Having trouble with skies and HDR

hey guys, im not an "inexperienced" mapper per say but ive never come across this error before...

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materialPath: c:\program files (x86)\steam\steamapps\tristanborys@hotmail.com\team fortress 2\tf\materials
Loading E:\Maps\cp_tower\cp_tower.vmf
Patching WVT material: maps/cp_tower/nature/blendgroundtogravel001_wvt_patch
fixing up env_cubemap materials on brush sides...
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...100...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10Processing areas...done (0)
Building Faces...done (0)
Chop Details...done (0)
Find Visible Detail Sides...
Merged 84 detail faces...done (0)
Merging details...done (0)
FixTjuncs...
PruneNodes...
WriteBSP...
done (0)
writing E:\Maps\cp_tower\cp_tower.prt...Building visibility clusters...
done (0)
*** Error: Skybox vtf files for skybox/sky_tf2_04 weren't compiled with the same size texture and/or same flags!
Can't load skybox file skybox/sky_tf2_04 to build the default cubemap!
*** Error: Skybox vtf files for skybox/sky_tf2_04 weren't compiled with the same size texture and/or same flags!
Can't load skybox file skybox/sky_tf2_04 to build the default cubemap!
Finding displacement neighbors...
Finding lightmap sample positions...
Displacement Alpha : 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10
Building Physics collision data...
done (1) (124215 bytes)
Placing detail props : 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10
Compacting texture/material tables...
Reduced 404 texinfos to 203
Reduced 28 texdatas to 28 (617 bytes to 617)
Writing E:\Maps\cp_tower\cp_tower.bsp
1 second elapsed

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so i dont know what to do really. also i took some screen shots of what is happening to the lighting/HDR in my map. basically everything that is supposed to be metallic or reflectiev is UBER shiny.

any ideas?

i dont have any leaks i know that, i did buildcubemaps, but i didnt reload the map after ill give that a shot

thanks chickenhunter...

k, so as for the overbrightness, everything that is meant to reflect works ok now, but wherever there is sunlight it is still super bright any ideas?

ok, would it be possible to go into greater detail or link me to where it does about this because i don't really know what to do at this point with what youve given me.

thanks in advance.

ok i did the env_tonemap_controller based on some tuts i found on wiki, didnt really work. infact all it did was sorta screw up my settings. for some reason now im my video option when i put a checkmark in "Use Bloom (if available)" the checkmark doesnt stay...wtf.

any other ideas on this problem? can someone list me the default settings (join a game and check, or check ur config) for all the mat_hdrxxxxx and mat_bloomxxxx related cvars?

fartron said:

Doing cubemaps right is important. I have a method that I'm eventually going to refine into a .CFG file to automate for me.

Code:

disconnect
mat_specular 0
mat_hdr_level 0
map YOUR_MAP
buildcubemaps
disconnect
mat_hdr_level 2
map YOUR_MAP
buildcubemaps
disconnect
mat_specular 1

After this load it up again to see the cubemaps in action. If doing it carefully hasn't fixed the problem, I'd check that you've got your cubemaps ents well located. That valve wiki link talks some about positioning. You can also manually link specific cubemap ents to specific brush surfaces, and test the changes of different positioning.

Click to expand...

all these things u list here are console commands that i simply type in? do they affect my permanent settings? or do they just change for that game that i run them in.

wow thanks fartron ur directions worked perfectly. i appreciate it.