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This Twitter bot tours Half-Life skyboxes to brighten up your timelineSkybox Satellite gazes up at the Half-Life heavens
Skybox Satellite gazes up at the Half-Life heavens
The second-best way to make Twitter palatable (after simply unfollowing sources of bad tweets) is to follow a load of curated and bot accounts which trickle niceness into your timeline. Today I’d like to suggest addingSkybox Satellite, a Twitter account which shows glimpses of the skies wrapped around maps in GoldSrc games likeHalf-Lifeand Counter-Strike. It’s sometimes pretty, sometimes nostalgic, and sometimes impressive.
pic.twitter.com/dzz2mfpE7m— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)September 1, 2022
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pic.twitter.com/gpvBTdChJL— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)July 5, 2022
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In Half-Life engine games, the sky beyond the 3D geometry of a level is a series of six low-resolution 2D images. These are essentially treated as the inside surfaces of a cube, with the level hanging in the middle to create the illusion of a world beyond. In Half-Life, these skyboxes are mostly red deserts and mesas against blue skies (plus some colourful alien spacezones), but other GoldSrc games and custom levels have explored all sorts of places. I’m glad to idly visit them in my Twitter feed.
pic.twitter.com/qrdU18hgbB— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)August 21, 2022
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I always liked that skyboxes were often built with technology far fancier than the game could do in real time, but this fanciness was rendered in images smaller than a texture which might cover a single wall. This low-resolution prerendering created a fascinating mix of “This looks amazing!” and “This looks bad!” I like how seeing them in low-resolution videos on Twitter, rather than hanging huge and pixellated over levels, focuses attention on appreciation.
pic.twitter.com/ovrPE6XVcD— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)June 25, 2022
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I also always enjoyed that the scale of skyboxes was so often wildly off when wrapped around the level. Woodlands towering above the level like ancient redwood forests, houses towering like office blocks, office blocks like skyscrapers, skyscrapers like Neo-Tokyo.
pic.twitter.com/2eVChsB4gg— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)April 20, 2022
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Speaking of Neo-Tokyo, I’m pretty sure this skybox’s city is built of a frame snapped from classic cyberpunk anime film Akira?
pic.twitter.com/OVmvfCzS5n— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)February 16, 2022
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pic.twitter.com/QdS2QYoylN— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)August 11, 2022
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pic.twitter.com/3C0hb5sPfl— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)May 25, 2022
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pic.twitter.com/VLVqy21EkS— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)May 18, 2022
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Or at the opposite end of fanciness, I think skyboxes built from photographs can look great if they’re not straight daylight snaps, especially with a bit of filtering to push them from low-res photorealism to uncanny unrealism. Something hellish about this view over Paris.
pic.twitter.com/cleUY5sKxU— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)June 8, 2022
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I think the fake buildings in this Day Of Defeat skybox (from dod_avalanche?) are using the same textures as real buildings in the map—a clever trick attempting to reduce the contrast between map and sky. Though if you’re conditioned to expect a striking fidelity contrast, would this only make it stand out more?
pic.twitter.com/mYhJ4MWV0W— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)May 18, 2022
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I think one key to a good skybox is a kick of fog.
pic.twitter.com/8WUyixdr5d— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)May 13, 2022
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Fog both builds a mood and obscures limitations of the low-resolution images, yeah?
pic.twitter.com/xZeA0Wr96o— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)May 7, 2022
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This reminds me of the otherworld in the Phantasm movies or, honestly, any number of walking simulators I’ve adored.
pic.twitter.com/NaxzIZqtav— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)July 7, 2022
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This murk reminds me of those monochromatic holograms from the 90s? Like thehologram of the Lindow Manin the British Museum.
pic.twitter.com/CZ9E0vAczH— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)April 30, 2022
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Clouds are often the strongest part of a skybox, some beautiful vibes.
pic.twitter.com/zsJEpeSZcc— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)June 7, 2022
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And combining clouds with murk for night skies? Lovely.
pic.twitter.com/xjL6JnuJLO— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)August 12, 2022
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And combining night skies with water? A dream!
pic.twitter.com/clELQeUOUr— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)July 27, 2022
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Or gazing up at celestial phenomena in the night sky.
pic.twitter.com/fAg1570gsA— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)August 22, 2022
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Hell, go into that night sky, just blast off to some alien planet.
pic.twitter.com/JhuQC60qO8— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)July 2, 2022
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Or cower beneath an alien sun.
pic.twitter.com/lsZnOv7PG5— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)May 7, 2022
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As a fan ofreading mod readme files separate from their mods, I like seeing these skyboxes in isolation. We never see the map which used the sky, only the skybox itself. Skybox Satellite doesn’t even name maps, only the skybox filename. I do sometimes enjoy guessing at what their home maps might have been. From the name and view, I assume this was the view out the windows of an underwater base.
pic.twitter.com/98eIJKoWsM— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)April 24, 2022
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I’d be fairly confident guessing this is from one of the many maps recreating the Simpson family home:
pic.twitter.com/1EoZ3rdocE— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)May 25, 2022
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This was surely from a Rats map, a fad for maps set around homes which were scaled to make players the size of, y’know, rats.
pic.twitter.com/XxT7EcORfW— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)April 24, 2022
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I’d guess this one was probably used for a Minecraft-themed map, but I would be delighted if it actually turned out someone only used Minecraft because it was a convenient 3D modelling tool to create the skybox they wanted.
pic.twitter.com/ZLQl6LYj1Z— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)August 7, 2022
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But did these futurefactory innards loom massive over a map? I want to know, but I don’t want to know.
pic.twitter.com/jMfE88sdsD— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)May 3, 2022
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Some, I… I? I. Well:
pic.twitter.com/qriB7mR4Ri— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)July 9, 2022
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pic.twitter.com/bTTs9jN7RH— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)May 19, 2022
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Sometimes I wish the bot would show me more of a skybox, not whip around or aimlessly stare but give me a good look. Then I catch the probe laying on its back gazing up at the sunset over a castle, and all is well.
pic.twitter.com/oriKLyHS3N— Skybox Satellite (@skyboxsatellite)July 24, 2022
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Travel safe, little probe. Dokeep an eye on it.
