How to make scary ghost entities.
Outline of contents:

I. How to set up a great environment for the ghost entities
A. Textures to use
B. Lighting/type of lights
1. Colors
2. Appearances
C. Sounds
II. Creating the ghost entities
A. Properties of the ghost monsters
B. Making them follow after the player
1.Setting up the node graph
III. Conclusion

Setting up the environment for the ghost monsters
In making the environment for the ghost monsters I suggest making small rooms for the monsters to be in, as we will be using zombies in this tutorial. Other monsters can be made into ghost monsters though.

Any xen textures would be good to use but the textures that I used were wet_wall01, -1xeno_4wa, wet_wall05. These are just the textures that I used when I made the ghost monsters but there are probably other textures to use too. I think that most of the "wet_wall" textures and xen textures are good.

Lighting/Colors/Appearances
The lighting for the ghost monsters should be reds, blues, and grays. (The darker the better though) When setting up a room try to leave large patches of darkness.



The custom appearances that are best to use are fluorescent flicker, some normal, pulsing, and strobe.

Sounds
I have listed below some excellent sounds to put in the level to go with the zombies. All of them are related to horror sounds. The first sound is for just an eerie feeling. They are listed as they appear in the pak file. Just enter in any of the following into the ambient_generic entity.
ambience/des_wind1.wav
ambience/the_horror1.wav
ambience/the_horror2.wav
ambience/the_horror3.wav
ambience/the_horror4.wav
nihilanth/nil_deceive.wav with the dynamic preset of Haunted
pitworm/pit_worm_death.wav (high pitch screaming)

Horror 2, Horror 3, and pit worm death are my favorites and the nihilanth deceive is just creepy in the correct environment.

Creating the ghost entities and their properties
Creating the ghost entities is actually extremely simple you just need to do two things to the entities. First create the entity monster_zombie. Then select it and go to its properties. Once in the properties screen select render mode then select additive. Then select FX amount and choose a number. (I chose 240 for my monster)

That is basically all it takes to make a ghost monster but there is one more crucial factor to give the ghost monster its true ghost form. Making it appear to phase in and out. Remember when I said when creating the lights leave large patches of darkness? Well this is when it comes in. Whenever the ghost monster (zombie in this case) walks through the dark zone it is totally invisible and cannot be seen unless you use a flashlight. When the zombie is in the black zone if you shoot the zombie it creates a creepy effect because when you shoot the zombie lights up for a second. Giving you just enough time to get a glimpse of were it is.



Your monster should look something like this. It may be hard to tell by the image that it looks like a ghost though.

Getting the monsters to follow after the player
If you want the ghost monsters to chase the player then use the info_node under the entity list. Then place the nodes in your level for the monsters to follow. Make sure you use info_node and NOT info_node_air. That is for flying entities to follow. The nodes set up a node graph that the entities use to help maneuver around the map and to take cover or to chase the player.

Conclusion
I hope this tutorial helps you in making "ghost" monsters and I hope that it enables you to make great horror maps. Also make sure you remember that the environment is everything. Without the proper invironment the ghosts would not appear to phase and would not be nearly as scary.

Good environment Bad environment



I hope you enjoyed it! All of these images were taken from a level that I made called Verge of Insanity. An example file is attached. I hope you like it. It is a little smaller than the original though. The original will not be posted.