is a free set with lower res
https://www.hyperfocaldesign.com/free-hdri-sky/

A more advanced use would be to use the Animated Skyboxes
together with precalculated Lightprobes sets or with the raytrayed realtime volume probes DX12 HDRP (very expensive for now)
What would be the highest possible bit for Animated Syboxes?

fyi
Bakerys new Light Probe 3D textures could also be dynamically lerped
https://forum.unity.com/threads/bak...tpreview-released.536008/page-88#post-5880422

So it would be also great to have an prebaked animated Lightprobe 3D texture set for an precalculated animated skybox.
That would give also some high performance diffuse day-night cycles.)
btw..also asked MR F from bakery according to this
https://forum.unity.com/threads/bak...tpreview-released.536008/page-91#post-6134048

 

Hello, I don't think that Skybox Creator will offer you a lot of value in that usecase. If you already got a video you want to use you just could convert it to a format you could use with the Unity Video Player and render it to a rendertexture that you can use in your sky material. That is what Skybox Creator does. So only benefits from using Skybox Creator would be the runtime manager that you can use to also handle the direct lighting.

 

Thanks for the info.
I am really happy with the information which is your test cubemap for grading because it is BC6H UFloat.












What would be the workflow to when i have animated ones to have an good correct response to post processing (Exposure, Bloom,... and Grading in genral) because it is then not float anymore.
I saw your webm recommendation.

Is there a video format i can record comapareable bitdepth to BC6H float or can i use a custom recorder like AVPro Movie Capture easily.

However. I will puchase. Great job.

 

The cubemaps and/or images for static sky are exported in .exr compressed with BC6H. For video sky recording Skybox Creator uses the latest Unity Recorder package and so does not support full hd range at this moment. Unfortunaly that's currently a limitation. But I will have a look if and how we could improve on that side with some custom solution.

In general you can use any 360 third party recorder to record your videos. Just make sure to start your recording when Skybox Creator "Animation Cycle" is at "0" and end when at "100" to get a seamless looping cycle.

 

I'm interested in this asset, but have a question: Can non-sky elements be added to the generated skybox? I'm talking about mountains, buildings, or planets that can be seen in the distance - with an appropriate amount of atmospheric fade. Or something like this from my Ringworld scene? This is a non-HDRI skybox, created in a 3D editor, but if I could bring the ring into Unity, and add it to an HDRI skybox, especially if I could animate it, it could be much better.

 

Hello, you can add other geometry into your skyboxes in front of clouds, but at the moment Skybox Creator does not include any type of fog effect for some "atmospheric fade". Adding objects behind clouds in space currently is not supported, but will be added in one of the next updates. Maybe also with some atmospheric fog effect.

 

@Vondox Hello, i bought Skybox Creator and its great.
I just have a question regarding the Moon Settings.
By default the Moon is just white although it has a nice Moon Lunar Texture on it.
When playing with the "Moon Color -> HDR Gradient" iam able to make the Texture visible.
The problem iam facing is, that the Stars seem to shine through the Moon "object".
Like it gets transparent in the dark areas of the Moon texture.
Maybe iam missing something here, but i was not able to get rid of the "shining through" transparent effect.
A second thing is that i want a really big moon but it stops at 20.
Greets from Austria!

 

Anyone knows what assets to build a demo like that? Nature and roads

 

@Vondox
Another question regarding the Moon Texture.
I tryd to replace the default moon image with my own but i get a weird looking white Halo around the moon.
Tryd to analyze the original moon png but i cant figure out any difference to my own image.
I also use the exact same compression setting in Unity as the default moon texture.
Even when i create a copy from the original moon texture and save it back with photoshop i get this white effect.
The preview icons show a black background in the original moon texture but mine show a white one.
I tryd to create an alpha channel in PS but this didnt help either.
I dont know how you saved this original moon texture.

 

Hello!

Oh 20 isn't big enough? You could open the SkyboxCreatorSkybox.shader and have a look into the vertex shadder part here. Look for the line that starts with "o.sunAndMoonPos.zw =" and at the end of line set the "21.0" slightly lower. For eaxmple to "20.7". But you really would need a more high res moon texture once it is that big that it nearly fills the full view.

About the stars:
Thanks for your report. I will fix that in next update.

About your texture:
First make sure that the "background" is completly black. Especially on all edges. Maybe also compare the alpha channel.

 

@Vondox
Hello and thanks for your answer.
I figured the black background around the moon out already. It works now. But weird, because the original has no black BG and also no alpha channel. Anyways.
I will give the shader code a try. Thank you! My moon texture is around 8k.

I was trying to bake out the skybox now but i get an error.
It bakes the clouds and generates the 6 images, but without stars, moon, galaxy. Just the clouds.
I tryd also in 256x256 resolution. But no difference.
I attached a screenshot about the error message.

 

You might want to check this post / thread:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/how...pe-in-15-minutes-or-less.885757/#post-5822605

 

Thanks, I will have a look into that now.

 

@Vondox
Okay. Cool. I changed the shader to 20.7 and now i get the desired size.
How do i set the Moon sphere objects subdivisions higher, because now with this size it doesent look very round anymore, lol.
Thanks!

 

Hotfix send in private message.

 

Thank you! Works now!

 

Using Skybox Creator to keep performance high in HDRP:

 

Could this be used to generate a skybox with only clouds on a transparent background? Also,

I have never heard of those. Is it possible to export them as simple PNG files instead?

 

Does this asset support cloud layers? None of the examples show more than a single layer and while they do look fantastic, there's a lot more visual variety one can pull off by mixing low/medium/high clouds (especially during sunrise/sunset phases). I did a scan of the docs and discord and didn't see anything, so I'm guessing it's not a feature yet but wanted to ask in case I missed a mention of it somewhere.

 

Hello, sorry currently only one layer of clouds. But multi-layer support is planned, just no eta yet.

 

That's totally understandable, thanks for the quick response. I look forward to the addition!

 

I tried to make it work in several version of Unity HDRP (2020.1.15f, 2020.3.10f, 2020.3.15f) and it just does not show any clouds. I post processing, video recorder and loaded the hdrp support package. No luck

 

Hello, did you already assigned the Skybox Creator Clouds Effect in your Project Settings -> Default HDRP Settings -> Custom Effects lists? Please take a look into the included documentation for more information. Tell me if you done that and clouds still not show, so we can have a detailed look into it.

 

Thanks ! I missed that setp... wonderful!