Custom skybox problems

iWantcoal

L1: Registered
Sep 7, 2013
19
3
So, I created a custom skybox with Terragen. Followed exact steps described in the Valve wiki, but guess what, the textures show up as "invalid" in game (the texture preview looks fine in hammer, and sometimes work when applied to brushes).

Screenshot:
68B02A75FA3B3E642940AD5C775D4ED2F902309C


:( the checkerboard of doom everywhere.

I tried a few options:
-changing "UnlitGeneric" to "Sky"
-compiling bmp to targa with different options
-checking "Clamp C" "Clamp T" "No mipmap" and "No level of detail"
-using VTEX

None of them worked. I really need some help, this has given me way too much of a stall just to research.

Download for the VMTs and VTFs
[Mediafire.com]
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,694
2,579
Are your textures all named sky_somethinglt, sky_somethingrt, etc with sky_something set as the name of the skybox in the map?
 

xzzy

aa
Jan 30, 2010
815
531
UnlitGeneric is correct. I recently made a skybox using this in the vmt:

Code:
"UnlitGeneric"
{
    "$basetexture" "skybox/metalskybk"
    "$nofog" 1
    "$ignorez" 1
}

Which worked fine. The last two characters of the vmt are significant, it HAS to be bk,dn,ft,lf,rt and up.

The vtf files have nothing special, I just drug them over vtex.exe and it worked fine.

Try putting your skybox materials in materials/skybox/mysky and see if that helps, I think the game was fussy about using my skybox until I did that but I don't remember for sure.
 

A Boojum Snark

Toraipoddodezain Mazahabado
aa
Nov 2, 2007
4,775
7,669
What folder did you put the VMT/VTFs in? Your VMT has no path information for the $basetexture so the game will be looking for "...\materials\mvm_oceanlabXX.vtf"
 

iWantcoal

L1: Registered
Sep 7, 2013
19
3
Nevermind, restarting hammer fixed it. Wow, just got trolled major.
Yes, I did put directional suffixes;
Yes, they were in the right directory;


Thread solved!
 

iWantcoal

L1: Registered
Sep 7, 2013
19
3
I kind of realized the issue here... My older textures came to work after compiling the map etc, while my new textures with the exact same settings are "invalid". Is there a way to make hammer "recognize" the new textures?
 

iWantcoal

L1: Registered
Sep 7, 2013
19
3
Well, now I have another problem. The cubemaps display improperly (all orange) on 3d skybox water, is that normal? (or am I missing something? I have env_cubemaps everywhere!)
 

seth

aa
May 31, 2013
1,019
851
Well, now I have another problem. The cubemaps display improperly (all orange) on 3d skybox water, is that normal? (or am I missing something? I have env_cubemaps everywhere!)

Did you make sure to build them? Did you set mat_specular to 0 when you built the cubemaps?
 

iWantcoal

L1: Registered
Sep 7, 2013
19
3
I did have specular on 1.

Is there a parameter that might cause one of the sides of a skybox to look lighter than others?