*Help* Adding ambience, overlays, stairways, and corners!

[{Silferno}]

I'm working on a DM map right now with a cave/hell theme.

Well so far I have an abstract looking hallway, but before I go any farther I *Must* learn how to do a few things properly.

1) I CANNOT figure out how to add ambience in my maps. I've added the entity 'ambient_generic' and chosen the sound. But I never actually hear it playing in the map.

2) Another thing I have trouble with is *Overlays*. I understand the basic idea (texture over another texture) but when seen in my maps the textures flicker like crazy! How do I make one texture 'solid' and completely block off the other one.

3) Yes for some reason I can't figure out how to make a normal straight stairwell. (while spiral staircases are simple for me. heh) Also can I add noise to stairways to give them a 'natural' look?

4) And finally I need some advice on making corners/corridors to piece my map together. How exactly do I create a curved hallway?

I know most are to lazy to anwser all my questions; so a link to a tutorial somewhere will help alot. Thanks!

 

[Raeven0]

1) Check the Flags tab.

2) Use a texture meant to be used as an overlay. Most of them are in the decals folder.

3) Make blocks shorter than 18 units in height, one after the other.

4) Clip pieces off the wall with the clip tool (second icon from the bottom; select brush, click icon, click and drag line, press ENTER), or use the vertex manipulation tool to create and manipulate vertices (bottom icon; select brush, click icon, move vertices, and to add vertices select two yellow squares [sides] and press CTRL-F).

 

[Baj]

Select Block tool.
In the New Objects window, under Categories change Primatives to Prefabs HL2 and under Objects select Simple_stairway_steps (its at the bottom).

 

[Deleter]

for your stairs, create displacement maps (tex tool, select faces then create displacement) and then do noise!