[Guide] Material proxies (for cool effects)

Dec 25, 2007
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I wrote a guide on material proxies, which I researched for the spinning Earth in my control point minicontest entry. The guide has been posted on nodraw.net; here's the intro and link.

Material proxies are a neat little feature of the Source engine that let you alter various properties of a material dynamically. This can produce some neat effects, as the texture position, scale, rotation, transparency and much more can be changed continuously, or even in response to game events.

Take Half-life 2, for example. You know those combine force-fields, that ripple with energy, and fade out as you move away from it? Or in Team Fortress 2, you’ll have seen the rotating radar screen in the 2fort basement. Both those effects are done with material proxies.

 
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gamemaster1996

L13: Stunning Member
Sep 30, 2009
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Thanks this'll be useful.
 

Acumen

Annoyer
aa
Jun 11, 2009
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shameless ads :D
nah, read it on nodraw yesterday and must say boy this is a complex subject, but if you understood and know how and where to put it to use this can make great effects - small details can make the difference in the end :)

lovely article ! thanks a lot for that :)
 
Dec 25, 2007
566
439
Great read but I would have liked a bit more TF2 pointers.
Since nodraw is aimed generally at the Source engine, I thought it'd be appropriate to use the least common denominator, HL2. Everything in that article will work in TF2 also.