Water is boring Created 13 years ago2011-09-20 23:50:10 UTC by Boomer

Hello. I have a question, and it might be silly, but whatever! Here goes:Is this possible?

If you can't make out what the image is supposed to represent, it is essentially a tunnel, with see-through parts, under water.

Follow-up question: How do I do it?

Thank you. :]

So basically you want to make a tunnel like pretty much every aquarium has. I have no idea how to do it, I suspect I might have attempted it in my early days of mapping but didn't succeed. Because water brushes are invisible from below and from the sides. You could make a semitransparent func_illusionary with a water texture facing the tunnel, but other than that I have no idea. So my post contributes nothing and is therefore useless.

It's always going to just be an illusion, and it's a lot easier to pull off if the player never actually swims in the water.

There are a few key things you'll need to sell the effect:
1. Animated refraction material behind the glass. This will distort things, but not to the extent you would get from a regular water material (which won't render at the bottom or sides anyway).

2. Bubbles! Don't underestimate this trick - it can really, really sell the effect! Try Source2007's particle editor, or if you're not feeling adventurous enough, just use sprites.

3. Blue fog falloff. Above ground you fade to grey fog. Under water, it should fade to blue or brown, depending on how you want it to look.

4. Typical underwater props. Does this tunnel run along the sea floor Rapture-style? Add plant-life and rust!

5. Caustics. Not totally necessary and a bitch to pull off properly, but if you can get good looking caustics then your effect will be flawless.

6. Sound. Big, slow, booming metal groans & that flat reverb you only get when submerged in water.

7. Leaks. When all else fails, convince the player that they're genuinely under water by having some leaking into the tunnel. Even just a few drops leaking in at a seam in the tunnel could help sell it.

All these effects only work from the perspective of being in a dry tunnel running through the water. If the player has to swim at some point, you'll probably have to trigger them all to turn off and on when the player leaves and enters the tunnel respectively.

Good luck!

Thank you very much Archie, I actually managed to pull something off that looks half-decent thank to your rather informative post. There's just one tiny, little thing that's not really coming together, - and it's the stupidest thing ever - my env_bubbles trigger brush is not invisible, which is really weird and awkward. It's all see-through and orangey ingame.

PS: Thank you for trying, Disco.

If the trigger_multiple or trigger_once isn't making it invisible, but it still works, just texture the brush with nodraw.

Thank you. I used the toolsclip though, nodraw sounded like it would cause trouble.