Adding Skyboxes for smaller areas

[newtech]

Greetings dear MMOwned users
And welcome to a (Wow Patch 3.3.5a(Build 1240)) tutorial on how to make Skyboxes for new worlds.

Now, it has come to my attention that there is but only a few tutorials out there on how to actually ADD a skybox to a completely new world. In this tutorial, I shall show you a way.
Note: This is just one of many ways.

First of all, you need the following tools to accomplish it, the way its done in this tutorial:

- Ladik's MPQ Editor
- Taliis
- LightMapper
- OffSetFix.exe ('Cryects Tools' tool)

Download complete package!



Alright, so you start off by extracting Light.DBC with Ladik's MPQ Editor from your *\World of Warcraft\Data\enGB\patch-enGB-3.MPQ

Doesn't matter whereto.

Second, open up LightMapper.


Now, doubleclick one of the worlds that contains the Skybox you so deeply desire I've chosen the Shadowmoon Valley one for this tutorial. And once you move over the red dot, it should represent a rather big circle surrounding the red dot.


Notice the ID. In my case its 519. Its probably different in your case, unless you follow me completely xD
Now, remember that number. Open up notepad and put it there, or open StickyNotes or something.

Alright, now you open Taliis up, load in the Light.DBC file you extracted earlier and go into the second tab called "Table" (No cogwheel).


Now, glance down row #0 untill you see the row where #0 is the same as the ID you got from LightMapper. (Mine was 519, so I stop at 519 :>).


In the top there is a button which shows 2 documents, one of top of the other. Thats the 'Copy' feature. Make sure you got your row selected, and copy that entire row and go to the bottom. Here's what all those columns means:

Column #0: ID of the Skybox
Column #1: MapID of the world you want the skybox in.
Column #2-4: Coords . (Cannot be changed)
Column #5-6: Noticed back in LightMapper that there was a big dark ring, and a bit lighter ring outside the dark one? Column 5 is the darkest rings radius, whereas column 6 is the lighter of them.
Column #7-11: The different settings of the weather. Not sure how to modify, so just copy from an already working row xD
Column #12-14: Unknown. Seems to be 0 in all row.

Anyways, back to the tutorial.
Change the rows available columns according to what you want it to look like. Here's what mine looks like:

Puzzled? xD Ill explain...
Column #0: Just the next ID in the row :P Doesn't mean anything x)
Column #1: The world I want the Skybox placed in.
Column #2-14: got that from the Shadowmoon Valley skybox I copied above :P

Now, only thing left to do is, get the ADT numbers for the areas that holds the original skybox. In my case I have to choose _28_38.ADT and _29_28.ADT, since I have made a _0_0.ADT and a _1_0.ADT, I changed the name of those 2 files to _28_38.ADT and _29_38.ADT. Then I did an OffSetFix on them (Drag EACH of them, ONE AT A TIME, onto OffSetFix.exe) and edited the WDT file to now fit their new location, and boom.
Let me explain: I had to choose 28_38 and 29_38 because that is some of the ADTs which the original Shadowmoon Valley skybox covered in Shadowmoon Valley. So now, after changing names and done OffSetFix.exe on them both, they got new coords, which the skybox covers

Do the same thing according to your skybox choice.

Alright, now save the Light.DBC file, patch it up along with your custom world (WDT and the ADTs you might have), go to the place on your localhosted private server and check out the skybox If you did it correctly, it should look like what you wanted =D


Thank you for reading my tutorial, please leave comments and stuff in the comment section bellow. And please do let me know if I've made a mistake somewhere.

Thanks
Newtech

[Xel]

Thank you for this well-explained guide. I think it will become handy those who are struggling with skyboxes. +Rep