i think this is the guy...
Mark Alsip's Skyboxes
Mark Alsip is a man I know absolutely nothing about, but that does not matter in the slightest, especially because that would be really really weird. What matters more is specific content he created in the mid 2000s. Those familiar with 2000s Roblox would recognize a name like his as he created iconic skyboxes that were uploaded by the Roblox account (as seen credited here), like Walls of Autumn, Summer Day 4, Alien Red, Starry Night, and the like. Mark also had a site where most of his skyboxes were hosted for free download, however, this site is no longer available and the large amount of skyboxes are lost to time. DO NOT VISIT THE SITE AS IT IS LIKELY SCAM INFESTED, I DON'T KNOW ABOUT MALWARE BUT PROBABLY THAT TOO. However, I plan to find as many of these skyboxes as I can find and upload them here as a way to preserve pieces of media that were once beneficial to game developers at the time.
Whether or not they may be beneficial now, I do not know. Some zip files contain a readme.txt that asks for you to let the creator know what commercial use it is used for, but of course that is not possible anymore, so do with this information what you will or something. Not all downloads have this readme.txt though as where these were found had not contained it in some of them and I do not want to bother with it.
Below you will find each skybox, separated by sections that are explained, that I had managed to find, a look at the skybox, a download for the skybox, and where I had found the skybox in that order. You may notice that the zip files contain an extra file ending in .bisb, these are files I made specifically for use in tandem with Bright Ideas Software's Skybox Viewer and Stuffer to preview the skyboxes. The stuffer application makes the .bisb files, while the viewer application... is self explanatory. If you are suspicious of these applications and would like to remove them, you can run the .msi again and remove it there, or go to where it was installed, by default, it is C:\Program Files (x86)\Bright Ideas Software\Skybox Tools\.
With the exception of 3D Racer's as they were named appropriately when found, each image file is located in the skybox in this order:
| Number | Side |
|---|---|
| 1 | Front |
| 2 | Right |
| 3 | Back |
| 4 | Left |
| 5 | Down |
| 6 | Up |
If you want to turn these cubemaps into panoramic skyboxes, you should use Danil W's Cubemap to Panorama tool. The numbering is different here, and by that I mean the right is left and the left is right. The following applies to 3D Racer's cubemaps, anything titled right.bmp belongs in the left slot and left.bmp belongs in the right slot. But only sometimes. Why, I don't know. If it doesn't work, try each side with numbers 1-4 until it matches the top image.
Enjoy your 2000s skybox viewing.
Roblox Iconic
All of the following skyboxes were iconic to old Roblox and were therefore located from the Roblox site itself and are named based on what they are named on the site, as they are the only traces of the names from these skyboxes available. That is with the exception of Walls of Autumn, known as yellow_soft02, as that skybox was found from an entirely different location akin to the skyboxes in the "other" section, so it will be named and linked appropriately. I cannot confirm if this is the actual name, but that is what it will be called.
yellow_soft02 (Walls of Autumn)
Download Zip File
Skybox located on GameBanana (Counter-Strike 1.6 Mod)
Summer Day 4
Download Zip File
Skybox located on Roblox (Not Official Account)
Individual Images Ripped From:
Image 1
Image 2
Image 3
Image 4
Image 5
Image 6
Oblivion
my favv ehehehehe
Download Zip File
Skybox located on Roblox
Individual Images Ripped From:
Image 1
Image 2
Image 3
Image 4
Image 5
Image 6
Starry Night
Download Zip File
Skybox located on Roblox
Individual Images Ripped From:
Image 1
Image 2
Image 3
Image 4
Image 5
Image 6
Alien Red
Download Zip File
Skybox located on Roblox
Individual Images Ripped From:
Image 1
Image 2
Image 3
Image 4
Image 5
Image 6
Broken Sky
Download Zip File
Skybox located on Roblox
Individual Images Ripped From:
Image 1
Image 2
Image 3
Image 4
Image 5
Image 6
Rombom
On the topic of Roblox, Rombom was a Roblox Forum moderator in 2007 until the Roblox Forum's closing in 2017. In 2007, Rombom claimed to have uploaded 26 skyboxes, with 25 of them belonging to Mark Alsip's site, vaxwar. This can be viewed on the forum archive today. Looking up "Rombom" or "Rombom Skybox" in Roblox's creator marketplace results in no skyboxes. However, looking up "vaxwar" on the forum archive results in a post by user "zxcthegreat" in 2008, posting a link to one of Rombom's skyboxes. This is, as far as I know, the only public link to one of Rombom's skyboxes.
Considering how small of a community Roblox used to have in 2007, it's safe to assume each skybox was uploaded one after another with little uploads from other users in between, meaning, the rest of the skyboxes can be easily found by increasing and decreasing the ID number in the url. Not all 25 of Mark's skyboxes are able to be recovered, about half of the skybox models have been removed, however 15 of them are still available. Only 14 are preserved as one of them was the "violet" skybox in the next section, which likely has more quality than Rombom's.
