Create water flowing down a hill

Simulacron

L-3: Simulated Member
aa
Feb 17, 2016
313
326
I want to create a little river flowing down a hill, saddly I haven't any ideas how to do this I tried to create the water with waterfalls as you can see below, but it isn't looking very good and isn't going smooth in the water below
3C0C0D703509DAFEA7AD936973860B1B82A69732

FAC118B889B7781B2F837ECB18BCC7FC3E5B54E4

Is there a better possibilty do do this?
 

Muddy

Muddy
aa
Sep 5, 2014
2,574
4,592
There's a flowing water texture you could try using. I forget its exact name but you should be able to find it just by searching 'water' (or possibly 'waterfall'). There's a see-through version and an opaque version.
 

Simulacron

L-3: Simulated Member
aa
Feb 17, 2016
313
326
I tried this one out, but it is still solid if I'm using the nonsolid texture and you can also see the impact Points of the bullets on it.
 

EArkham

Necromancer
aa
Aug 14, 2009
1,625
2,773
You can also use a displacement with the waterfall texture, which will give you more control if you need the water to curve side to side, or "flow" over edges. Displacements with the waterfall texture won't render right going beneath a water brush, so you'll have to put it on top of any water planes. Select the entire displacement and turn off all the collisions in the displacement panel, too.

There's a blend texture in the sphinx pack that will let you fake water flow a little better. It's what I used in the lower left corner of this pic from koth_sekhmet. It will look weird in Hammer -- the fade colour appears black -- but it will fade to invisible in the map.
 

EArkham

Necromancer
aa
Aug 14, 2009
1,625
2,773
Select the entire displacement -- not just the faces -- and then check all the physics/hull/ray boxes on the displacement panel:

Face_Edit_Disp.png


If that doesn't fix it, open up the materials\egypt\sphinx\water_sekhmet_fake.vmt in a text editor and just doublecheck that it has "$nodecal" "1" in it after $additive (my local copy has this, but I realize that the pack might not).

Both of those should work fine, the displacement should be non-solid for players, collisions and bullet holes.
 

Crowbar

Spiritual preprocessor
aa
Dec 19, 2015
1,455
1,297
Select the entire displacement -- not just the faces -- and then check all the physics/hull/ray boxes on the displacement panel:

Face_Edit_Disp.png


If that doesn't fix it, open up the materials\egypt\sphinx\water_sekhmet_fake.vmt in a text editor and just doublecheck that it has "$nodecal" "1" in it after $additive (my local copy has this, but I realize that the pack might not).

Both of those should work fine, the displacement should be non-solid for players, collisions and bullet holes.
I would never recommend changing someone's/official VMTs. If it comes to this, it's better to create your own one and pack it to BSP, isn't it? Correct me if I'm wrong.
 

Diva Dan

hello!
aa
Mar 20, 2016
1,024
1,951
don't forget that particles will also help hide more rough transitions between the prop and displacement. There is a particle that looks like a constant rough splash, so you can put that around the edges of the rocks to seem like the water is fighting it. It looks good, too : )
 

EArkham

Necromancer
aa
Aug 14, 2009
1,625
2,773
I would never recommend changing someone's/official VMTs. If it comes to this, it's better to create your own one and pack it to BSP, isn't it? Correct me if I'm wrong.

It's a moot point as it turns out. I just checked the pack and I don't have the water_darkblend texture in there anyway, so I'll need to update the download.

Also, it was my pack I was talking about, and I was totally fine with him modifying the texture to get it work until I uploaded a fix. :p
 
Last edited: