Iris Door

[Tutorial]

category
General Half-Life 2/Entities

description
Futuristic maybe, but looks very cool.

keywords
iris, door, doors.

Ever wanted to make a door that opened and closed like an iris? Well now you can. It's a simple but long process. Do not attempt this tutorial if you do not yet understand how to make doors open using triggers.

Lets start off by using the arch tool. If you don't know how to use it yet then refer to THIS tutorial.

Create your arch to start off. It does not matter how many sides it has as long as the "Arc" is set to 360 degrees.

Then create a cylinder that will fit inside the arch. Make sure the cylinder is not wider than the arch and that it has as many sides as the arch. Once created fit it inside the arch.

Then use the "Clip Tool" and cut the cylinder going from each corner, through the center, to the opposite corner of the cylinder. Do this for all the corners.

Once done make a brush that is covered on all faces with the "origin" texture. Take this brush and center it at each corner of the cylinder. You will have to clone the brush several times.

This is how the door should look like at this point.



Now select one of the triangles cut from the cylinder and an adjacent origin brush using Ctrl+left click.



Once both are selected click on "toEntity" and select the class of the new entity as a "func_door_rotating". Do this for all the triangles and origin brushes. (All the triangles should be paired up with one origin brush.)

Now go to the "Flags" tab for the entity properties of each triangle.
If the door is sitting vertically like a regular door then the "X-axis" box should be checked.

This next part is very important. Look at the 2-D view in hammer that shows the front of your iris-door. If each triangle is paired up with the origin brush to the right of it then the "Reverse Dir" box should be checked. If each triangle is paired up with the origin brush to the left of it then leave the box unchecked.

Now click on the "Class Info" tab in the entitie's properties, and scroll down to "Distance". This option should be set to 90. This specifies how many degrees the door will rotate.

Once this is done for all the "func_door_rotating" entities you need to make a trigger that will open and close the iris-door. This can be a "func_button" if you like. You need to have it trigger each of the triangles at the same time. To do this simply give all the "func_door_rotating" entities the same Name.

Once this is done, compile your map to see if you have succesfully created your iris-door.

This is how the door should look closed.



And this is how it should look when opening.



Example Map

Spartan 34

[YokaI]

totaly awsome, thank you

(starts to make some really sweet NS maps of source whenever it comes out)

[JonnyS]

...

STARGATE!!

Is there some way you can have water on the side of a brush?

[Serever]

no

maybe if you make the texture

[Cactusman]

The edges of my "doors" overlaped a little bit(when they were open) and because of this they flickered. So I went like this instead:I put the hinge on the middle of the bottom of the next triangle over, and now there is no overlaping and i didn't have to use those origin boxes iether

[jenn0_bing]

Just like to say hi as this is my first post on this forum.

My question is how do i make one of theese door's so it opens correctly when placed on the floor.

[Murkrow]

The edges of my "doors" overlaped a little bit(when they were open) and because of this they flickered. So I went like this instead:[ig]http://img110.exs.cx/img110/8181/irisdoor1yi.jpg[/img]I put the hinge on the middle of the bottom of the next triangle over, and now there is no overlaping and i didn't have to use those origin boxes iether[ig]http://img101.exs.cx/img101/1791/testiris00000gt.jpg[/img]

tell how

[Spartan]

That won't work because you need and origin brush. Also the origin brush needs to be on the corner of the triangle or else they door won't go all the way inside the wall. As for your first picture your cylinder that you clipped doesn't not fit perfectly inside the arch.

Just like to say hi as this is my first post on this forum.

My question is how do i make one of theese door's so it opens correctly when placed on the floor.

Its simple. Just make it the exactly as the tutorial says but don't flip your arch 90 degrees.

[jenn0_bing]

My problem is that the doors instead of opening like an iris they tilt down i think i need them to rotate around the z axis but there isnt an option for that.

[zombie@computer]

uncheck the x and y axis flags to make it z-axis.
and spartan, origin is not needed in hl2. you can use a helper to denote an object's origin

[huntersnip3r]

dude i cant make the arch sideway it will only make the hole part face up can someone plz help

[Serever]

make it face up, then rotate it. derp


to rotate it, select it, then click once more in its bounding box. there should now be little white circles at the corners of the bounding box, instead of the 8 squares around it. hold down shift and drag one of these little circles to rotate it.

[snufflez]

hey signy what if you want to make the door open just by walking into it? how do you do that? is it trigger_multiple? how do you set it up?

[RaccoonKing]

The only thing I'd add is (and I know you presupposed this at the beginning) that when you're making the door open based on walking towards it, use a trigger_proximity and set all the iris pieces' Delay Before Reset to -1, so it doesn't crush the player if he tarries in the door starting at your awesome texture or something.

[Hyp-R]

doesnt hammer now have helpers instead of a origin. I mean that purple/bluish dot. so you just drag where the origin should be. It works for my doors. Correct me if im mistaken