Particle Fountain?

I've been working on a HLDM (HL1, not HL2) map that is based on a Dark Forces II map called Death's Dome by Juztyn, it was in the Massassini Temple Pack 3. In the center of the dome was the equivalent to a trigger_push, it was a particle fountain that pushed you up and out of the dome.

I've got the trigger_push done all right, and it works well. But what is missing is the 'special effect' that went with it; particles streamed upward to indicate the presence of the trigger_push. I want to know how to simulate that effect in Half Life.

I've tried using a rain texture and 'additive', and flipping it upside down with a func_conveyor. This had a nice effect, but there was a 'shadow wall' - you could see the darkness around the rain where the rest of the brush is. I tried playing with some sprites, but I couldn't get any of them to look attractive. I'd like to somehow use the gauss gun particles to stream upward.

Any ideas?

Can you turn shadows off in properties of the object?

It's not producing an actual shadow from a light source. The black part of the brush is still slightly visible, using Additive/100. If I set it too low, the brush disappears entirely, and bringing it up where the 'rain' is visible makes the rest of the black areas appear.

I will try to post a picture if that doesn't explain what I'm talking about.

Please do..

The 'shadow curtain' is what is plaguing me, at least on this method of trying to generate a particle fountain.

If anyone has any ideas on creating a particle fountain using the square dots from a grenade explosion, or using the glowing parts from a gauss, I'd much rather use that method.

I tried a env_shooter, but it wouldn't stream continuously.

The settings on it are Additive with 75 as the FX amount. If I go lower, you can't see anything. If I go higher, it makes it more opaque. Am I missing something? The latest ZHLT or something?

I think I've figured out why the shadow curtain is happening; it seems endemic to the texture, IE it isn't 'true black'. I set the top to the 'black' texture from the HL wad, and that works just fine.

I'd still like suggestions for generating other effects along this line, however.

The Fountain can be a func_conveyor moveing up,ending with some smoke.I mean something like this:

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There is a way to create your own particle effects. I am having a hard time finding the data on that at the moment. Maybe RIVEN or AARON can clue us in on it a bit more.

I tried to get my head around the particle editor, but it was like trying to wrestle a large deranged octopuss.
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Category:particle_System
Maybe someone with more experience of code can figure it out better than I could.

I give up. I tried all sorts of ways of posting the link, but even using the 'code' tags, it still doesn't work right.

[Edited by Riven =link should work now]

When adding the link,just add the code for between the words "Category" and "article"

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Never think about bad things!
TNKqwe:The New Killer qwe
[img]http://images.quiz.wegame.com/production/personalities/22/badge.jpg[/img]
I am Engineer - Play Free Online Games
[img]http://media.moddb.com/images/global/moddb_88x31_v12.png[/img]
Citizen Arms

fishy said:
I give up. I tried all sorts of ways of posting the link, but even using the 'code' tags, it still doesn't work right. smiley

I think I fixed it. Just use the url tags as normal but make sure that the 'P' in Category:particle isn't capitalized otherwise it will think it's an emoticon and screw up the code.

Muhnay said:
There is a way to create your own particle effects.

If I'm not mistaken, I don't think the Goldsource engine has compatibility with the new particle editor introduced with the Orangebox version of the SDK. This is the Half-Life editing forum and not the Half-Life 2 editing forum correct?

I don't know much about how the Goldsource engine goes about emitting particles, but to make a transparent texture work as a particle you must make any completely transparent parts of the texture (particle) completely black.

The new particle editor in Source has systematized the process of creating functional good-looking particles. I haven't been able to make anything worth mentioning yet, but based on my playing around with it, it's somewhat straight-forward. And here is a tutorial for it already! Particle Editor @ Interlopers

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