Reflective Floor

Tenthirteen

L1: Registered
Feb 13, 2013
13
0
Hey guys,

Just a simple, very simple question. I'm building a map, not for gaming use (not for now at least) but a set I want to use over in Source Film Maker. Now, I've done most of the elements of my scene. One of the few things that remains is the reflective floor. I just need a standard reflective tile floor as seen in most TF2 levels. Nothing fancy, just that, maybe with the reflections pumped up a bit but that's not crucial. What is crucial is that I get at least some reflections. I've added in materials from the library, the tile looks great but there's no reflection. I tried copy / pasting an object mapped with a reflective tile from 2Fort, in 2Fort it reflects in my map it doesn't. Could you guys please tell me which is the simplest, idiot proof way of getting a reflective tile floor?
Any tips appreciated. Thanks!
 

Bloodhound

L6: Sharp Member
Jan 3, 2011
316
489
If you put an reflective material in, it should work.
Try to not use the TF2 process that was started by hammer after the compile. Try TF2 via your steam library.
It could be that the process by hammer is somehow misconfigured.

Then get the console and check if "mat_specular" was 1.
mat_specular controls the reflectivity.
If it was 0, there was your issue.

However, I don't think that this is the problem.
Have you tried compiling cubemaps?
http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=16452
 

Tenthirteen

L1: Registered
Feb 13, 2013
13
0
I tried compiling cubemaps and what happened was that the floor is still not reflective but an intel suitcase I brought in from 2Fort for testing is now overly reflective...
 

Bloodhound

L6: Sharp Member
Jan 3, 2011
316
489
What are you settings for reflectivity in the video settings?

Since you said, that you are using the same material as in 2Fort,
it can't even be the material. :/

I'm out of ideas, sorry.
 

Tenthirteen

L1: Registered
Feb 13, 2013
13
0
Thanks you for sticking around bloodhound. I'm pretty new with Hammer, what video settings are you talking about?
 

Tenthirteen

L1: Registered
Feb 13, 2013
13
0
All my video settings are at full, I don't know what could possibly prevent reflections from the floor.
 
Mar 20, 2012
391
806
When you build cubemaps, you have to set mat_specular to 0 before initiating the buildcubemaps command. Once the cubemaps are built, reload the map and set mat_specular back to 1. Otherwise, props with reflective qualities receive twice the power of reflections they need.

Refer to this to learn more about getting proper reflections via buildcubemaps. Follow the instructions posted by 'YM.'

http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?p=24384

EDIT: Actually, I'm curious. When you say you're 'copy/pasting' the texture from 2Fort, you're not actually trying to recopy the texture in the folders, right? You're just opening a 2Fort decompile, checking the texture type and then using it in your own map, right?
 
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Tenthirteen

L1: Registered
Feb 13, 2013
13
0
What I'm doing is this. I opened 2Fort, copied a floor object into my scene, deleted my floor object, and replaced it with the imported one. This way I hopped any correct settings would have transfered from 2Fort to my map.
 
Mar 20, 2012
391
806
What I'm doing is this. I opened 2Fort, copied a floor object into my scene, deleted my floor object, and replaced it with the imported one. This way I hopped any correct settings would have transfered from 2Fort to my map.

Hmm. Alright. Try it with the instructions I linked you and report back.

We'll get to the bottom of this.
 

henke37

aa
Sep 23, 2011
2,075
515
I was under the impression that the cubemaps were supposed to be built with mat_specular 0 because the default texture is missing, causing any seen reflections to show the pink checkerboard. Which would look odd.
 
Mar 20, 2012
391
806
Whenever I build cubemaps without mat_specular being set to 0, all my reflective props become a startling bright white. I noticed the same thing happened when, while working on a HL2 mod, one of the spec shaders I left precached would cause the same thing to happen when I built cubemaps. It seems like it does the reflections, but the spec settings causes it to loop or amp them up.

Maybe someone with more technical knowledge of how cubemaps are built can explain exactly what is going on, but my result is the same - I get shitty white reflections on my props when I build my cubemaps with mat_specular 1.
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,694
2,579
Possibly stupid question: Does your map even have actual env_cubemap entities in it? Because if I recall, a map with no actual cubemap entities will render props with reflectivity (reflecting a "default" cubemap of a generic daytime skybox, possibly explaining the "overly bright" business) but not do the same to brushes.
 

Tenthirteen

L1: Registered
Feb 13, 2013
13
0
Well, it worked, floor looks great. So thank you very much so far!
Now to the new problem. Once I exit the map where the reflections look fine and everything, if I go in back again via Hammer or TF2, the reflections are not there anymore.

Thanks for having the patience of talking me through all this!
 

henke37

aa
Sep 23, 2011
2,075
515
That is very simple: cubemaps are stored in the bsp file that the game loaded when compiling them. Not the one built by vbsp and friends, that's a different copy of the file in a different folder. And both of the files are automatically regenerated each time you build, wiping out the cubemaps.