Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Tips and Tricks
Either of these methods work. Sometimes, deciding which material to use
is much easier to do by seeing a visual preview of it and other times, if the
name is known, it's faster just to drag it from the Project panel. It's part of
the power of Unity that either way will work.
Step 11:
Try throwing a few different skybox materials in there to see the
dramatic difference it makes in the scene. Especially if your copy of Unity is
Pro and the water is reflective, the entire color balance of a scene changes
with a skybox (
Figure 6.5
).
Figure 6.5
Quick dramatic changes
with various skyboxes.
Tips and Tricks
The built-in skyboxes are nice, but custom is always better. One of my
favorite tools is to use C4D (which has some really great sky creation
tools) and using the custom rig found here (
http://forum.unity3d.com/
threads/9030-Unlimited-SkyBoxes-from-Cinema4D
) to create and output
the images needed to construct a custom skybox.
Step 12:
Remove all skybox materials. Access the Render Settings
again (Edit>Render Settings) and click the target icon at the end of
the Skybox Material line. Double-click the
None
swatch in the Select
Material window.
Why?
Yes, I know—the skies were so pretty. Agreed—but they really are a bit too
pretty and don't give the scene quite the ominous feeling this game requires.
The other problem with a sky like that is the horizon must be taken care of in
a reasonable way and this current model simply wasn't designed to do this. In
the following steps, we will be making use of Unity's fog capabilities to help
hide the end of the water and make the scene more ominous and interesting
and (most importantly) appropriate for this genre of game.
