Heatwave Help

[Kubata]

Hey guys, I've posted a lot in this section lately but I guess that's the name of the game when you're making a map using entirely custom stuff.

I'm trying to create a custom refract texture to be used as a heatwave effect similar to the env_steam entity, except a little better.

I followed the tutorial for refract textures here and came up with this situation:


In this screenshot it's tied to a func_illusionary entity with FX Mode set to Additive.

Here's my textures that I'm using:



The goal is to have a scrolling texture that only refracts what is behind it but doesn't actually apply any shades or colors. Anybody know what the issue here might be?

[Zecrah]

I think it's the FX mode you're using.

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Render_Modes

Most of them are pretty much broken.

[Kubata]

Should I add the $additive to my vmt?

By the way here's the vmt for the texture:

Code: Select all

    "LightmappedGeneric"
    {
   "$model" 1
   "$bluramount" "1"
   "$surfaceprop" "water"
   "$refractamount" ".5"
   "$scale" "[1 1]"
   "$normalmap" "venom/heatwave_normal"
   "$dudvmap" "venom/heatwave_dudv"
   "$REFRACTTINTTEXTURE" "venom/heatwave"

      "Proxies"
       {
       
          "TextureScroll"
          {
             "texturescrollvar"                                   "$bumptexturetransform"
             "texturescrollrate" .8
             "texturescrollangle" 180
          }
       

       }

    }




[Kubata]

Ok, changed a few things and got this small improvement



If you look carefully it looks like the normal is finally reacting with the light now, I changed "$normalmap" to "$bumpmap" and I also increased my REFRACTTINTTEXTURE from black to a 50% gray. Still very far from where I need this to be.

[Major Banter]

Why not use a steam entity and set it to heat shimmer in the flags, and point it to spray across the entire flow? Careful setting tweaks will make it look awesome.

Or use the particle editor. Unsure if you can pack particles into CSS maps though.

[Major Banter]

Have a look at the code for my gasmask texture.

Code: Select all

"Refract"
{
   "$refractamount" "0.25"
   "$normalmap" "overlays/gasmask1_normal"
   "$dudvmap" "overlays/gasmask1_dudv"
   "$envmap" "env_cubemap"
}

Your DUDV map doesn't much look like a DUDV map to me, but nevermind that. Should use black instead of grey though.

You shouldn't need to set the fx mode to additive either.

Simple is better; I had all sorts of crap in the code and eventually binned it because I was getting an opaque texture.

[Kubata]

I just ended up using the env_steam entity after a lot of tweaking. This was useful though since I'll definitely be using refract textures later on. Thanks Banter.