Key to make good metal textures? (HL2)

There are so many parameters so i don't know where to begin.

Right now i have this in the vmt-file:

"LightmappedGeneric"

{

"$basetexture" "Metal/Metal1"

"$bumpmap" "Metal/Metal1_normal"

"$envmap" "env_cubemap"

"$envmaptint" "[.5 .5 .5]"

}

Is this enough for a shiny metal texture, like the walls in the citadel. Or is refract and stuff used?

Also right now the texture is getting heavily compressed so fine detail gets blurry.

I know that there is a command like "nocompress" but i don't know
exactly where to use it. Just add it in a text file with the same name
as the tga before vtex, or?

Adding the property "$surfaceprop" "metal" to your VMT will certainly help.

If you have GFCScape, have a look at the "surfaceproperties.txt" file in the hl2\Scripts folder inside "Source Engine.gcf" - This has a full (i think) list of all the different material types - there are several metal types, i think just plain old "metal" is the one you want. If you open up the file, there are some comments on reccomended uses of each material type

The command you're looking for as regards no compression is indeed "$nocompress", added in the VTEX instruction file before compiling (a .txt with the same name as your .tga, in the same folder). Check the following link for more info:

http://www.valve-erc.com/srcsdk/Materials/materials_creation.html

Ok thanks going to check that textfile.