Hello all,
This is an updated version of the Skybox tool I released originally for Far Cry/Cry Engine 1. This version can be used for CE2 and CE3. It creates the final skybox .dds textures and the material file.
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This is how it works:
You start with five input textures (first screenshot). If you think of the skybox as a room, the first four correspond to the walls and the fifth is the ceiling.
Skybox then converts the textures to a single panoramic texture (second screenshot). You then edit the panorama so that all the visible edges and joins are removed (third screenshot).
Skybox then converts the edited panorama to the final .dds textures and also creates the material file. By carefully editing the panorama you can remove all the visible edges, thus giving a natural result in Sandbox.
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You can get it here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4380128/Skybox.zip
Be sure to read the manual!
Chris

Thank you! This is awesome. It will save me a lot of time

Awesome, could you explain how to create a skybox ? Im guessing you get a pic like this

but then what do you do ????

Yes, you could take pictures like that with your digital camera and then convert them to a skybox. The first post gives a brief description of how the tool works. For more details, download the tool and read the manual. If you follow the steps in the tutorial it will create the .dds textures and material file, and you have a brand new skybox!
Best regards,
Chris

You're welcome. Hope it's working okay.
Best regards,
Chris

Yeah Chris this is pretty nice - thanks for adding it to the community!

awesome ima try it out when I wake up.. no im not dreamin..!

Hope you all find it useful!
Unfortunately I've just found a couple of problems with my terrain tool (see the thread not a million miles from this one) and they will also affect the Skybox tool.
1. It may fail if there are spaces in the paths (I always avoid spaces if possible).
2. It looks as if the dds conversion program I call from a batch file requires the DirectX SDK to be installed - it's installed on my system, but it's a very large download, so it's not a viable solution. I'll be looking into these problems over the next few days and there'll probably be an update.
Meanwhile, you can still download it and start work on making new skyboxes, but it will need the update to create the final textures.
Chris

This tool is really thebee's knees sir
Thank you very much. Great work

Thank you, kind sir!
Here's an update to the update.
First, spaces in paths probably won't cause a problem.
But it almost certainly will fail to create the final dds textures. However, the final textures are placed in .bmp format in the main Skybox directory: box_12.bmp, box_34.bmp and box_5.bmp
You will need to convert these to a suitable format for Sandbox (e.g. dds, tga or tif). If you don't use dds format you'll need to update the material file.
Note: if you're using CE3, you probably need to ensure the textures don't have mip maps. CE3 may insist on displaying the lowest resolution mip map, making the skybox useless. But it will be okay if the texture has no mip maps. This is not a problem in CE2.
Chris

Your third image looks a bit dodgy (i.e. a little unprofessional). I would like to see how that example of yours turned out in-engine please?

It was simply for illustrative purposes.
The Ebb has a nice example of an edited bitmap in the news post:
newspage.php?news=84197
Best regards,
Chris

Will help me alot with making my realistic stars skybox.

Fantastic tool mate, works good

This tool is not easy to use, and the way it doesn't show up on the taskbar is completely obnoxious.