Tip of the Day: Skybox 101 in Unity3D

One of the best ways to make your game feel alive is through a Skybox. It almost like giving the illusion that something is there in the far horizon of your game but in reality it is just a Skybox.

So what is a Skybox in Unity3D, how to use it?

Basically a Skybox wraps around your whole scene. It is rendered behind all gameObjects and is shown in the horizon of your game and the sky.

It can be either be a 6-sided texture or a tessellated sphere.

How to use it?

• First off, you need to import your 6 textures(images) into your project’s assets folder.

To get a better result change the “Wrap Mode” for each texture to “Clamp”, this will ensure that colors on edges of each texture match up with the other textures.

• Next create a material Create->Material.
• In the inspector of the created material, change the shader to Skybox /6 sided.

• Now assign each texture into its corresponding texture slot.
• After you created the new skybox material, assign it in the Windows/Rendering/Lighting. In the lighting tab choose the Skybox Material you have created.

You can even play with the lighting and reflections that are coming from the Skybox to change how your scene looks.

Here is how a scene looks with and without a skybox.

Quick Tips According to Unity Docs

• You can add a skybox component to any of your cameras, this is useful when you want each camera to have a different look and feel
• Make sure you set the Camera’s clear mode to skybox
• Match your fog color to your skybox