Skyboxes and filters

Skyboxes are background added to the world to improve the ambience of an area. The Skybox and Filters interface can be found by right-clicking the world map bottom-right button. Many areas have a specific skybox. Filters are rendering techniques which change how colours appear. The menu can be accessed by right-clicking the world map icon, or the orb of oculus.

Skyboxes and filters can be combined, creating strange or interesting views of common places. With the release of The Needle Skips quest, the interface for skyboxes and filters was updated. The orb of oculus and freecam mode skybox and filters menu share a menu. The player can also save a custom skybox using the Advanced tab and have it loaded upon logging in.

Several skyboxes can be activated by the use of specific items. Once the player has access to these items, the skybox and filters interface will update, allowing the player to select them through the interface as opposed to the item.

Skyboxes

Skybox	Image	Description
Dusk		A purple dusk found on Uncharted Isles.
Dawn		A bright yellow dawn found on Uncharted Isles.
Midday		A bright day with clouds found in Taverley.
Throne		Swirling purple clouds with little light, also encountered in The Empty Throne Room during Children of Mah.
Menaphos (Desert)		Swirling dusty blue clouds with a pink light.
Bonfire		The nighttime skybox from player-owned houses, with extra orange lighting. Initially from the Lumbridge Crater during Celebration of Fire. This skybox was removed in 2017.
Eclipse		A black sky with red clouds with a slight orange tint with a eclipse in the background. Exclusive to Sliske's Endgame and the skybox filter.
Goshima		A dreary day with little light. Also found on Goshima.
Shattered Worlds		A space skybox with floating rocks also found during Shattered Worlds.
Paterdomus		Sky that is active when you are near Paterdomus
DotD		Dimension of the Damned was a competitive game mode for RuneScape, with the qualifiers accessible after an update on 16 October 2017, lasting until 25 October. It was designed to be played using only NXT client but it was possible to play with the Java client if the player edited a configuration file. Players were required to go through the RuneScape website to access the mode.
Amber Haze		Amber Haze is unlocked by unlocking all Stories in the Dream of Iaia. Accessing the Dream of Iaia area requires completing the Extinction quest.
Iaia (Surface)		Iaia (Surface) is unlocked by unlocking all Stories in the Dream of Iaia. Accessing the Dream of Iaia area requires completing the Extinction quest.

Location-specific skyboxes

Some of these skyboxes are not available through the skybox and filter interface.

Area	Image		Area	Image
Heart of Gielinor			Infernus
Mazcab			Naragun
New Varrock			Tarddiad
Troll Warzone			Grim Underworld
Yu'biusk			Death's office
Freneskae (Fate of the Gods)			Freneskae (Children of Mah)
Tuska			Anima Islands (Tuska Comes)
Low level Runespan			Mid level Runespan
High level Runespan			Telos, the Warden boss fight
Clan Citadel			World Gate location on Gielinor
Kharidian Desert			Morytania
Daemonheim			Wilderness
Battlefield			Poison Waste

Unique item skyboxes

Item	Image	Description
Daystone		The normal daytime skybox.
Nightstone		The nighttime skybox from player-owned houses.
Bloodstone		The Vampyrium skybox from The Lord of Vampyrium with the River of Blood hallucination filter.

Other

Skybox	Image	Description
Daytime		Standard skybox used in several areas.
Player-owned house day		Standard daytime skybox.
Player-owned house dusk		Standard dusk skybox.
Player-owned house night		Standard nighttime skybox.

Filters

Filter	Image	Description
River of Blood Hallucinations		Most colours muted, red hues enhanced. Used in River of Blood.
Blue Shadows		A blue hue applied to most grey/blue/dark colours.
Magic Toad		Colours mostly inverted, favouring bright blues and oranges.
Aminishi Spirit Realm		Most colours desaturated.
Goshima		Darkened and slightly desaturated, like a dreary day.
Zemouregal's Scrying Pool		Purple applied to everything.
Halloween 17	Picture to be added.	Description to be added.
Warm		Orange hues added, blues dimmed.
Cool		Blues enhanced, but not as much as Blue Shadows.
Sepia		Brown added to everything, like older parchments and photography.
Cel Shade		Colour saturation significantly increased, making everything much brighter and bleeding into each other. (Not quite true cel shading.)
Cross-Process		Slight mix colours with adjacent colours, mostly resulting in slightly warmer colours.
High Contrast		Increases the saturation of all colours slightly.
Colour Invert		All colours inverted.
Greyscale		All colours changed to shades of grey.

