fountain

[WAR_Nuker]

ok so i have a func detail fountain with a water world brush. however, the water brush is cynlindrical and cuts up vis and causes poor fps in the world rendering...despite my putting in a hint brush. i thought changing the water brush to an arch and turning it into a func detail would solve my issue since they dont cut up vis...and the issue was solved...but alas, the water wont show up now. is there another entity that wont cut up vis and still render as water?

also, about hinting, say i have 1 hint brush and 1 wall....like this:

does that hint brush get cut into two when the map is compiled or does it just confuse the hell out of the program?

 

[Raeven0]

Since you just need (presumably non-reflective) fountain water, a func_water_analog might serve your purposes well.

You seem to misinterpret the function of hint brushes. Everything a hint face touches is cut up along that face's plane. Whether you'll have one brush is unimportant; what you will have is two wall faces cut into at least six parts each, two floor faces cut into at least six parts each, and at least twelve leaves on either side of the wall.

 

[WAR_Nuker]

oh ok...thats actually what i originally had too

concerning the hint brushes...just making sure ive got the right idea. i was under the impression that hinting 'cuts up' the map into different sectors or rooms...not so much cutting up individual surfaces. thanks man.

 

[Limpet]

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/HINTs

 

[WAR_Nuker]

does the skybox get split up into leafs too?

also, if a hint brush isnt touching a surface and is just floating in space...does it become completely 'useless' or will it project a cut in each direction X Y Z on the first surface it detects in that direction?

 

[Raeven0]

A hint brush floating in space cuts up VIS leaves, but not geometry. Rather efficient...

 

[Limpet]

I decompiled D2 a while back and noticed that at long A there are a couple seemingly random hint brushes with only 1 face covered in hint, the rest are skip. They're just floating and don't touch anything.
What purpose would this serve?

 

[WAR_Nuker]

wtf is skip?

 

[Raeven0]

Limpet: that's actually how hint brushes are supposed to be made, one or two hint faces and the rest skip. They're probably floating because it's more efficient than having them cut up world geometry, and also because the HL1 compiler would actually cut geometry (but not leaves) with the skip texture.

WAR_Nuker: Nodraw for hint brushes.

 

[Limpet]

Right, I understood how they are made. Just contrasting between the right way and the way War_Nuker used them in his screenshot. I was just asking why they would float in space and not touch any of the walls.

I uploaded an example.

 

[WAR_Nuker]

A hint brush floating in space cuts up VIS leaves, but not geometry. Rather efficient...

this is really damn confusing now. i thought i knew what a leaf was....but i suppose not....can you explain what you mean by 'geometry' and what a leaf is?

another thing....i found a really nice water texture that works with my fountain that has reflections (not as good as the source water...but still really nice. i think its the water from half life 1 source)....the thing is the reflection is a bit too bright for my liking. im guessing i should mess with the alpha channel to lighten this up....but as i am about to edit it the alpha channel it seems pretty damn translucent already. any way to make the reflection less shiny or am i doing the right thing by editing the alpha channel?

its called water_movingplane. you turn it into a func_water_analog and assign a cubemap to it and it looks alright.


"LightmappedGeneric"
{
"LightmappedGeneric_DX6"
{
"$fallbackmaterial" "nature/water_movingplane_dx70"
}

"$basetexture" "dev/water_moving"
"$bumpmap" "dev/water_normal"
// "$selfillum" "1"
"$translucent" "1"
"$surfaceprop" "water"
"$envmap" "env_cubemap"
// "$envmaptint" "[1 .9 .8]"
// "$envmapcontrast" "1"
"%keywords" "wasteland"
"%compilewater" 1
"$abovewater" 1
"$bottommaterial" "nature/water_movingplane_beneath"
"$normalmapalphaenvmapmask" 1

"$bumpframe" 0 // Needed for dx7

"Proxies"
{
"AnimatedTexture"
{
"animatedtexturevar" "$basetexture"
"animatedtextureframenumvar" "$frame"
"animatedtextureframerate" 21.00
}
"AnimatedTexture"
{
"animatedtexturevar" "$bumpmap"
"animatedtextureframenumvar" "$bumpframe"
"animatedtextureframerate" 21.00
}
}
}


in case that helps at all

 

[Raeven0]

A leaf is a convex region of space. The purpose of VIS is to determine which leaves have line of sight to which other leaves, so that everything in one leaf is rendered if that leaf is visible to the one in which a player stands.

// "$envmaptint" "[1 .9 .8]"

This controls the brightness of the reflections. Remove the double slash and change the values to your liking.

 

[WAR_Nuker]

so a leaf IS a 3-dimensional region?

 

[Raeven0]

Yes.