Streched Reflections: Fixable? Created 17 years ago2007-01-15 00:02:09 UTC by RotatorSplint

I've been working on a Combine-Themed map for a while now, and I see one recuring problem throughout the level that I can't seem to solve.

On some (not all) brush surfaces, there are these streched reflection issues that I'm seeing. They're clearly visible on the walls of this screenshot.

What it seems to be doing is pulling the way the brush reflects its cubemap from one vertex to the other. I guess that this is an attempt by the game engine to give the illusion of roundness to things like pillars/curved walls/etc. However (obviously), we don't want that effect on a perfectly flat wall, let alone when it ends up streching the reflections, rather than smoothly curving them.

I have never seen this problem in any of Valve's maps which leads me to believe that there must be a solution to this problem. Can anyone help?

It's just an effect from those particular textures. If you take a look at the combine rooms in dm_punishment, you will find this effect in several faces. Just experiment with the different Combine materials until you find the ones that work best.
By the way, I think it's present in some Valve maps, but it never bothered me much.

Really? I didn't think that this particular effect was part of the texture.. especially due to the fact that it also happened in areas where both sides were perfectly symetrical, but showed on only one side. I'll try other textures and see what I come up with.

Also, I tried to download your map, but the site gives me an unavalible page error

EDIT: After trying a new texture, the same problem occurs. I also tried a full run of VIS and RAD to no avail.

Make all these brushes/brushsides in "hard group"(in window "smoth groups" at bottom).

I see that exact problem sometimes, and it always occurs along where the brush is divided into triangles. Look at it with mat_wireframe and you might see it split along where the cubemaps are going iffy. As for fixing it, making it a hard group as Uragan_Lex said might work, i don't know, i've never really tried.

By the way is that map by chance the puzzle map I saw on Interlopers?

Either way that is a strange issue.

It's not strange - just Source specific in making cubemap reflections. Reflections may be 2 type: linear and rounded. Linear for planar surfaces, rounded - for tubes & etc; every auto created cubemap texture file (vtf) contains 7 frames: 6 for planar reflections and 1 - for rounded. How sorce define what type of reflection use? He using value of smooth groups for every brush plane. Usialy all brush faces are "hard" by default - source use planar reflections. But some time automatic of vbsp(?) make smooth value wrong - so, there we can see that for planar surface source trying to use rounded reflections(and reflections trying to follow smooth between triangles of planar surface).

Then you modelling for source - you will have same problem with reflections: they follow smoothgroups/hardgroups. Turn shaded view to your model - were u can see wrong shading - were will be wrong
stretched reflections too.

And one bug - if u convert brush to func_detail - he will always use planar reflections, no matter what u define: smooth or hard for that brush sides. So, u cant get rounded reflections on func_detail. Or u can convert brushes with wrong reflections to func_detail - and that fis problems.

Sorry fo my english x_x''

Not a problem

And, smoothing groups was the answer. Thanks a bunch

I was messing with this again, and for some reason, instead of planar reflections as default for func_details, it is making them rounded by default. The only way I can get the reflections to revert to planar is by turning them into func_walls... which won't work because they cast no shadows, or making them world geometry, which makes compile times crappy.

I'll mess with the DX levels of the func details and see if I can force it into planar reflections that way.

Make screenshot of troubleshoot pls - it can help to understand were problem.

Will do.

EDIT:

Ok, so here's the brush tied to a func_detail, and here's the same brush tied to a func_wall. The engine is auto smoothing the brush, instead of auto hardening.

I have a few ideas up my sleeve, though. I can either leave it as a func_wall and put a blocklight textured brush inside it, or I could just not give it reflections.

Either way, your help has been useful, and now the map looking much better than it looked beforehand. So, many thanks to you!