Attached Link: http://www.planethalflife.com/wadfather/index-new.htm

Cubic environment maps like the ones described above are used in most first-person shooter games that are around today, including Quake, Half-Life, and Unreal. The areas that the players can reach (buildings, streets, whatever) are defined in the game engine, and the environment map is used to represent those areas off in the distance that the players can not reach.

I have a web site called the Wadfather where I have collected hundreds of cubic env. maps, and these are used by people who create their own add-on levels for games. Most of them were created in Bryce or similar programs. I recently purchased a copy of Bryce myself so that I could add my own contributions to the collection, rather than just helping publish other folks' work (all in the public domain, all published with permission, BTW.)

If you are interested in seeing some examples, check out the site at the URL above. I should point out that this is a redesign of the site which is almost but not quite ready for prime time -- in particular, it only works with IE at this time.

The images at the site are currently displayed using VRML, not QuickTime. I've considered changing to QT some time in the future, but haven't gotten around to it yet. The format of the six images for the cube is identical.

You will also find some links to tutorials for preparing cubic environment maps once you get into that section of the site.

Finally, if anyone here has some cubic images which they would like to add to the collection, drop me a line at mr-gibs@columbus.rr.com. I'm always on the lookout for more great stuff! :)

Mr-Gibs