Displacement + flat brush + VRAD = ugly shadows

T

The Asylum

So anyone who's played Checkpoint knows about this teensy problem:

ctfcheckpointrc10000.jpg


Now that I'm done with the cliff faces, I'm trying to figure out how I'm supposed to get rid of those ugly shadows. On the left is a trench build with displacements, and on the right is a flat regular ol brush.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
You need to combine their smoothing groups. But angled edges like this, displacement or not, will have some form of shadow seeming due to the different levels of light hitting its face. Dustbowl has this issue throughout its play area, particularly infront of the second to last CP. I havn't actually used smoothing groups myself because it is usually the result of bad lighting. An overhead light of some form would reduce the lightmap seem.

For smoothing groups see:

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFwKMgf6FJ0"]YouTube- SourceSDK Tutorial - Smoothing Groups[/nomedia]


edit: alternatively, there's not much reason to keep that piece of the ground solid geometry, you can make it a displacement and if you want vis to be blocked, fill its previously solid volume with nodraw. This should help smoothing groups more naturally, IE you probably wouldn't have to use smoothing groups in the texture panel.
 
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Nutomic

L11: Posh Member
Feb 7, 2009
888
177
As grazr said, i would just use a displacement for that brush, too.

Generally, i dont see any reason for making rocks/ground and stuff not displaced.