Hi guys,

Just wanted to let you all know that I've been working hard with Marcel Vijfwinkel at CGTextures to present you with this:

300+ panoramic skies
HDR versions!
Up to 15.000 pixels wide
Free samples of every sky!

We'd love to hear your feedback guys, especially from the game-art perspective. We wanted to make sure that the sample images would be enough for most personal uses

It is a very pretty website but why did you have to change the use license on your existing skies, and where does that leave a person legally? If someone downloaded the skies on CG textures and used them in a commercial product are you going to sue them or something

No more subscription based model?

Originally Posted by dolemite

It is a very pretty website but why did you have to change the use license on your existing skies, and where does that leave a person legally? If someone downloaded the skies on CG textures and used them in a commercial product are you going to sue them or something

The license for the skies which were on CGTextures is still valid, so if you downloaded a sky in the past and used it in a commercial product you do not have to be scared that we will sue you (we are not that kind of people anyway and the last thing we want is make lawyers richer).

As for the reason why we don't allow the free samples to be used in a commercial work: we think paying for a sky is only fair if you use it in a work that makes you money. These skies are the cheapest on the Internet at these resolutions and quality, so we think it is a good deal.

We decided not to use a subscription based model for the HDR skies. The first reason is that the file sizes are simply too big so you would run out of download quota very quickly. The second (and sadly the more important) reason is that with a relatively small collection of images like this, the risk of somebody stockpiling the images and putting them on warez sites is too big. A lot of images on CGTextures ended up on warez sites unfortunately. It took us literally months of work to re-stitch these skies, remove the horizons, create preview renders, etc. We don't want our work to be pirated just so somebody can earn a few Rapidshare credits.

We are super happy that the website is finally launched, now we can focus on photographing more beautiful skies!

So whats happening to the skys that are already on CGtextures? I use those quite a lot it would be a shame if I lost them all

Originally Posted by tadpole3159

So whats happening to the skys that are already on CGtextures? I use those quite a lot it would be a shame if I lost them all

For the remainder of your membership you still have the access to them

Afterwards, www.cgskies.com has them in better quality

Originally Posted by Marcel

(The last thing we want is make lawyers richer).

HEY! I'm going to sue you for libel!

The price per texture is steep. For example marlin studios is offering a similar resolution at areound $2.90 a texture why should i buy from you at $35 a texture when i can get 86- 9,000 pixel resolution sky textures @ $249. The subscription model was a better way of doing things because for a low price i can pick and choose what i want from a large selection, with this model I pay out of the nose and am now thinking why bother with cgskies when there are cheaper alternatives that yes require a bigger fund up front.

I used a ton of your skies from cgtextures in the Happy Feet 2 game, it made generating 50+ different skydomes a lot easier. I think we were on a small business license.

Though the selection of nighttime skies is a bit lacking, I ended up having to darken daytime ones and masking in the moon and stars.

Does this new site have "Sky Box" (cube map style, 6 images) versions of your domes like cgtextures did?

Originally Posted by |Buddy|

For the remainder of your membership you still have the access to them

This seemed like a very polite slap in the face. lol

Would love to see a tutorial for making cubemaps! For 3point Shader for example.

Originally Posted by jeremiah_bigley

Would love to see a tutorial for making cubemaps! For 3point Shader for example.

http://www.cgskies.com/resources_tutorial_transform.php

Here you go!

Originally Posted by Kjohnston

The price per texture is steep. For example marlin studios is offering a similar resolution at areound $2.90 a texture why should i buy from you at $35 a texture when i can get 86- 9,000 pixel resolution sky textures @ $249. The subscription model was a better way of doing things because for a low price i can pick and choose what i want from a large selection, with this model I pay out of the nose and am now thinking why bother with cgskies when there are cheaper alternatives that yes require a bigger fund up front.

That's not really a fair comparison, those Marlin skies are not HDR and at lower resolution (and actually only 15 of them are full 360 skies, the rest are missing the top or are only 180 degrees).

Ofcourse if you don't need the HDR version or the extra resolution then I can imagine you find the price a bit steep. (But trust me, if you knew how much time and work went into this you would see that this is a realistic price ) For film and print work (architecture) the difference between 9.000 pixels and 15.000 pixels is huge. It means you can use the skydome as a background without having to use seperate backplates. This makes rendering easier, and your reflections more accurate.

If it turns out there is a demand for lower resolution non-HDR versions at a lower price then we'll certainly add that in the future.

Originally Posted by WetWired

Does this new site have "Sky Box" (cube map style, 6 images) versions of your domes like cgtextures did?

We don't have cube map versions yet. I was under the impression that the cubemap versions were less useful because they are so hard to modify. You can't really do any painting on them, so they can be only used 'as is'

There is also the issue with scaling a cubemap. If you scale it down with any type of filtering method, then the borders between the cube faces will blurred over because of the filtering leading to slight seams in the sky. I don't know of any way to avoid this, except not scaling at all and converting to a cubemap directly at the target size.

alright then fair enough, you made them into HDRI's and cleaned them up. by why remove the free ones from cgtextures? your taking things away from people and saying it like its a good thing.

this sucks

to be honest for a game development project the 15,000 pixel resolution would be reduced down to around 9,000 for use in a cube map (i.e 4 2048 textures to use in the cube map with a custom for the "roof" of th box. The next size up i.e (4096 textures) would require a res at around 16k. So while you are right the hi 15k res is great for film, for game dev its not really all that useful as anything i would use would be reduced. I agree with tadpole though it does suck to need to now pay more for something we got for a low subscription price (or free depending on the subsc.) I understand the HDR and all the work that went into it but at the least i would vote for a lower resolution non HDR option for those who would use it for game dev and not for film. at a lower price point. As an indie dev i cannot really justify investing over 30 bucks for a single image to use a texture.

Originally Posted by tadpole3159

alright then fair enough, you made them into HDRI's and cleaned them up. by why remove the free ones from cgtextures? your taking things away from people and saying it like its a good thing.

this sucks

You still have the free skies on CGSkies at a higher resolution than they were originally on CGTextures with the exception that if you want to use them in a commercial project (make money with them in other words) you have to purchase.

Good deal, no?

Originally Posted by Kjohnston

I understand the HDR and all the work that went into it but at the least i would vote for a lower resolution non HDR option for those who would use it for game dev and not for film. at a lower price point. As an indie dev i cannot really justify investing over 30 bucks for a single image to use a texture.

Like I said, if there is enough demand for LDR only versions we'll certainly add these in the future. And just like you do not give away your indie game for free, we need to set a price for the skies as well. There is a reason why these skies (and most HDR panoramas on the internet) are not 5$ a piece, and that is simply because it takes a whole lot of time to create them.