Ok so this tutorial is going to show you how to do many things but in overall show you how to make a nice space scene to use. I have also included everything needed to do this and attachted them to the link below. I tried to upload the zip file as an attachment on here but I guess the size of it wouldn't let me.
http://www.filedropper.com/filesfortutorial

You are going to want to create a new file under Crytek/Crysis 2/Mods/"yourfile"
Place the contents of the attachments into this file as it contains the following:

Skysphere model (to replace the currrent skybox)

Skysphere texture (horrible but gives you something to put on it)

Skysphere material

So first off you want to open the editor and create a new level. Make sure you have the option "Use Terrain" unchecked



That will get you to something like this:


Make sure that you keep that water there as at first it will help you with the placement of the new skysphere.
Now what you want to do is create a primitive sphere. To do this you go the "Geom Entity" in the RollupBar.


Then place the primitive sphere right above the water like this:


Aftert the sphere is placed we need to turn it into the new skyphere. To do that click on the little folder in the property menu in the RollupBar. Then browse to Crytek/Crysis 2/Mods/"yourfile" that you made in the begining and then load the Spacebox.cfg file. All this model is a sphere that I made in 3dsmax with it's normals flipped to the inside. Should be large enough to pretty much do what you want in it.


What should happen is that you will get a massive dome over you with the words "Replace Me" all over it. This is because we have yet to load a texture for it. You need to assign a Material to the Spacedome and you click the button in the box below. Now to make this as easy as possible I also included a spacebox.mtl for you to apply to the dome. So hit this button here:


Then navigate to that folder you made and double click on spacebox.mtl to load it. Now we need to actually add the starmap. Now click the 3 little dots next to the Diffuse texture slotand navigate to starmap.tif that was also included and add that texture to the diffuse. Once the little ball in the material previewer gains the black starmap then hit the apply to object button.


Now you new spacebox has a horrible (I just haven't made a cool one yet) texture that can replicate a space scene. It should look something like this:


Now you are almost done. Now we need to remove the water. Click on the Edit Terrain in the terrain menu at the top of the sandbox.


This will bring up the almost useless (useless in this case) terrain editor. Simply go to the top of the terrain editor, click on Modify, then remove water.


You will get a warning telling you that you can't put the water back in, but thats ok, just hit yes. The water will be gone and now you should just be left with a foggy spacebox. We aren't done yet. (unless your level is in a bluish nebula) Now we need to remove the fog in the level. To do that you sill change the go back to the terrain button at the top of the editor and this time click on the option "Time of Day". To the right there should be a section set aside just for fog. You are going to want to set the Global density multiplier to 0 as shown below:


This will have gotten rid of the fog and you should now have a space scene set up. There is still 1 more thing to set up and that is whats called a gravity sphere. What this does is allow you to change the gravity to 0 inside the sphere. To set up a gravity sphere go to the rollupbar then click on Entity/Physics/Gravity Sphere Like shown below and place it on the map.


Now set the radius of the sphere to a crazy amount so that no matter where you move in the level you won't just start falling. I set it to 5000 as you see below just to be sure it is large enough to emcompass the entire level.



You now have your space scene set up and ready to use. There are a few things that Crysis 2 doesn't have such as thrusters on the suit. So navigating in space is going to require a bit scripting. This should at least however give you something to play around with

**Edit** 2/27/2013

I decided to expand upon this thread rather than making another for a youtube video I posted showing more tips on creating a space scene.

There are other things that you can do as well to make things look better such as deleting the shader and material used for the dynamic lighting system. Some times while in game you can get kinda of a "bleed through" effect. Other things you can do for fun besides importing models is making a fog in the spacedome for an effect of a nebula. I'll make a tutorial for some of the more advanced effects such maneuvering through space scripts and whatnot later on.

Cool! I will try it later thx

No final image?;)

Well u really dont need sphere for stars, you can simply use dynamic skybox for that and use decals as planets, nebulas, etc.
Check my last post.
viewtopic.php?f=321&t=69047&start=15

Still this other way to do space map.

The issue that I had with the dynamic skybox is that I would end up with dual moons and such. This is proly the most stress free way i found to do it

Second moon can be covered with some other (planetary body) decal.

Lol while you can play patchwork with Cryteks assets I would rather just not use them. This gives someone a scene to use that doesn't use a single Crysis 2 asset. Not to mention the stars in Crysis 2 sparkle and that only happens when viewed through an atmosphere, not in the vacuum of space.

lol and here is a final photo of the level with a simple Mars texture map and hightmap applied to a sphere.

Well of course custom assets are good and if done well, much better than C2 ones. Still i would recommend working on that starmap texture.

Did u UV mapped sphere for mars texture in 3dmax ?
If so, u could share it.

Is it possible to splice the skybox in half ? e.g. you would see stars when you look up and earth when you look down, so it's like your on the space station or something like that ?

@ jaLAlaBA

They are just a single diffuse and a height map. I will definitely share em They are attached to this post

@DENTA

Yea I guess you could leave the terrain in and just import a height map that would make it look like a large sphere. Then put a very large rez texture on it with some fog to make it look like an atmosphere.

Not a bad idea though I may have to try that and see what it looks like. Only issue is that you proly don't want player to be able to actually reach the terrain.

If anyone would happen to have photoshop and knows how to make a VERY high rez spherical starmap for me I would be eternally grateful. It seems my version of CS4 doesn't work anymore

Edit*
Here is a much better planet setup for that star sphere

Lookin' real good ! I'll give your idea a test and see if it works, thanks.

No need of a sphere.

1.remove the terrain
2.remove the water
3.modify the skybox material, and under shader generation params, you check no night sky gradien and no day sky gradien
4.Ajust the tod, and you got it!(stars intensity, fog and sun params)

For the planets, use a spherical object and apply a texture to it(material)