Youll need to copy paste the whole thing without the template and the real healthkit, and rename names and IOs accordingly, still pointing towards the same template.
I have a curved wall that looks all nice. However i cut a section of it and made it a func_brush. And so with no reason it has weird and misaligned shadows. Also, i havent touched the lightmap grid so its not from that.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/152811/d8d07e39-1e4f-4533-b15c-f9c7e16906fc/DAM_WALL.png
There is no effective way around this unfortunately, you can try make the neighbouring walls func_brush to minimise the shadow transitions.
Brushes are merged into one surface when you compile the map. If you turn some of them into an entity they are no longer part of the same surface and this naturally breaks smoothing etc. You could try making the light maps smaller on both objects to reduce the seams, but basically thats it. Best way to do it is to add extra geometry to cover up the seams.
Yeah, also the 'no reason' quote should have been accompanied only the following part of the rest of the sentence 'it now has weird and misaligned shadows.'. To avoid confusion. I dont use smoothing on those faces.
Thank you. However if you look at the top of the image, you will notice a 'gap' between the shadow, almost as if the lightmap grid is different there. Also, a ambient-occlusion-like shadow at the bottom of the brush.
You do. Or rather hammer automatically applies smoothing to surfaces that are at an certain angle treshold. This is basically causing most of the errors in your case, but getting rid of it would ofcourse do more harm than good. Try experimenting with it
Hammer Smoothing Groups Dialog
Is it possible to change the color of a dynamic prop to pure white? I know you can do any other color just fine, but since white is the default RGB code for the FX color field, it just stays the default color?
$FLOW* stuff is Portal 2+ (or other weird related branches). Doesn't exist in Gmod to my knowledge.
You're going to have to approximate the effect with animated textures and UnlitTwoTexture CP_Unit2 said.
you need to change the material on it
Do I do that by going into the prop's vtf file? And how do I make better looking snow outside of a house? I'm trying to aim for a snowstorm effect with wind, but I'm not sure how to go about it.
Often, the VTF file's position and name is pretty self-explanatory.
if the model is in /models/props/cone.mdl
Then the texture is likely in /materials/models/props/cone.vmt
However some arent so. So you will need to decompile the model with Crowbar for example. Youll see a QC and a $cdmaterials in there. Thats the folder according to /materials/ folder.
Then go to the SMD, after some lines, every 4th line contains the actual .VMT associated with that face.
Then you gotta go to the folder where $cdmaterials points to, and the .VMT the SMD points to.
Hey, I was just curious if something like 'ambient_generic' does anything to the performance, including compiling, in-game fps etc.
I was wanting to have a bunch of ambient_generics on lights on certain areas around a map
ambient_generic is a sound. Its very 'expensive'.
Look:
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/152811/f0c19fca-02f6-4eeb-a1f6-06699a44d1a4/asdasdas.png
The reflections arent affected by lighting apparently. So, i need the shininess to fade to blackness further down you look. Changing the fog is impractical as i need it as it. Volumetric transparent black brushes is unoptimized as well.
So what do you think, is there any other way other than manually going to the VTF to change the reflectivity?
One cheap method is to make an extra brush "wrap" around the pipe, with a fade-to-black texture applied. Another way is to have a special version of the pipe texture with its reflectivity gradually going to matte at the bottom.
how is this possible?
Make an texture that's fully black, and use a white-to-black gradient as its alpha channel. Then you can use that on an UnlitGeneric material with the $translucent parameter. HL2 has an overlay named darkedge that does this, although it doesn't reach full opacity.
Another fun trick is to use $nofog as well, if you want something to fade to pitch black (or some other colour) without your env_fog_controller interfering.
Oh, I thought he meant a texture that fades to black as a whole when you move away from it. A gradient isn't really a solution to the original question tho since he needs the whole reflection to disappear, which isn't possible except with material manipulation.
Oh, I thought he meant a texture that fades to black as a whole when you move away from it
MIP map editing, I did it a while back using a dds => vtf converter
Ugly as sin by it demonstrates it as possible
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/577835582173828589/38DE253847B630EE0D8183A0A1518E43EF0C144E/
Thank you, I used a grate texture and scaled it up 260 times, to make a seemingly transparent to black gradient. It works pretty nice.
However scaling it up that much wont cause problems right?
I haven't been able to find the tool in question for a while now. Do you have a link?
I think it was these
http://www.moddb.com/games/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines/downloads/tool-quick-and-dirty-bloodlines-tools-v39a
I tried to do it again about a year ago and couldn't get them working.
I do believe Stiffy has tried something similar so maybe he has some more up to date tools for it.
Something's supposed to happen with that piece, right?
Maybe this is worth a try:
model the whole map section without that curved wall
have a toggleable full curved wall model lit correctly put there (using the light origin feature to light it up in another place)
and have an alternate version with the cutout there too (I think at least one of both versions will need to use the light origin feature so shadows don't overlap)
when the action is triggered, swap out both versions fully in the game by hiding one and showing the other
Dont worry, i have everything set up. There is a broken piece brush, actually, i cut the wall smaller as the hole wasnt that big actually, now the edges of the cuts arent interfering with shadows.
Thank you though
Do you have a 3D skybox with something in it? Or does the skybox intersect the displacement, by any chance?
Thank you, i actually fixed it with just cutting the brush where there are no shadows, now it looks fine. Thank you though!
I have an issue with where my water connects to the skybox water - from far away, there's a clear colour change with the main water getting darker (from the water LOD controller I believe) but the skybox water always stays at the highest LOD, so it's only seamless when you get up close to the border.
Also, there's a weird flickering issue with fireflies on the border depending on the viewing angle, but that's fairly minimal and not a big problem (last image, need to click it to see them).
Thanks in advance!
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/107303/32cfc384-72fa-48f9-b111-98fcd3836f37/Screenshot (28).png
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/107303/4d35cfec-ddfc-49fb-948e-033c6764e50e/Screenshot (26).png
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/107303/1993c4ee-2ef9-45e5-b08f-8c734e8387c3/Screenshot (27).png
I can't really reproduce that black glitch. Is that the cheap water transition trying to add a (non existant - black) cubemap? You could extend the range of the water_lod_thingy or remove the envmap from the material. That means you may have to remove all reflections to have a coherent look.
The flies seem to be a precision glitch on your hardware side of things. There's no reason for this to glitch. The color should be the water fog color (see attachement). those glitches only appear on the direct intersection. If you can't fix it, maybe it's a good idea to make the water fod blue?
Just for the heck. You're lucky if you use a game engine. Sfm murders every attempt to render a large map of infinite water. Whether it z-culls the default 32k (can't be overridden with the fog_controller) or it breaks the refraction, in a bunch of freaky ways. No good.
https://i.imgur.com/lxPwJ0f.jpg
I am making convoy like map for testing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYl0t9hVIlw
How would I do that kind of thing in hammer
Its totally possible. Almost everything is possible with the powerful I/O systems of the source engine.
You can look at some tutorials like 3kliksphillip, TopHattWaffle, maybe other youtubers, but these 2 are enough. However the VDC (Valve Developer Community) is the ultimate source of source knowledge. (lol?)
Mostly, you need to learn how I/O works (if you havent already) (tip: AddOutput output is one of the most powerful and versatile outputs you can use, for situations that seemingly permit or a certain output, or is hidden and/or unavailable, like adding health to a player for example)
You need these as well as the logic_<something> entities, and math_<something> entities and how to connect them together.
Then experiment, try, fail, experiment, fail again, you know, that usually happens, until you get it right.
If you have more specific questions, you can ask.
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Mapping Questions Megathread V6
