Hey Deehunter, I want to paint awesome skies.

[Masterz1337]

So lately I have wanted to make some new skies for SPV2, but I don't like the idea of using applications to generate bitmaps for me. Do you think you coudl write up some tutorial or give me some advise on how I can paint them myself?

[Limited]

Could you not have just PM'd him?

[Masterz1337]

And not let people read his suggestions and input? Na....... that wouldn't be right to horde information so people can't do better than me.

[Rentafence]

Nice troll thread bro!

[Lateksi]

Definitely not a trole thread... I'd like to know too.

[DEElekgolo]

Well, you can try using some cloud brushes (http://javierzhx.deviantart.com/art/Cloud-Brushes-34277964) to start with. Have a belt on the horizon that scrolls slowly with a nice noise texture. The atmosphere can be a nice dome with a low res texture, us dithering to your advantage to make it extra smooth (http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/150R1/images/examples/vray_sun_sky/sunsky_title.png). The atmosphere is thinnest when over head so make sure to make that area darker and to have it reveal more space elements, depending on how dense you want your atmosphere to simulate. Then there is the turbidity.
http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/150SP1/images/examples/vray_sun_sky/s05_render_Z_1200_S1T8.png
This kind of turbidity would mean that your sun is close to the horizon so more light is scattered all around. So clouds would need to be illuminated softly as well as other sky elements. Also, the atmosphere the opposite of the sun would be less effected by the sun's scatter so the atmosphere will seem to look thinner as well.

Since most of halo takes place on the halo its self, clouds are much closer to the ground. Halo's atmosphere is artificial meaning that it probably only goes up to a stratus sphere. So clouds would break much more often then usual. Having a nice plane to scroll over the map would be good. And having some illumination defined in the texture maybe good as well to simulate the scattering. Also, the more clouds that block the sun, the more scattering that occurs. I'll add more later, going out for now.

[Masterz1337]

I thought when painting a sky i had to use individual bitmaps, and layer them over each other, rather than paint it as a whole like you described. Also, what exactly is turbidity for? From what I understand it's for use in liquids not skies, although it seems you would use them to make the sky hazy, which seems like a terrible idea considering the game has it's own fog to handle that and the geometry.

[Inferno]

Actually I did a sky in UE3 with 1 single dome bitmap. It works fine if you Lerp the clouds in where the alpha is.

But yes nice trole thread.

[DEElekgolo]

I was speaking of having different geometry for different sky elements. The turbidity is not only for liquids. The turbidity of a sky is how much the particles in the athmosphere have an effect on the light that reaches your eyes. The clouds in the horizon would be of a different geometry. And the clouds over head would be as well. But things like stars and other minor details would be in the texture. Or just try to re-create the lerp function on the sky dome along with a cloud plane.

Also, here is a picture of the cloud belt I was talking about when I was working on the sky for grunt's sand trap.
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/9684/ferp.png