Water issue

Excalibuur

L2: Junior Member
Feb 6, 2009
65
2
Hello all,

My first attempt at water is not going so well. I followed the tutorial i came across and here is the result

The water works as normal, when i am under the water everything looks fine, bubbles waves at the top etc....

the top of the water looks like the sky (skybox)

I am sure i am missing something simple... any thoughts?

Thanks in advance

Excalibuur
 

samn

L4: Comfortable Member
Mar 28, 2008
158
47
Can you post your compile log here?

Also, make sure all water in your map is at the same level - if you have water going up to different heights you'll get rendering problems.
 

evanonline

L420: High Member
Mar 15, 2009
485
273
I'm having a very similar problem with my own map. In fact, practically the same thing; the only difference is that the water surface doesn't render at all and anything completely below it screws up.

I THINK I have all the leaks plugged, but I kept finding new ones last night so I wouldn't be surprised if there were more. But I've been unable to find any thus far. I can think of other things that might be causing issues, though.

I have the water broken up into five segments on my map. The map's theme is an oasis in the middle of an Egypt-themed desert, with two bases on each end. It's my first time mapping so I figured I'd go with a simple CTF map. Anyway...It's broken up into one for the giant displacement hole serving as the oasis, two for the RED and BLU vents that lead into the basement of each fortress, and two for the little exit areas for the teams to jump out of the water.

What's confusing me is, the water surfaces in each exit area don't render either, when they're separate. Is this going to happen due to leaks in the other area or no? I know for a fact that they're perfectly aligned, so it isn't that.

Does the water have to perfectly match its container? If so, it's probably the displacement serving as the oasis screwing it up...

And lastly, since the oasis is comprised of several displacements in order for the vents from the base to work, plugging leaks is often hard, and I just create new displacements and make them look like mounds. This also served to help out the fact that I was finding it difficult to exit the oasis in some areas, so I'd like to keep them, but is plugging the holes up with more displacements going to cause issues?

I'm beginning to think I should just completely do the oasis area over again, but it'd be incredibly tedious :I Oh well. Thanks in advance for any help.
 

Fraz

Blu Hatte, Greyscale Backdrop.
aa
Dec 28, 2008
944
1,152
I'm having a very similar problem with my own map. In fact, practically the same thing; the only difference is that the water surface doesn't render at all and anything completely below it screws up.

I THINK I have all the leaks plugged, but I kept finding new ones last night so I wouldn't be surprised if there were more. But I've been unable to find any thus far. I can think of other things that might be causing issues, though.

I have the water broken up into five segments on my map. The map's theme is an oasis in the middle of an Egypt-themed desert, with two bases on each end. It's my first time mapping so I figured I'd go with a simple CTF map. Anyway...It's broken up into one for the giant displacement hole serving as the oasis, two for the RED and BLU vents that lead into the basement of each fortress, and two for the little exit areas for the teams to jump out of the water.

What's confusing me is, the water surfaces in each exit area don't render either, when they're separate. Is this going to happen due to leaks in the other area or no? I know for a fact that they're perfectly aligned, so it isn't that.

Does the water have to perfectly match its container? If so, it's probably the displacement serving as the oasis screwing it up...

And lastly, since the oasis is comprised of several displacements in order for the vents from the base to work, plugging leaks is often hard, and I just create new displacements and make them look like mounds. This also served to help out the fact that I was finding it difficult to exit the oasis in some areas, so I'd like to keep them, but is plugging the holes up with more displacements going to cause issues?

I'm beginning to think I should just completely do the oasis area over again, but it'd be incredibly tedious :I Oh well. Thanks in advance for any help.

I dont know too much about mapping (new mapper myself) but from what I have overheard in the steam chat and stuff, is that displacements dont plug leaks, I think you need to have nodraw or something behind them. I may be talking a load of crap though.
 

samn

L4: Comfortable Member
Mar 28, 2008
158
47
Nope, displacements dont plug leaks. Neither do brushbased entities like func_detail.
What can help to find leaks is to go to look at the Visgroups window on the right sidebar, click on the Auto tab, uncheck the Auto checkbox, then check World Geometry, then uncheck Displacements. Make sure you do it in that order. Then you should just be left with all non-entity, non-displacement brushes that will block leaks. Then look around for the leak.

Or you can do the Load Pointfile.
 

evanonline

L420: High Member
Mar 15, 2009
485
273
Loading pointfiles only ever brings up one leak that doesn't matter for me for some reason, even when I know I have more.

Like, I have the light_environment above my skybox, and it reads it as a leak to the skybox, while meanwhile in 3D view I'm staring a leak right in the face.

Plugging them up with displacements was probably a bad idea, then, that's likely what it is. It looks a little sloppy, anyway, so honestly I'll probably just do the area over. Thanks!
 

samn

L4: Comfortable Member
Mar 28, 2008
158
47
Keep all entities, including your light_environment, inside your map. Even props that are just partially outside the map can cause problems.
 

Sgt Frag

L14: Epic Member
May 20, 2008
1,443
710
Like samn said. Hide everything except world geometry and it'll be real easy to tell what needs plugged with no draw brushes.

Also, Even if you have 50 leaks it will only show you them one at a time. So plug, quick compile (don't go ingame), fix the next...

For water, even though the water brush is covered with nodraw on all but top sides you need to seal the back of it with no draw brushes (think of it like you are putting the water in a tub), otherwise pyros can stil fire underwater.

It's fine to have many pools of water. They can even be at different hieghts IF they can't be seen together. If you can see them together you'll get weird effect where the fog in water disappears and the leaf below turns to skybox.
If backed by displacement it might be fine, I haven't done complete tests yet.