Unique item filters

Item	Image	Description
Rose tinted glasses		A rose-coloured tint added when wearing the glasses.

Advanced

On 19 November 2018, advanced options were introduced to the skybox and filters options. With these the player has complete control over the look and feel of their skybox. There are RGB options for the sun, fog, and volumetric light. The player can also set the ambience of the sun, the fog depth, and volumetric density.

Update history

This information has been compiled as part of the update history project. Some updates may not be included—see here for how to help out!

• patch 20 February 2023 (Update):
  • Set skyboxes will no longer reset upon applying a filter.

• patch 13 June 2022 (Update):
  • The skybox override during the Arch-Glacor's Frost Cannon attack will now consistently reset back to the player's original skybox after the attack.

• patch 5 July 2021 (Update):
  • Various locations now remember chosen skybox overrides and will return to it when leaving the area.

• patch 19 August 2019 (Update):
  • The Greyscale filter will now correctly change things into greyscale.

• patch 19 November 2018 (Update):
  • The skybox & filter options, access from the world map button's right-click menu, has been reworked:
    • Skybox can be selected in one tab;
    • Filter can be selected in another;
    • In Advanced, various settings can be set and saved as a preset. Beware, you may cause some strange looking effects. Sun colour, sun ambience, fog colour and depth as well as volumetric light colour and density can be set to custom values.

• patch 9 April 2018 (Update):
  • Edited the corners of the sunset skybox to make them less obvious.

• patch 22 January 2018 (Update):
  • An issue with the underwater Tutorial Island skybox was resolved.

• patch 30 October 2017 (Update):
  • The bonfire Skybox has been removed from the Skybox/Filters menu.
  • The Paterdomus and Menaphos (Desert) Skyboxes have been added to the Skybox/Filters menu.
  • The Hallowe'en 17 filter has been added to the SkyBox/Filters menu.

• patch 11 September 2017 (Update):
  • Players can now change their Skybox/Filters in Dungeoneering, the Uncharted Isles and the Player-Owned House.

• hotfix 26 June 2017:
  • Environment Overrides in Java have been disabled.

• patch 19 June 2017 (Update):
  • The following skyboxes now utilise volumetric lighting when activated via the 'Skybox/Filters' option: Dusk, Dawn, Midday, Throne, Eclipse, Nightstone, Daystone, Goshima.

• patch 22 May 2017 (Update):
  • The following changes have now been made for the Visualise option on the World Map:
    • Environment overrides will no longer reset when teleporting to a lodestone.
    • The Blood, Day and Night stone overrides are now available via Visualise if unlocked.
    • The Shattered Worlds skybox has now been added to Visualise.
    • There are now buttons for each skybox/filter menu to return to the previous menu.

• hotfix 15 May 2017 (Update):
  • The Skybox/Filters menu will now stay open when selecting an option, allowing players to cycle through them.

• patch 24 August 2015 (Update):
  • Morytania skyboxes now appear dark blue when turned off.

• patch 6 October 2014 (Update):
  • The HTML5 client should no longer crash when encountering a skybox.

Trivia

• The update of 15 May 2017 allowed a number of skyboxes and filters to be used by the player at will via the orb of oculus or by right-clicking the world map globe near the minimap. After the update, a competition was held which encouraged players to submit their best photos using the skyboxes.
• The magic toad filter was initially planned to be activated when nibbling sliced mushrooms in the Arc, but was scrapped before release, likely due to its being a hallucinogenic drug-related joke.
• The in-universe reason for being able to change skyboxes/filters at will was given by Mod Shauny as "the player imagines the world around them changed".
• The first skyboxes to ever be introduced in-game were the Clan Citadels ones on 26 July 2011.