A few mapping questions

[thephoenix]

I used Hammer a loooong time ago when it was WorldCraft and now I'm starting to get back into mapping. However, I'm finding I've forgotten how to do...well...alot.

Either way, a few quick questions to help with a map I'm working on. To start out, the map is meant to be a very scary, horror-like map. By this, I'm talking about night time environment, heavy raining, flickering/swinging lights, alot of dark places, blood splatters...basically, some heavy environmental effects to add to the "creepiness" of the map.

Now, for my questions...

1) I know cubemaps work to cast reflections, but only on reflective surfaces. I'm using some concrete and I know it would look better with a slight reflection on it when it's wet, to give it that rainy look. However, I can't seem to figure out how to make the concrete textures have that slight reflection, and they seem to stay "dry". I have tried rebuilding cubemaps with no luck.

2) I want to make a lamp that flickers but even though the light source flickers, the light itself always stays on. Any ideas on ways to fix that?

3) I'm seeing how the wind effects work but I can't seem to get them to affect anything. Do they work with TF2? As well, I turn on wind noise and get nothing...not sure if that means sound or something else. If they do work, any good tutorials on how to set it up?

4) Any good ideas on how to make the map light up at random times to signify lightning? I'd settle for a cheap way of doing it with using a soundscape that may not fully match up, just as long as I could every now and then get that bright flash. I wouldn't need actual lightning, just the effect of the bright light at random times.

Any help is appreciated...thanks!

 

[TracerDX]

1) A "texture" is actually a "material" in source. There are human readable text files called "materials" with the .vmt extension that define everything about how the texture is rendered, including its reflectivity. To make a non-reflective material reflective, you must create a new one using the same texture file (*.vtf). See: http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/VMT

2) Dunno. Never used flickering lights.

3) Wind in the rain entity only effects the rain's rendering. If you want stuff to actually move, use a trigger_push in conjuction.

4) Name some bright light entities all the same name, and toggle them on/off with some logic_timer set to random. You can sync sound to this as well.

 

[Open Blade]

2)

Under the light properties, there is a field called "appearance". There are several options to choose from.

Normal
Fluorescent flicker
Slow, strong pulse
Slow pulse, noblack
Gentle pulse
Flicker A
Flicker B
Candle A
Candle B
Candle C
Fast strobe
Slow strobe

Test them out to see which effect you are looking for.

 

[thephoenix]

Ok, so...

1) Found a concrete texture that reflects. Works fine for what I'm doing, no extra work on my part.

2) The problem that I'm having isn't with the light source, but the model of the light instead. The light source goes off and on, but the light model stays on full bright.

3) I'm actually talking about the seperate wind effect, not the one relating to the rain.

4) Awesome idea, I'll definately try this out!

 

[Open Blade]

Ok, so...

1) Found a concrete texture that reflects. Works fine for what I'm doing, no extra work on my part.

2) The problem that I'm having isn't with the light source, but the model of the light instead. The light source goes off and on, but the light model stays on full bright.

3) I'm actually talking about the seperate wind effect, not the one relating to the rain.

4) Awesome idea, I'll definately try this out!

2) I don't believe there are any models of lights that can be turned off and on via prop dynamic outputs. You basically have to choose a skin that is either on or off. If you choose the right light source and place it just right, you should not really notice it too much. I used a red light siren on one of my maps when a certain door would open and I used the skin which was "light off" and it stayed that way but when the light was triggered to turn on (yes, it flickered), you really couldn't tell the model was on or off because of how bright the light was. Most people won't really care. I would suggest a faster flicker and you won't notice it that much at all. Maybe on a really slow flicker, you would. You could create a custom model and have an animation where the skin would change to on and off but trying to sync that up with the light source flicker would be a pain in the butt. I suppose you could probably get it close but that is alot of work (making the model, the animation, and then to sync the two) when you could just set your skin to off and use a quicker flicker and people really won't even notice.