Descr skydome.txt

WIP article currently based on research on RTW/BI only, M2TW has a 'global_lighting' folder which may replace the function of this file - needs confirmation

Descr_skydome.txt simply contains the colours used to tint the sky at various times of day for spring, autumn, summer and winter.

An example from the file is:

; sunrise - from 67.5 degrees to 90 degrees (likely not yet peeking over the hills)

0.984		0.929		0.709			;	sunrise_horiz
0.70		0.749		0.756			;	sunrise_mid
0.509		0.572		0.631			;	sunrise_zen

; mid morning - from 90 degrees to 112.5 degrees (likely sun just over hills)

0.556		1		1			;	sunrise_horiz
0.70		0.749		0.756			;	sunrise_mid
0.364		0.607		0.909			;	sunrise_zen

Note that the sunrise and mid morning lines are comments only as are the sunrise_horiz notes at the ends of the lines. This means the order of the entries is hard coded, you can not for instance change the time (degrees of elevation of sun) that the mid morning section starts. The colour values represent proportion of red, green and blue applied to the sky, max value is 1

Changing the relevent segment to extremes shows which areas are effected using

0.999		0.001		0.001			;	sunrise_horiz
0.001		0.999		0.001			;	sunrise_mid
0.001		0.001		0.999			;	sunrise_zen

gives the following result:

you can see the red clearly in the lower part of the sky, it becoming yellow where the green is added (the colours working here as in additive colour mixing, with red and green making yellow). The blue colour specified for the zenith seems to have little effect.

Changing the zenith colour to red, eg:

0.999		0.001		0.001			;	sunrise_horiz
0.001		0.999		0.001			;	sunrise_mid
0.999		0.001		0.001			;	sunrise_zen

gives a similar effect:

None of the sky colours are having much influence on the unit/ground colouring. That appears to be determined more by the sunlight colour in descr_daytypes.txt

Other Influences

To explain where some other colours appear from it is necessary to look at descr_daytypes.txt. The following image is from work in progress whilst attempting to develop new "skymod" for Lycan Rising:

shows the skydome set to maximum red, the sun_colour in descr_daytypes set to maximum blue and the sunlight in descr_daytypes set to maximum green. The ambient_colour_increase_proportion sections in descr_battle_map_lighting_and_fog_control.txt also have an influence on the overall effect.

Seasons

Four sections appear to be possible in descr_skydome.txt, four separately specified sections are used in SkyMod. The vanilla version of the file only lists colours for:

skydome winter 

then uses the lookup:

skydome spring use winter
skydome summer use winter
skydome autumn use winter

Testing on BI appears to show that the game actually uses them according to listed order rather than the noted name. The actual uses from top to bottom appear to be:

campaign map winter battles

custom map winter battles

campaign map summer battles

custom map summer battles

So at least in BI there appears to be no distinct skydome that ties up with the autumn and spring settings in descr_daytypes.txt, despite the somewhat misleading names of the skydomes!

The season name seems irrelevant as the game accepts and loads battles with the names changed to

skydome notwinter

etc....

It does not seem possible to add a 5th skydome colour section without CTD, that is probably explained by the fact that the skies are just used for the four battle types listed above.

Note about descr_pallete.txt

descr_pallete.txt exists in the RTW/data folder and has a very similar layout to descr_skydome.txt This file appears to be completely redundant, alterations to it have no effect on in-game colouring and it can be deleted from the data folder altogether with no ill effects.