Vlatitude Archive: Glass Tutorial Last edited 5 years ago2019-04-25 02:41:20 UTC

Glass is another brush-based entity. It's important that you understand that there is no specific entity class for glass. This is why in order to make glass, we use either a func_wall class brush-based entity or a func_breakable entity. The difference between these is that the func_breakable glass will....break!

To make glass, first select any glass texture. These usually have the word "glass" in them (yeah, really!). Now make a brush or brushes using that texture. Select the brush(es) that you want to magically transmogrify into glass, and click To Entity. Now go to the newly-made entity's properties. If you want to be able to bust the glass, make it a func_breakable. If you want the glass to be totally indestructible, make it a func_wall. If you made it a func_breakable, there are all kinds of attributes to tweak, like strength and material, but that's cosmetics, and u can worry about that later. What is important is the glass transparency, or how clear/blurry it is. Go to the Render Mode attribute, and set it to Texture. Now for FX Amount, enter a number corresponding to the transparency of your glass; 50-150 is good for Windex-clean glass. Remember that the glass brush has to have the glass texture in order for this to look right.

If you were to make a big block brush, and make it into a slab of glass using the above directions, you would notice something peculiar about the glass. When you look at a face of a glass brush, you cannot see any faces of the same brush that it is blocking. This makes it look like real glass, and not like a box of glass (which can be made with more than 1 brush if you so desire). What does this mean to the level designer? Make your glass brushes thin (after all, real glass tends to be pretty thin).