Skymaps

You can change the Sky Mode under the "Sky & Fog" tab. There are several types of sky mode you can use from simulated to solid or gradient color or a Skymap. Chunky supports a few different kinds of skymap projections, however "equirectangular" projection is the most common type of sky map. It is recommended to use a high resolution skymap in order to avoid the sky looking blurry. However, if the skymap is too large it will take a long time to load.

Vertical Resolution

Equirectangular skymaps have a 360° horizontal resolution and can have a 90° or a 180° vertical resolution. With 90° vertical resolution the skymap will only cover the sky above the horizon, so it is mirrored at the horizon. If the skymap has 180° vertical resolution the mirroring is not needed: the skymap will cover both sky and ground.

Where to find skymaps

These pages provide links to other pages, or downloads of non-HDR skymaps:

• http://www.reddit.com/r/chunky/comments/17ts4b/some_more_skymaps/
• Milky Way Panorama by ESO

HDRi Skymaps

HDRi skymaps have the advantage that they can be used to provide more realistic outdoor lighting for a scene. Most of these sites provide paid-for skymaps, but many of them have a few free samples available:

• CGSkies
• openfootage.net
• HDRI Haven
• nordicFX
• HDRI-Hub.com
• sIBL Archive
• hdrmaps.com
• Light probes by Bernhard Vogl
• HDRI Skies

You can also try searching Google for Panoramic Sky Texture

Render a Sky Map with Chunky

Chunky can be used to render a sky map. You will need to follow these steps to set up the camera correctly to render a full 360x180 degree sky map:

1. Open the Camera tab in the left panel.
2. Open the Position & Orientation dropdown menu.
3. Enter -90 into the second text field of the Orientation values.
4. Select Panoramic (equirectangular) from the Projection mode dropdown menu.
5. Set the Field of view (zoom) to 180 (max out the slider).
6. Open the Scene tab in the left panel.
7. You must set the canvas width to be twice the canvas height to ensure that the horizontal resolution is 360 degrees. This can be done by entering for example 800x400 in the canvas size text field and hitting Enter.

This shows the Camera tab with the correct settings selected.

And this is what the resulting render should look like.

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