Sky FX - my day and night cycle

Hey

I’ve been working on a day and night cycle asset for some time now, I was thinking about releasing it as a cheap asset on the asset store under the name ‘Sky FX’.

It is a typical day and night cycle with night, sunrise, day and sunset. It also has moving clouds.

I’ve uploaded a webplayer of an example scene showing the day and night cycle I’ve created: The Webplayer

Screenshot of sunset:

If I were to release it you would also get a custom inspector for it so you could easily change the colours of the sky, sun, light etc… at any time of the day. (see screenshot). You could also change the length of each stage so you could make the sunset longer or shorter depending on your preference.

I would love to hear peoples feedback on what I’ve created, do you think it looks good, would you use it, does it lag etc…

I thank any replies in advance.

EDIT : There are links to new Webplayers and videos below

It’s ok for me - I’ll not use it because my game will need something different. No lag or errors.

I played the web player and I thought it was pretty neat. Any chance that it works for mobile platforms?

nice start!
clouds could have a more specific shape though
and i would think about implementing wind and perhaps even rain and snow – as there is no really good (bug free, fast and cheap) system out there right now.

lars

Thanks guys for all your good feedback. In reply to your comments:

lastprogrammer - I haven’t tested it on a mobile device yet so I cannot be sure it would work.

larsbertram1 - I agree the clouds could do with a more specific shape, at the moment they look more like a faint haze. I will change this asap.
I think I probably will add weather in a later update to make this asset a full sky/weather pack.

Again I thank you for all your comments, they are all really helpful to me and I’m glad you all thought it was ok. Obviously I can never have enough feedback so if anyone tries the webplayer please post what you think of it, whatever your opinion.

Thanks

hey again

In the past week I’ve been trying to make clouds look nicer, with a more specific shape. I have made some improvements and have updated the webplayer.There is also a moon at night. Screenshot of what the clouds look like now:

I hope you like the changes I’ve made. Meanwhile I am working on a weather system to go with it and that is well underway too.

Thanks

Looks really cool! One thing i noticed though, when the sun rises and sets, it kind of don’t look like its coming from below the planet so to speak, it just fades in/out.

Hey

Sky Fx now has a built in weather system. At the moment this is just sun, rain and storm but I plan on adding snow and possibly some others. Here are some screenshots of the new weather:

You can try Sky Fx with the new weather update on this Webplayer. (For some reason the wind doesn’t seem to work on the webplayer but on unity it changes depending on the weather).

The different weathers are chosen randomly at run-time and in the webplayer there is a 40% chance of sun, 40% of rain and 20% storm. But this is easily changeable in the inspector for the script, as well as all the colours of the sky,sun etc… for all weathers. I plan to release this as an asset on the asset store so I have made it very customisable.

I hope you like the new weather but am aware that the rain particle system could be improved and I will be working on that.

Thanks.

Hey again

I’ve been making massive improvements to the appearance of the clouds in my system as well as the code behind it. Here are some screenshots of the new clouds, there is also a webplayer link below.

As you can see in the last picture snow has also been added.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW UPDATED WEBPLAYER

I would love to here your feedback on this. Thanks

Hi
It have atmosphere scattering? I ask because i write it from phone so i cant see weplayer
If no u try find ToD_v3 (its realistic and free it havent completely midnight only but other states has ofc) it isnt on asset store.

Finally u planned free version (basic - without rain snow cloud or other features))?
Thanks for reply

In reply to Breyers comment:

My sky does have atmospheric scattering to some extent, the skybox material blends between 2 different skyboxes (a day one and a night one) the skybox textures are lighter at the bottom and a darker shade at the top. This is what the skybox looks like as it fades from sunset to night. (picture has sun and clouds removed)

I can remember downloading a day and night cycle called “ToD_v3” and I think It used the same technique as mine does to create it’s effect.

In regards to your second comment, I haven’t thought about releasing a free version with less features and I will think about it.

I thank your comment and would love to hear other peoples views.

Hey again

I’ve just released a webplayer showing Sky FX being used in the Bootcamp project. This shows that Sky FX doesn’t have to be used as a day and night cycle at all, Sky FX has an option to pause time so it can just be used for singular missions/levels like in Bootcamp. This is good because you don’t have to have lots of different skyboxes for each level in your game, instead you can just set the time and weather of the level in the inspector and see the results instantly in game. Here are some screenshots of Sky FX being used in Bootcamp:

Links to webplayers:

BOOTCAMP WEBPLAYER (I appreciate it takes a while to load)

TRADITIONAL WEBPLAYER

All replies welcome

Do you have a YouTube video we can watch. I really like that you posted a web player but since that doesn’t work on an iPad a video is always nice.

Thanks for the comment. I will be making a video showing Sky FX’s features and appearance within the next couple of weeks.

constructive criticism : The clouds look a little like smoke from the forest burning, try to take a bit of the darkness out of them. dont just use whites and blacks and greys for the cloud colour, also use yellows, blue and greens depending on the weather and time of day.

Here are a few examples,

Lots of blue here


some green
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/Clouds.JPG

lots of colours here, blue red, orange yellow


some yellow here

http://free-screensavers-backgrounds.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/prairie-sky-clouds.jpg

do a google image search for clouds and see what you com up with.

Otherwise it looks like a great asset :slight_smile:

@Intrigue Yeah, I see what you mean. I’ve been playing around with the colours trying to create this realistic effect but it’s really hard to make it look natural when using such bright colours like shown in your third example.

Nevertheless I will keep trying and I thank you for your comment and for linking me to some helpful pictures. Constructive criticism is really helpful.

Hey

I took a break from Unity for a while, but I’m back with a totally recoded version of Sky Fx. I have totally changed the appearance of the clouds, as you will see in the screenshots below. I believe it looks much better now. As well as that I have updated the weather system dramatically. You can still use it as a day and night cycle or as a sky for singular missions like in the Bootcamp demo. I will be making a video about Sky Fx, which shows the inspector and how customisable it is, soon. I have some screenshots and updated Webplayers below.

BOOTCAMP WEBPLAYER

TRADITIONAL WEBPLAYER

I’d love to hear feedback on this. All replies welcome.

Hey there

I’ve posted a video about Sky Fx on Youtube. In it shows how easy it is to set up and how customisable it is. I’d love some more feedback on this so any comments are thoroughly welcomed.