Issues with new 'cheap' water texture for L4D

[GreenGo]

Hey folks... going a little crazy here.

Helping a friend with his L4D map, a hydroelectric dam which requires two water levels - one behind the dam and high (the 'basin'), one in front of the dam and low.

Obviously I need to be using 'cheap' water here, but the cheap water that comes with L4D renders as bright green sludge. No good.

Research on t'internets yields the following useful page: http://forums.firearms-source.com/nuwiki.php?do=history.viewrevision&t=5066&revisionid=107

Research on this forum yielded some interesting posts on water, but none that specifically addressed this problem - building a new cheap water texture.

Using the link above, I made the following .vmt file:

"Water"
{
"Water_DX60"
{
"$fallbackmaterial" "nature/water_dx70_beneath"
}

$abovewater 1


"%compilewater" 1
"$forcecheap" 1
"$CHEAPWATERSTARTDISTANCE" 500.0
"$CHEAPWATERENDDISTANCE" 1000.0
"$envmap" "env_cubemap"
"%tooltexture" "dev/water_normal"
"$refractamount" "1.0"
"$refracttint" "[0.95 1.0 0.97]"

"$reflectamount" "1.0"
"$reflecttint" "[1 1 1]"
"$refracttexture" "_rt_WaterRefraction"
"$reflecttexture" "_rt_WaterReflection"

"$scale" "[1 1]"

"$bumpmap" "nature/water_frame01_dudv"
"$normalmap" "nature/water_frame01_normal"

"$surfaceprop" "water"
"$bottommaterial" "liquids/militiaWaterbeneath"
"$bumpframe" "0"

"$fogenable" 1
"$fogcolor" "{.05 .04 .03}"
"$fogstart" 0
"$fogend" 80.00

"Proxies"
{
"AnimatedTexture"
{
"animatedtexturevar" "$normalmap"
"animatedtextureframenumvar" "$bumpframe"
"animatedtextureframerate" 30.00
}

"TextureScroll"
{
"texturescrollvar" "$bumptransform"
"texturescrollrate" .05
"texturescrollangle" 45.00
}

"WaterLOD"
{
}
}
}

This gives me opaque, black water. Previously, I had opague, blue water. So basically I'm kinda stuck with this.

I want cheap translucent water which players can interact with (jump into, shoot, etc) that reflects local cube maps and - basically - doesn't cause any trouble for the mapper.

I'm pretty au fait with Source, but this has me flummoxed. If anybody can help, I'd surely appreciate it.

--GG

 

[Barnz]

they dropped dx7 support long time ago, btw do you have any pic of the water?
i think you just need few simply vmt lines for cheap water:

try this (this is my first water vmt, might not work it's rushed):

"Water"
{
$abovewater 1

"%compilewater" 1
"$forcecheap" 1

"$envmap" "env_cubemap"
"%tooltexture" "dev/water_normal"

"$scale" "[1 1]"

"$surfaceprop" "water"
"$bottommaterial" "liquids/militiaWaterbeneath"
}

for more information, see:
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Water_(shader)

 

[GreenGo]

Thanks for the fast response! I'll try that tomorrow when I get to my home computer.

--GG