One of the great advantages of using image-based assets is the load reduction on the animation engine. Without all those polygons to keep track of performance is usually at its peak. This is the primary advantage of using 360-degree skydomes. The right image can add a lot of details such as outside a house window or through a ship’s porthole.
With a 360-sky prop, you never run out of world. There can be interesting items visible anywhere in the scene. The world doesn’t end abruptly when using a sky dome. You can surround a cabin with mountains and forest or set up on the shore of an ocean beach behind you and water around you. The best part is that Reallusion supplies you with a blank 360-degree Sky Dome prop. It is UV Mapped and ready for a drag-and-drop texture or loaded via the diffuse channel.
Another great feature is you can move cameras around, or have several cameras, not limiting you to one angle with forward motion. With the 360 prop, your view of your virtual set is more like that of a virtual world. It can be as rich or as sparse as you wish.
I found out it’s not easy to find 360 skies that are not standard, everyday shots of meadows, mountaintops, or deserts. Not that anything is wrong with that but if you need science fiction or anything out of the ordinary you can look for AI-Generated skybox generators. I used the generator at Blockade Labs which is free as of this writing. This generator is in its alpha phase, but it does produce nice images with several different styles such as Realistic, Science Fiction, and Digital Painting. You can also remix images with different styles. The resolution is 6144 X 3072.
With a 360-sky prop, you never run out of world. There can be interesting items visible anywhere in the scene. The world doesn’t end abruptly when using a sky dome. You can surround a cabin with mountains and forest or set up on the shore of an ocean beach behind you and water around you. The best part is that Reallusion supplies you with a blank 360-degree Sky Dome prop. It is UV Mapped and ready for a drag-and-drop texture or loaded via the diffuse channel.
Another great feature is you can move cameras around, or have several cameras, not limiting you to one angle with forward motion. With the 360 prop, your view of your virtual set is more like that of a virtual world. It can be as rich or as sparse as you wish.
I found out it’s not easy to find 360 skies that are not standard, everyday shots of meadows, mountaintops, or deserts. Not that anything is wrong with that but if you need science fiction or anything out of the ordinary you can look for AI-Generated skybox generators. I used the generator at Blockade Labs which is free as of this writing. This generator is in its alpha phase, but it does produce nice images with several different styles such as Realistic, Science Fiction, and Digital Painting. You can also remix images with different styles. The resolution is 6144 X 3072.
One thing to keep in mind when using an iClone sky dome is it will generally need to be scaled way up, as in 40,000, anything larger will start disappearing outside the iClone workspace. Just as important is you need to add an extra 9 to the camera to even see the sky dome at 40,000. This is noted in the steps below.
To use a sky dome with iClone:
Congratulations! You have set up your first 360 Sky Dome in iClone 8.
In one of the examples in the demo video, you see a Sketchfab Astronaut ("Cooper" by Julien Hondaâ) rigged in Character Creator 4 and animated in iClone. There are only a few major components in the scene; the astronaut, the rocks, and the sky dome prop with 360 image as texture. Also included is the PopcornFX effect Milkyway that provides the floating/quivering objects.
The example of the fleet Officer briefing the Admiral is a bit more complex. There is a floor, three windowed walls, the two characters, and the skybox of a futuristic metro area. The camera sweep, while not exactly cinematic, shows the detail added outside the windows of the briefing room. The air traffic was a premade prop consisting of a lot of spacecraft that I merged from another scene.
The example of the spacecraft landing was the most fun even though I had little time to work on it. With a spacecraft full of windows and several different camera angles, I was able to present different views outside of the windows. The scene consists of the two characters and the spacecraft along with the 360-sky dome.
I did throw this scene together on short notice so don’t blame iClone for the quivering characters. It’s not the mocap either, it’s just the way I linked things and didn’t have time to go back and do it properly. It looks even better when ported over to Unreal Engine via LiveLink but there was no time to render it out so only the iClone scenes are shown in the demo video.
There aren’t many negatives to using a lightweight 360 sky dome in any scene that shows the exterior of an environment. The right image can add a lot of interesting eye candy. Just be careful not to overplay it as you wouldn’t want viewers to be looking at the scenery while missing a critical point in the story.
To use a sky dome with iClone:
- Dig down into the Props->Props->3D Space-> 360 Sky and double-click to send the 360 Sky prop to the workspace.
- Delete the Shadow Catcher in the Scene Manager.
- Delete the Floor shadow in the Scene Manager.
- Select the 360 Sky prop.
- Lock the XYZ Scale by Checking the box.
- Set the scale to 40,000 (40k).
- Select the Camera icon in the upper toolbar and set Preview Camera (or whatever camera you are using) Far Clipping plane to 99999.9 from the original 9999.9.
- Drag and drop your 360 Sky Box texture on the Sky Box prop or into the diffuse channel window.
Congratulations! You have set up your first 360 Sky Dome in iClone 8.
In one of the examples in the demo video, you see a Sketchfab Astronaut ("Cooper" by Julien Hondaâ) rigged in Character Creator 4 and animated in iClone. There are only a few major components in the scene; the astronaut, the rocks, and the sky dome prop with 360 image as texture. Also included is the PopcornFX effect Milkyway that provides the floating/quivering objects.
The example of the fleet Officer briefing the Admiral is a bit more complex. There is a floor, three windowed walls, the two characters, and the skybox of a futuristic metro area. The camera sweep, while not exactly cinematic, shows the detail added outside the windows of the briefing room. The air traffic was a premade prop consisting of a lot of spacecraft that I merged from another scene.
The example of the spacecraft landing was the most fun even though I had little time to work on it. With a spacecraft full of windows and several different camera angles, I was able to present different views outside of the windows. The scene consists of the two characters and the spacecraft along with the 360-sky dome.
I did throw this scene together on short notice so don’t blame iClone for the quivering characters. It’s not the mocap either, it’s just the way I linked things and didn’t have time to go back and do it properly. It looks even better when ported over to Unreal Engine via LiveLink but there was no time to render it out so only the iClone scenes are shown in the demo video.
There aren’t many negatives to using a lightweight 360 sky dome in any scene that shows the exterior of an environment. The right image can add a lot of interesting eye candy. Just be careful not to overplay it as you wouldn’t want viewers to be looking at the scenery while missing a critical point in the story.
M.D. McCallum, aka WarLord, is an international award-winning commercial graphics artist, 3D animator, published author, project director, and webmaster with a freelance career that spans over 20 years. Now retired, M.D. is currently working part-time on writing and select character development projects. You can learn more about MD on his website. 
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