A scene with no sky reads as flat and lifeless, no matter how good the lighting is. In HS2 Studio the sky isn’t just a backdrop, it’s also a light source, so fixing “there’s nothing behind my character” and “my lighting looks wrong” is usually the same fix.
Two ways to get a sky
You have two independent tools for this, and they behave differently:
- Skybox studio items. Search “skyboxes” in Studio’s Add/Find panel and drop one into the scene like any other prop.
- Cubemaps via Graphics mod. Open the Graphics mod window with F5 and pick a cubemap under the Lighting tab (sometimes labeled Environmental Skybox).
A cubemap is a wrapped panoramic image, not a flat picture. It surrounds the whole scene and also casts ambient colored light onto everything in it, characters, hair, clothing, reflective surfaces. Switching cubemaps changes your lighting, not just what’s visible out the window. If you only need a flat backdrop and don’t need that lighting behavior, you can instead drop a .png into userdata/bg and add it through Studio’s Add menu.
Installing cubemap files
Cubemaps live in a “Cubemaps” folder in the game’s root directory (create it if it doesn’t exist yet). Drop .cube files straight into it, then restart Studio so Graphics mod picks them up. Downloaded cubemap packs, such as Hanmen’s own cube map pack, unzip directly into this folder. For more on where to find packs like this, see where to get mods and installing a mod.
Only cubemaps built for Studio Neo will actually load here. Generic Unity skybox cubemaps from elsewhere won’t appear in the list even if they sit in the right folder.
When cubemaps go missing or misbehave
Game updates occasionally move the cubemap folder, which breaks the saved path even though your files are untouched. The fixes for most sky problems are quick, but they aren’t obvious the first time:
| Symptom | Fix |
|---|---|
| Cubemap list is empty or reports “not found” | Open F1, search “cubemaps”, and reset the folder path |
| Skybox or cubemap does nothing when selected | Increase the Far Clip Plane in F5 (rightmost settings tab); it’s being clipped |
| Scene turns overly bright after loading a save | Cubemap reset to “no cubemap” on load; pick a dark cubemap again |
| Downloaded skybox never appears in the F5 list | File is .unity3d, not .cube; get an actual cubemap file |
| Sky still doesn’t apply after a fresh Studio start | Toggle sky rendering off and back on (5th option in the top-left Screen Effects menu) |
For the general layout of the settings window these paths live in, see the Graphics menu won’t open.
Reusing a cubebox with your own image
If you like a dark cubebox skybox item but want your own image on it instead of the one it ships with, you don’t need a new cubemap. Select it and press Ctrl+R to open the Renderer Editor, then replace its texture with your own image file. This is the fastest way to reuse a skybox you already like the shape of without hunting for a matching cubemap.
Building a night scene
This is the reliable recipe for a night shot with a visible moon and a bright light source, rather than everything lit flat and even:
- Turn off the default sky-dummy light. It’s a flat ambient light baked into most base scenes, and it fights any moonlight or shadow you try to add.
- Add a skybox. A dark night cubemap does most of the work here. Several of the “moon in the background” cubemaps you’ll see are actually the Aio Sky set bundled with Graphics mod, including its free/lite version, not a separate moon object. Select one as your cubemap, then tune the cubemap exposure and Moonlight Power settings, adjusting the moonlight color rather than relying on the generic brightness sliders.
- Add a volumetric light for the bright spot and god-rays. Add it from Graphics mod’s own light settings, not the vanilla Add > Light > Volumetric menu. This needs Graphics mod 1.8 or newer (older versions have a separate “old volumetric lights” workaround). The Strength value often needs to go surprisingly high, into the thousands, before the beam becomes visible.
- Add a sun shaft through Graphics mod, or fake the effect with light-shaft studio items if you’d rather place them by hand. A Lens Flare studio object layered on top sells the effect further.
For the full breakdown of Graphics mod’s lighting controls, see lighting with the Graphics plugin, and for framing a shot once the light is in place, see camera work in Studio.
Cleaning up reflections and stray glow
A cubemap lights your whole scene, which means it also lights every reflection probe. If props or skin start glowing with no light source to explain it, the skybox itself is usually the cause:
- A prop glowing with all scene lights off: open Graphics mod’s reflection probes and set that probe’s intensity to 0.
- Eyes, skin, or mirrors reflecting only the map and never newly added objects: the probe’s update mode is set to bake once (onAwake); switch it to Every Frame instead.
- Eye or skin reflections looking flat or too dim even with a cubemap loaded: raise the reflection probe Intensity slider in Material Editor’s Probes section.
See reflections and mirrors for more on probe behavior and setup.
Exporting a scene without losing the sky
Renders and exports have their own transparency settings, separate from what you see live in Studio, and it’s easy to end up with a correct-looking viewport but a black background in the output. If a screenshot or video export drops the skybox, turn off the Alpha or transparency/composite option in the render or Screenshot Manager settings before exporting. See clean screenshots and renders for the rest of the export settings.
Locking in your setup
Studio doesn’t remember one-off graphics choices across restarts by default, and a scene can quietly reset its sky source (from a cubemap back to a flat Trilight, for example) every time it loads. Once your sky and lighting look right, open Graphics mod’s settings and click “Save Current as Studio Default” so it applies automatically from then on. If you’ve also changed the camera’s Clear Flags setting, click Apply before saving, changes made without applying first won’t be captured in the preset.
With the sky and lighting locked in, move on to lighting with the Graphics plugin to fine-tune exposure and color grading on top of it.