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

Community Showcases
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Asset Description

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

Demo Builds

Sea of Clouds:

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

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

Dynamic Time Of Day:

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(Unity 2019.3 / HDRP 7.1.8)
Download

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3 Likes
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Uploaded first demo build: Sea of Clouds

The dynamic time of day demo will be uploaded later.

Check it out! :slight_smile:

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

Free cubemap created with Skybox Creator:

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Download!

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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.

1 Like
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Thanks! :slight_smile:

I also uploaded first update today.

Changelog:

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What is the license on the generated images and videos?

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

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Update 1.0.1 is online!

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Uploaded Update 1.0.3.

Changelog:

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3 Likes
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Skybox Creator is currently on sale for 30% off!

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

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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?

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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.

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

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

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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.

1 Like
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@Vondox

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

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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.

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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 :slight_smile:

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.

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

HDRP Default

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i. e. something is missing on top.

HDRI Skybox, created with Skybox Creator

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

Great job, Hendrik!

2 Likes