Water help

[Eimnix]

Ok... I hate water... But i thought it would be fun to add to my map as a new little idea I had... that little idea is a nightmare.

I added the water (nodraw with water ontop) check... ran it, good. Put cubemaps in the middle of each of the waters, compile... few things wrong but ok. Add in a water_lod_control and point the cubemaps at the water and now it's just horrible..

At first I had two issues, one was the water (in a hallway) wasn't coming together correctly, meaning you can see lines in the water:

http://blueturret.com/sewer_test1.jpg

Along with that was the walls had an annoying line drawn on them where the water stopped.

http://blueturret.com/sewer_test2.jpg

I put a "skip" texture between the water textures and that helped slightly, they also are on the same X and Y positions but in game the waves just don't match.

Now a new issue... I run the map and "buildcubemaps", they turn black and purple checker (except one, which is no different from the rest). Turn mat_specular to 1 and changelevel... checkerboard still... Turn it to zero again... same thing.

Without the cubemaps the water is just blue, very bright blue (like the sky that isn't even programmed in), and with them...

You tell me. Also is I have a staircase came up out of the water, when u go down you splash into the water... Anyway to make it so you can actually silently come in and out of the water?

It's sad I have to even ask these questions >.<

EDIT: Oh yeah those screenshots were from before I followed the wiki instructions but Valve knows best... So... Yeah.

[sortie]

There is in fact really no bugs. It's engine restrictions. The problem with the reflections not being matched either because:
1) You used cheap water
2) Your computer is sub DX9.

It's because the cubemaps are not matching, try one of these methods:
1) Removing one of the cubemaps and place the other one in the middle pointing to both water brushes.
2) Try removing one of the water brushes and let there remaining cover the whole area.

And the annoying line is a engine restriction. I suggest splitting the wall brushes into two parts, one above the water, and one below. I suppose it might fix it, eventually.

[Eimnix]

I figured it was an engine error but if you look at de_chateau, there isn't much issue in the water at all, and play with "mat_specular 0" so it's more of a "what the hell".

I'm gonna screw with the waters and find one that will actually cooperate, with what... 50 to choose from and hardly anyway to know what it looks like via textures... I'm bound to find one.

[sortie]

There used to be a great article at SDKKnuts, but doesn't exist anymore. However, you might find this site usufull, if you havn't read it before..
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Water

[Nicadeamas]

.
*off topic* The SDKnuts tutorials are currantly being rebuilt. Takes a long time because we lost about 300 pictures and I am haveting to recreat the pictures 1 by 1. Here is where they will be hosted once they are compleat. I'll see if I can get the water tutorial you were talking about up soemtime in the next few days. hopfully tonight if Vecima is online.
http://www.type3studios.com/?tutorials
*End off topic*

"I added the water (nodraw with water ontop) check... ran it, good. Put cubemaps in the middle of each of the waters, compile... few things wrong but ok. Add in a water_lod_control and point the cubemaps at the water and now it's just horrible.."

Rebuild your water same as you did the first time (nodraw on every side exept the top)
Then place your cubmaps. Click on one of your cubmaps, open properties (alt+enter) click "brush faces" click "pick" now click on the water. Then click apply. it will draw a line from the middle of your cubemap to the middle of the water face. You have just added a cubmap to your water the correct way.

Basicly you are telling the cubemap, "hey, only look at this texture face, it's what you are for" without the line the cubemap is lookign at everything it can see, not just the water.

I believe you can also hold ctrl down and have the cubemap look at more then just one specific texture face. but for me I always just do 1 cubemap for each water face.

Now that the water cubemaps are done you can add more for your hallways. (1 for water face 1 for the hallway. 1 cubemap in the middle of every hallway should be fine.

[Eimnix]

God I hate cubemaps...

First you need one then you need two... Right now (which is probably the problem) the cubemap is at player height (don't know the exact number off hand) but I should lower that and place another for players... Problem with cubemaps is that if you look at de_cbble that comes with the SDK, they have cubemaps every 10 feet or so... Yet everyone says "in the middle of every room", that just erked me...

And then func_breakable_surf, doesn't one have to go right outside of those... Those buggers just annoy me beyond belief.

Anyway... Is there anyway to just put the water inside the wall (overlap) go get rid of the line against the wall, which still won't cause the water breaking at the end of the textures when it hits another water... If that made any sense.

And again is there anyway (like a playerclip texture ramping down into the water) to make it so if you are going down stairs into water that it won't make a loud sound like you just dove into the water? That's really annoying when you're trying to sneak around into a bombsite.

Edit: Btw I pointed the cubemaps at the water already, that's basically when it started screwing up the most. doing the famous black and pink checkboard pattern.