Skybox

Ok, I'm new to HL mapping.

Until this moment, I've only done some boxed rooms with some bridges and (with a little luck) some rounded corners. Placed a player entity in it, compiled the map and hopped around like a crazy rabbit, singing "I compiled my first HL map ... but it kinda sucks !"

I have some questions:

When there's a leak in your map, is the lightening still compiled ? I compiled one of my boxed rooms (after I placed some red light entity somewhere in the middle), and when I get into the map all the walls look so bright, but not red ... there's no light source ... ok, so I read the report, and it says I have 3 leaks. Ok, no big deal, but I want to know ... is it because of those leaks my lights didn't make it ?

Another question: I want to get rid of those boring boxed rooms, I want to try some "outside" stuff ... it can be very simple, like 2fort or something ... but how do I create a skybox ? (without creating huge leaks)

Forceflow said:
I have some questions:

When there's a leak in your map, is the lightening still compiled ?

No. The map will not get lit. A leak essentially means there is a section of the map where the inside is exposed to the outside (the void). If light does go through this leak, it just keeps on going nowhere. That can't really happen, so lighting never takes place when there's a reported leak. The map is just said to be rendered "fullbright".

"Another question: I want to get rid of those boring boxed rooms, I want to try some "outside" stuff ... it can be very simple, like 2fort or something ... but how do I create a skybox ? (without creating huge leaks)"

A skybox is created by first sealing up the level as you need, and then texturing the "sky" parts with the texture called "SKY" available in your Halflife wad. Then enter a proper sky in your map properties. I suggest looking up some tutorials on this to get a better idea. My description is vague at best.

"Placed a player entity in it, compiled the map and hopped around like a crazy rabbit, singing "I compiled my first HL map ... but it kinda sucks !""
Welcome to HL Mapping :biggrin:

Forceflow said:
Ok, no big deal, but I want to know ... is it because of those leaks my lights didn't make it ?

Correct, there's no entity lighting when a map has a leak. Its not a good idea to ignore compile error messages as it means the map will have problems.

The skybox is pretty easy to do - select the texture called "sky", its light blue, select the rooms ceiling brush and click Apply Current Texture tool to apply the sky tex to all faces of the brush. All brush faces must have this texture or you'll usually get errors.

By default HL uses a desert sky, to change this go into the Map, Map Properties menu and enter the sky name in the Environment map bit. The HL .pak file contains different sky names that can be used - 2desert, alien1, alien2, alien3, black, city, cliff, desert, dusk, morning, neb1, neb2, neb6, neb7 etc.

Some HL mods also come with their own sky tex's, they're under the mods folder in \gfx\env.

ttfn

Just have the SKY texture selected when you're making the sky, or hold SHIFT and click if you're using the texture application tool to put it on all the faces of a block.

So, just to make sure:

I create some crappy outside bridges and some trees, I put a large hollow cube around it and apply the sky-texture on that cube (on the inside) ?

I don't think I really got it ... it's probably quite simple ... but hey ... I'm from Belgium :razz:

I just answered this question for someone else about a week ago:

http://www.snarkpit.com/forums.php?forum=3&topic=580&9

it's insanely simple once you realize how it works, it's just hard to explain.

Forceflow said:
I'm from Belgium :razz:

What has that got to do with anything?

I must say though, your english is very good. better than many of my fellow american members (no offense intended to anyone)

Tracer Bullet said:

Forceflow said:
I'm from Belgium :razz:

What has that got to do with anything?

I must say though, your english is very good. better than many of my fellow american members (no offense intended to anyone)

again with the arkansas slur..

Think I got it ... I'll go and create some boxed outside environment ... just to check :razz:

Here ya go ...

First of all, I tried the light entity



And then I tried the skybox thingie. (it really doesn't fit with that computer room, but hey ... just to make sure I know how to do it.)



Thank you all, guys ! :smile:

Time for some bigger, better belgian maps

My computer room looks like the former picture. Dark with the glow of the monitor

Mine looks so too ... but can you see the bright desert sky when you look up ? :razz:

and of course, putting a light_environment in the map will make sky-textured blocks give off light!

You can force RAD to do lighting even with a leak by deleting the .err file before you run rad.

Myeah, but whats the use forcing RAD to do the lighting when you got a leak ...

There really isn't. The only reason I could possibly think of is you want to release a map, or possibly just an alpha of it, in a hurry for other people to playtest, and you haven't been able to hunt down the leak yet. This is bad for many many reasons (including that leaks lag the game when you're near them). I

f you're just making a test build to check the lighting/looks, you're better off just using big, untextured blocks to seal up the area you're still working on that leaks rather than forcing a leaky map to compile.

my point, exactly. :smile:

mazemaster said:
You can force RAD to do lighting even with a leak by deleting the .err file before you run rad.

SHH, don't tell anyone that or newbies will start to do it!