I've been playing around with the vmt files of the fizzler textures and FourthReaper's texture pack and I have a question: I've created a vmt on the basis of FourthReaper's force detection field texture. That one is pulsating which I understand is due to the $flow_lerpexp value.

Now, I'm putting two brushes with this texture right behind each other. I made a little test map with the vmt file both of which you can download here. (You will just have to reapply the texture to the brushes according to where you copy the vmt on your pc.) Anyhow, if you run the map you'll see that both brushes are pulsating in the same rhythm. My question is this: does anyone know how I can texture the second brush so that it will pulsate in an oscillating rhythm with the first brush? My guess is that I would have to add kind of an offset to the vmt file but I'm clueless how (if it's possible at all).

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Hey mate! As I told you yesterday on steam it's possible to do; however, NOT using exactly the same texture, but a version of it with different values. This is really simple and straight forward to do

There IS an entity capable to change some parameters inside some material files (VMT) in game; unfortunately, not the case of the SolidEnergy* shader based-textures. I already tested myself some time ago and I can confirm it doesn't work, every time you fire the output you get a white (lack of) texture. This entity is the material_modify_control*. Anyways, this entity will change the specific texture you are using located into the specific path you set, therefore all brushes textured the same would behave exactly the same!

You can test it by yourself, let me briefly tell you how to from off the top of my head (if when I arrive home I notice any mistake I'll correct this post and warn you on steam):

1. Place this entity wherever in your map.
2. Set your fizzler's name as the parent* entity on the material_modify_control* entity properties.
3. You'll need to edit your fizzler texture and add a new proxy called MaterialModify (or alternatively "MaterialModifyAnimated") altogether with the FizzlerVortex proxy already present in your texture, like so:

Proxies
{
    FizzlerVortex
    {
    }
    MaterialModify
    {
    }
}

1. Set the path to your fizzler material file into the "Material to Modify" property. And choose a parameter to modify in the "Material variable to modify" property (like the $flow_lerpexp).
2. And finally fire some output:

- OnMapSpawn > [material_modify_control_name_here] > SetMaterialVar > [whatever value]

Just create another texture changing some values

Big thanks for that info, jose! I think that entity that I never heard of can be used very effectively.

Yet I have some remarks:

1. I am able to modify vmt parameters of a SolidEnergy material with the material_modify_control. No white textures, so Yay!

2. It still can't achieve what I want for the following reason: the original vmt has a 'time interval' of 5 seconds. So I thought I just use an alternate vmt with the same settings for the second brush but with 'time interval' set to 2.5 seconds which I later change to 5 seconds so that the pulse of the texture on the second brush is off by 2.5 seconds in relation to the 5 seconds pulse on the first brush. However, regardless of when I modify the 'time interval' it always "hops" to the same interval as the first brush. I assume that the pulse intervals are effectively calculated on the basis of the map spawn time or something like that...

innocentive wrote:
I am able to modify vmt parameters of a SolidEnergy material with the material_modify_control. No white textures, so Yay!

Hehe, I'm so glad to hear it, maybe I chose the wrong parameter to change via this material_modify_control entity (the colour of the fizzler) :p

innocentive wrote:
2. It still can't achieve what I want for the following reason: the original vmt has a 'time interval' of 5 seconds. So I thought I just use an alternate vmt with the same settings for the second brush but with 'time interval' set to 2.5 seconds which I later change to 5 seconds so that the pulse of the texture on the second brush is off by 2.5 seconds in relation to the 5 seconds pulse on the first brush. However, regardless of when I modify the 'time interval' it always "hops" to the same interval as the first brush

Making 2 different material textures should do, you shoulnd't need the material_modify_control entity, don't you think? You have 2 textures doing a different fizzler effect with different movement and stuff, wasn't this what you wanted to achieve?

josepezdj wrote:
innocentive wrote:

1. It still can't achieve what I want for the following reason: the original vmt has a 'time interval' of 5 seconds. So I thought I just use an alternate vmt with the same settings for the second brush but with 'time interval' set to 2.5 seconds which I later change to 5 seconds so that the pulse of the texture on the second brush is off by 2.5 seconds in relation to the 5 seconds pulse on the first brush. However, regardless of when I modify the 'time interval' it always "hops" to the same interval as the first brush

Making 2 different material textures should do, you shoulnd't need the material_modify_control entity, don't you think? You have 2 textures doing a different fizzler effect with different movement and stuff, wasn't this what you wanted to achieve?

Not exactly. What I want is two brushes with the same SolidEnergy effect that has an interval of 5 seconds, and only one of those brushes is supposed to display the SolidEnergy effect 2.5 seconds later than the other. Since it appears that the interval is calculated from a fixed time I don't know how to achieve this. I did experiment with the other flowmap parameters but I can't get it to work with those ... that's why I assumed that it would take something like a time offset for the display of the SolidEnergy effect. Take a look at the example map when you get home and tell me if you can think of another way to accomplish what I would like to achieve. And thanks again for your highly appreciated help

Look into the MaterialModify proxy. This basically lets you set a variable in the texture from entity I/O in the map.