i'm pretty sure the engine they used for the sky was unique to Spyro. i actually somehow found the name, "Cyclorama Engine".

I've heard about that too. While probably true, the skies are all stored as single large meshes on the disc, so it would seem likely that this "engine" was perhaps mostly an editor for making the skies and then there might have been a culling engine so as to only render parts of the sky being currently visible based on camera orientation and possibly occlusion (though that seems like it would be beyond the PS1:s capacity).
Also since at least 10 years or so there should be no problem displaying such a "high-resolution" mesh in a game without any particular behind-the-scenes managing so it is a bit odd; they would definitely fit in a cartoon-style game in my opinion.

Go for it!
Though I wonder if this couldn't be done with something like Zbrush (not that I have that to try).

I've been trying to piece something Dreamweavers-styled scene together. It is a *** to UV map though...

They truly have a unique feel I haven't seen in any other context than the Spyro games.

i'm pretty sure the engine they used for the sky was unique to Spyro. i actually somehow found the name, "Cyclorama Engine". http://krazykari.deviantart.com/art/Spy … -504303714

this is info from a press kit. see the very bottom of the post.

i could never find an instance of this engine being used in any other game.

I think the main improvement would be to use tiled textures between those of the cliff's wall and its grassy top; the current ones look like they're stretching a little too high?

Haha yeah I was actually looking for those textures but didn't find them, but not that I have the much less zoomed-in original texture to look at in this thread I see they are down there after all x)

Also yes, it seems you are right.
Digging around some I found double-size texture atlases that are probably intended for use with the high-resolution ("up-close") meshes:

What I find really amazing about the Spyro graphics are the skies, which are simply vertex-coloured spheres inside a containing pyramid (less needed polygons than for a cube; funny how they cut back on 2 extra triangles there when the sky spheres themselves are quite highly detailed) providing a backdrop colour (usually used for blue seas or sky so that chunks could be removed from the actual sphere where the background then shows through). They truly have a unique feel I haven't seen in any other context than the Spyro games.

Also, Sheep's right! In Spyro 2 and 3, 64x64 textures are available for closely-viewable surfaces (haven't checked Spyro 1, but IIRC it's the same). Recommend using those!

The texture tiles are 32x32 pixels each:

How big is each "tile" on the texture?

I think maybe the difference I'm seeing is the textures look more smooth?

That's probably partly because the render resolution is quite larger than what the original PSX version has (1600x900 vs. 320x240 pixels), thus making for less pixelated images; partly because I may have repeated the textures more often than they are on original in-game meshes (such as the wall section).

Please elaborate on "smoothing the meshes"; they are intentionally very hard edged?
If you mean the texture seams that happens because I'm using the same (original "artisan's home world") texture atlas for everything in the scene. This removes any support for wrapping around and blending edges together so I have to try to UV map it accordingly manually. If what you mean is a way to alleviate this I'm all ears! As said I've worked with 3D graphics as a programmer but I've never really made them myself so I'm sure I'm oblivious to lots of great techniques.

I think maybe the difference I'm seeing is the textures look more smooth? I'm guessing that has to do with the mesh since you said you got the textures straight from the disc, but I'm even less of a graphics artist, heh.

The sky and textures are extracted from my Spyro 1 CD so it's the real deal; the polygonal mesh (and its texture mapping; geez for that repetitive and precise task....) is homemade however.
It also features relatively flat shading and no light maps; adding that should make it look a fair deal better and maybe more organic.

As should be evident I'm definately no graphics artist, but it would be fun to see other (perhaps more qualified than me?) members try their hand at this. The low polygon counts of the original models make it not that hard to replicate the style.