Adding Steam Jets

[Tutorial]

category
General Half-Life 2/Effects

description
A simple entity is used to create a nice looking particle steam effect.

keywords
steam, jet, steam jets, jets, adding, env_steam.

This effect is mainly for fast moving steam, usually where it has escaped from a pipe. Fortunatly it is very easy with a particle system.

First of all add an env_steam into your map, placing it where you want the steam to go.

The bring up the properties (Alt+Enter)



The help sections explain most bits but remember a few things.

Initial State must be set to On if you want it to appear straight away

The steam will go in the direction set in the properties, so remember to change that.
Particle Type : Normal will create just normal looking steam, Heatwave will create a blurry effect similar to when you you look through a heat source.

The rest is pretty obvious so just play around to get the right effects



Related:
Example Map

Blink

[BaRRaKID]

just wondering if anyone had some weird problems with this ent? wath i mean is that, everytime you look away from the steam jet, and then back, it will stop the current jet, and then create a new one, for example:

you looks at the steam -> you see steam coming out
you look down(for example) not seing the entity-> steam stops
you look back at it again -> steam starts again

the problem with this is that if you set your steam to point down, when your passin throw it, and are not looking directlly to the entity, you won't see any steam at all, it's like it isn't even there.. anyone got a way to solve this?

[Sauce]

Yeah that sorta thing seems to happen with all of the env_ entities that i've tried. Especially env_lightglow - as soon as you look away the whole effect dissapears. It's rather annoying actually but I'll let you know as soon as I figure out a way.

[ShoGun]

Can't you make the steam only steam for a couple of seconds? Can you set a time limit? Cuz mine will just keep going and going.. rather boring and annoying. I have theese big doors that open and I want the steam to just be active for a short period of time (when the doors opens and closes).
Anyone know? I'd really appreciate any help

[Sauce]

Using Triggers you can get what you want. just go to the door and enter it's properties and go to the outputs tab make a new one like onopen or sumfing like that and set target entity to steamjet or whatever you called your steam and set it to start or something like that. then make another output and set it to onfullyopen, make the target the steam thing again and then set it to stop. Sorry, you're gonna have to do most of the thinking because this is just me guessing i've never messed around with steam and I don't know what all its parameters are, but hopefully this will give you the jist of what to do.

[ShoGun]

Thx alot =) I'm gonna try that i forgot the "OnFullyOpen" command
Thx!

ShoGis

[NightWalker777]

Ok so i made half of a glass floor map with a poisones slime pit at the bottom. I added green steam jets right above the slime pit and they worked fine. I wanted to make the other side of the map so i just copied it and pasted it, then rotated it to be symetrical with the other side. The problem is the steam jets on the new side DONT work in the game and i cant figured out why. I double checked for leaks and there are none. I even tried deleting the steam jets and making new ones. I also tried making them all over in other parts of the new side of the map but none of them work. everything else i copy and pasted worked fine and i cant understand why steam will work on one side of the map but not the other. Any ideas?