OldFlak's Deep Space Skies Set

Given my Sci-Fi game, I was in the market for some purpose-built skyboxes that looked good and were reasonably priced.  I searched about a bit and eventually settled on the 'deep space package' found here https://en.tgcstore.net/pack/10689 and made by the artist "OldFlak".

Normal pack price is 5 dollars for 4 skies (normally 2 USD per sky) at a savings of 38%.

There's not much out there about the artist himself; he's much like myself though in that he doesn't appear to have been a lifer evolving from older iterations of The Game Creators products (like the original FPS Creator).

His initial offerings are several series of skies which fit different genres.  I agonized for a while over which sets of skies to buy from the various producers and eventually chose his because of their overall utility and ingenuity.

Now a few notes here.  First, when I purchased this I had some issues which I reported on here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/213912 ... these issues to the best of my knowledge were not the fault of the author and should be fixed at this time.  If they are not, my repair process is listed on that link.  It bears mentioning that when I complained about the issues OldFlak threw in a free sky, which was unnecessary but very welcome :)

The four various skies all showcase different types of skies and while I have some complaints I will say I find it's been an excellent value.

First in my game I've been using the appropriately named "Amethyst Nebula".  Here's a video of what it looks like (from OldFlak's youtube channel):

One thing you'll notice here is the white ringed sphere, which initially I didn't like but I found if I put one of DevCore's free fog decals over where it hangs in space it looks pretty good.  The same follows for the 'vapour moon' which has a static vapor image that looks cool at first but needs a little oomph to keep it from getting stale.  Thankfully the Devcore fog is free and works well (See my freebies post here: http://gamegurureport.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-comprehensive-must-have-free-stuff.html)

There's also a really nice one called the Sear Nebula - which is found here:

This is one of the better skyboxes in the kit, IMO.

Now, the Sear Nebula looks great; it's got nice colors and those yellow wisps look better in game than they do on the store.  Included with this pack though is also an intriguing design called the 'Sear Nebula Outpost'.   This one is the same but with a static image of a dome-structure and floor built in.  

It's the only one of the four skies with a ground plane.

At a glance it looks flawless but there's some shears in the texturing that at first seem out of place but when actually put into an appropriate map it seems to work well. Also if you look straight up there's a nice circular connector for the 6 supporting rods of the dome.   I will likely be using this for one of my final maps.

The bottom line:  All in all I know these maps look great, not just from my own words but EVERY SINGLE PERSON who has playtested my game's first level has remarked on the awesome outside sky when they first go looking out the windows.  I make sure to showcase the outdoors in my levels time and again, even in secondary scenes.  One can only do that if the quality of the skybox is up to par.

The appearance of depth is huge in games like these; to give people a sense of awe and make them realize that the world is bigger than the small level they've been assigned.  While these textures aren't perfect, they're really well done and more importantly - ambitious.  I appreciate what's been done here and if I had to would spend the money again.