Scrolling/flowing expensive water

Terr

Cranky Coder
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Jul 31, 2009
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The first thing I learned through some pain is this: You cannot have two different heights of expensive water in such a way that a single player could ever see both at once. (Based on visleaves.)

Just a situation to check early on before finding out once you've done 90% of the other work.

I don't have anything useful to add regarding the expensive water textures and scrolling, but I would like to mention that a custom particle system that creates and superimposes "ripple" sprites may be worth considering.

Oh, and at least L4D2 has "flowmaps" (or some VMT parameter that sounded like that) but I doubt they've been back-ported.
 
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lana

Currently On: ?????
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Sep 28, 2009
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The first thing I learned through some pain is this: You cannot have two different heights of expensive water in such a way that a single player could ever see both at once. (Based on visleaves.)

This is not true. You can, but it will cause some slight issues with reflections and shaders below water.
 

o0whiplash0o

L1: Registered
Feb 21, 2010
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Uh, guys... that's nice and all, good advice, but that's got nothing to do with what I'm trying to accomplish. Has anyone had success doing what I'm trying to do? Seems to me (I should stress that I don't really know what I'm talking about :p) that all expensive water is is a normal map with a moving pattern to it. A custom shader, right? Would there be any way to make a custom shader like this in tf2 or is this something I'd have to make a whole 'nother mod to do?
 

Freyja

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Jul 31, 2009
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I have a achieved a nice flowing water effect by taking a texture - you can use the waterfall one's itself - and putting it 1 unit above the actual water brush. That way you can see the flowing and the water below, and still swim in it!
 

o0whiplash0o

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Feb 21, 2010
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I wonder why tf2 is listed as a source engine 2009 game in the sdk launcher if it doesn't even support this feature from 2007 :(

Aly: I tried that before, but for some reason it doesn't render the texture at all! And besides, it doesn't look too good regardless of what texture mapping settings I use :(

I just got an idea: I'll open up the file tfwater001_normal.vtf file, make it scroll vertically (prob. with after effects), and see if THAT does the trick!

EDIT: I've done it! I'm currently making materials for all 4 compass directions of flow, then I'll post them + a tutorial soon!
 
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Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
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Nov 14, 2009
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I wonder why tf2 is listed as a source engine 2009 game in the sdk launcher if it doesn't even support this feature from 2007 :(

Probably the same reason it doesn't support rotation, physics props, etc. They stripped out a lot of functionality that they didn't plan to use on purpose to make it run more smoothly.
 

o0whiplash0o

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Feb 21, 2010
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Probably the same reason it doesn't support rotation, physics props, etc. They stripped out a lot of functionality that they didn't plan to use on purpose to make it run more smoothly.

Maybe those effects, but a simple normal map scroll isn't added in? They added texture scrolling...

Well anyway, I said I'd post my modified normal map so ya go: (see attatched)

Copy the contents to tf/materials/. The only version I have in this release already set up is water that scrolls north (that's upwards from the perspective of the x/y view in hammer). It's called water_river_north.vmt. Use this in your maps if you wish, and don't forget to give me some credit! :)