Welcome, in this tutorial i'm going to tell you how to make use of custom skybox textures.


Needed Software:

Hammer
Photoshop(vtf Plugin) or VtfEdit
Pakrat
Notepad


So, lets get started:

1.Download the skybox texture you would like to use. It should come as a .rar file. Open it.

2.Inside the .rar, there should be 12 main files (6.vtf's & 6.vmt's) or 6 image files (.tga's,.jpg's...).



Note: If there are vtf's and vmt's jump to step 7.

3.Open the image files on photoshop, or import them into VtfEdit. And save each one of them as Vtf's, with no specific properties.



4.Now, open the notepad and type in the following code:

Code

"UnlitGeneric"
{
"$basetexture" "skybox/******"
"$nofog" "1"
"$ignorez" "1"
}

5.Now, the '******' is to be replaced with the name of the vtf it will be linked to. If the vtf is 'ubersky_bk', that's what you should type there.

6.Repeat the above step for every vtf you have.

7.Select all the vtf's and vmt's, and drag them to this folder:
'C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\*****\counter-strike source\cstrike\materials\skybox'
If you don't have such a folder, create it.

8.Once you have that done, launch hammer and open the texture browser, you should see your textures listed there (filter the names). If you see pink/black squares, you did something wrong with the .vmt, repeat those steps.

9.Now, once you've seen everything is well, go to Map>Map Properties>SkyBox Texture Name, and fill in the name of your skybox. If your files are named "ubersky_bk, ubersky_ft, ubersky_rt..." you should fill in 'ubersky_' and not 'ubersky'.



10.After doing that, compile your map, and open pakrat. Load your map (this is going to let other people see your sky like you).

11.With your map opened, click Add, and navigate to:
'C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\*****\counter-strike source\cstrike\materials\skybox'
Select all the skybox files, and press Open. A message should appear, click Yes to All. You should have your files set to the folder 'materials/skybox', if not, edit to make it so.



12.Finally, Go to File>Save, and save the map.


You're done. Your sky is now customized at your likings.