Skybox textures for our solar system

Question

For a solar system simulation project I'm looking for a good (semi-accurate) set of textures to texture the skybox.

I've already found these http://paulbourke.net/miscellaneous/starfield/ and we implemented a quick skysphere instead of a skybox. But after testing we found out that the 2048x1024 resolution image was too low-res for our application, and we can't use the higher resolution version because of GPU limitations (we're developing this for a specific platform).

So we came up with using 6 separate 2048x2048 textures on a skybox to have everything look pretty. However I can't seem to find any solar system star textures that are made for a skybox.

So basically what I'm asking:

• Does someone know where to find skybox textures for our solar system?

• Alternatively, does someone know a free program to convert a spherically-mapped texture to 6 box-mapped textures?

Answer 1

If you're looking for spherical to cubic projection, this site seems to have an answer. It looks like HDR Shop has some panoramic transformations that will work for this.

Additionally there is at least one Photoshop plugin that will do this.

Answer 2

Not 100% certain this will satisfy your needs, but it sounds similar to what you want:

http://alexcpeterson.com/spacescape

Answer 3

Why don't you use softwares like "Celestia" to capture your own skybox ?

If you don't know it,

Celestia is a free space simulation in 3D: http://www.shatters.net/celestia/

Using options, you can hide almost all you need (planets, names, constellations etc.) and using the "Render" menu, you can adjust the screen resolution, the stars radiance, the texture quality etc.

It's not "easy" to use, but it's "not difficult" either, and there is some tutorials on how to "navigate" into Celestia if you need some help. You can use scripts to manipulate the camera and capture images.

Finally, here is a forum thread where someone ask some help to make a skybox using Celestia:

Generating a skybox with Celestia: http://www.shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=11079

It is probably not the "easier" way to get what you want, but this way it will be exactly what you want because you can set lots of options. It is maybe not enough realistic tough but I think it could be ok.