Building an aquarium in HL2: Water probl Created 7 years ago2017-01-11 04:54:02 UTC by beanydood

Hi folks!

I've recently decided to fiddle with mapping in HL and HL2 again. After becoming a little bit obsessed with aquariums lately, I decided to make a big one in HL2.
I've designed a large square aquarium with platforms going around it so the player can look through the glass into the aquarium at different height levels. I've also built service passages that go to the top of the aquarium, for "maintenance access" to the top of the aquarium.

Essentially, the player can look into the water volume from outside, below the water's surface, and the player can look into the water volume from above the water surface.

For the water volume I've made a normal brush with a water texture on the top face and the "nodraw" texture on the sides and bottom.
For the glass I've used a "func_wall" with render mode solid and render amount 30.

Looking at the water from above, the water looks good. The problem is that standing on the outside of the aquarium and looking into the water volume from the side, all you see is the "Hall of mirrors" effect because of the "nodraw" textures on the side of the water volume.

Is there a correct way to create this water volume so that I can look at it from above like normal, and from the side into it through a transparent brush?

Let me know if you need a screenshot and thanks in advance!

You'll probably need to use a func_water_analog here. See this tutorial for how to do that: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Moving_Water

Water in Source doesn't actually have the coustics of water except for on the surface. You'll probably have to work around the limits and use other illusions instead of actual water brushes.
For instance, a refractive material using the water normal maps for the sides of the aquarium.
As for the glass, Source supports transparent materials directly, and as such, having a func_wall with a low render amount isn't necessary. Func_wall shouldn't really be used at all in Source since there's the much more powerful func_brush.

Thanks for the tips!
I'll give func_water_analog a shot and see how that turns out. I'll also use transparent materials directly for the glass instead of func_wall, otherwise I'll try func_brush as well

So I've tried the suggestions above, but had no luck.
I've decided to change my map to a GoldSource map instead and carried on working with it there.
Perhaps Source was never meant to allow you to look into a volume of water from the side