The images themselves cannot be extracted by normal means. The skyboxes were uploaded before rbxassetid was a thing, so instead, images were uploaded encoded in Base64. The encoded Base64 can be viewed by using the BTRoblox browser extension, either by downloading the model itself and changing it into a .txt file to view the code that makes the model containing the encoded text, or through the much simpler way of using the workspace/attribute viewer next to the download button to view each side's encoded text. Running the text through a Base64 to image converter results in the skybox image. I wanted the highest possible quality, so I opted for using Gunamoi Software's Base64Convert software instead of downloading the image from a site.
The following .zip files also contain a .bisb file, however it may warn that it is not in .png format six times in a row. This is fine, the file works. This is likely because the data of the images themselves are not in .png format, likely in .bmp format as the program Mark had used, Bryce 3D/4, exports images as .bmp, but I don't feel like fixing that, besides, it works anyways, so I don't care. I also cannot confirm if the names are the exact names on vaxwar's Internet Archive pages, except for Yeller, I was infatuated with finding Yeller, I am now content. Also Armegeddon, Rombom lists it as "Wow3" in the description. I don't feel like checking the rest.
Alien Harbor
Download Zip File
Skybox located on Roblox
Ammonia
Download Zip File
Skybox located on Roblox
Armegeddon (Wow3)
Download Zip File
Skybox located on Roblox
Backlit
Download Zip File
Skybox located on Roblox
Clear Grey
doesnt look very clear.....
Download Zip File
Skybox located on Roblox
Cold
Download Zip File
Skybox located on Roblox
Cold w/ Mountains
Download Zip File
Skybox located on Roblox
Light Blue
Download Zip File
Skybox located on Roblox
Light Orange
Download Zip File
Skybox located on Roblox
Mysterious
Download Zip File
Skybox located on Roblox
Onimous
likely ominous, but rombom says onimous so.....
Download Zip File
Skybox located on Roblox
Random
Download Zip File
Skybox located on Roblox
Summer Day
Download Zip File
Skybox located on Roblox
Yeller
my goat.....
Download Zip File
Skybox located on Roblox
Other Skyboxes
These skyboxes were found in other places, as of 9/7/2023, mostly from GameBanana and Counter-Strike 1.6 mods. I assume the names are exactly what the skyboxes are called with the exception of Antarctica, as I refuse to believe Mark named the thing Auntarctica. I refuse. Antarctica is also mostly black, keep that in mind.
autumn_day1
Download Zip File
Skybox located on GameBanana (Counter-Strike 1.6 Mod)
summer_day1
Download Zip File
Skybox located on GameBanana (Counter-Strike 1.6 Mod)
violet
this one is ver ypretty.....
Download Zip File
Skybox located on GameBanana (Counter-Strike 1.6 Mod)
I know it links to a file named violet with the name violett2, the guy may have made it mixed up so I am calling this violet and the other violet02.
violet02
this one no t so much.....
Download Zip File
Skybox located on GameBanana (Counter-Strike 1.6 Mod)
antarctica
Download Zip File
Skybox located on GameBanana (Counter-Strike 1.6 Mod)
parfait
Download Zip File
Skybox located on GameBanana (Counter-Strike 1.6 Mod)
3D Racer
These three skyboxes were found in a very old game made for Hasso Plattner Institut. Likely a course project. These skyboxes are also not very trustworthy to be the official skyboxes as the Space skybox seems to be just Starry Night with a planet edited onto it, so it is unknown if the other two skyboxes are edited or not, however it introduces two new skyboxes never seen before (I assume for sun_walk too, despite looking similar to others), so I am including them anyways. These skyboxes do not have a located link as they are all located within the game's files, which can be downloaded from here. If this site ever goes down, I may upload the hosted files for preservation as well.
space
Download Zip File
sun_walk
Download Zip File
underwater
Download Zip File
Honorable Mentions
These are images I could find of the skyboxes, but not the skyboxes themselves. Hopefully one day these would be recovered.
sky.jpg
Download Image Here
Image Located at The Game Creators Newsletter Issue 24
Thank you thegamecreators.com for continuing to host your old newsletters, the newsletters are super cool!
planet.jpg
Download Image Here
Image Located at The Game Creators Newsletter Issue 24
These are all of the skyboxes I was capable of finding on my own. If you believe or are confident that you have a skybox by Mark Alsip and would like it preserved here, please contact me here with an uncompressed zip file of the images, where you located it if possible, and, if you'd like to, a name (not real) for crediting. No .bisb file required.
he's getting his 45th flu shot :)
All images of Mark Alsip were obtained from the badscidebunked's wordpress about page.
https://badscidebunked.wordpress.com/about/