Tutorial for Observation Rooms?
I'm getting to really like Hammer. I wish I had actually picked it up and tried it wayback when it was recommended to me for another project (I elected to do a different project :(... )
Anyway, I'm building a "test chamber" that's more to test out everything I can think of then to be an actual playable (and enjoyable) room.
I've been happily building walls, etc. I placed a few lights, neat. I've got an "observation room" built (it's an empty room with a light in the middle right now, and two brushes for "windows" looking into my chamber), but when I tried to make the glass windows... didn't work. Hrm. Not to mention I don't even have a clue (yet) how they built the "frames" around the observation windows ingame.
Is there a tutorial anywhere about building observation rooms into Portal maps? Something that goes from "add another room off to the side" through "do this to create the window pane" to " add this to create the window frame" to "fill the room with stuff, so it looks interesting through the refracting glass"?
I wanted to use the observation room as my chamber's illumination... I *could* just use regular lamps, I guess...
If you open found in 'testchmb_a_05' in hammer, you can check out how they built the observation rooms in the game, and a few other helpful things.
The map should be located at: 'C:Program FilesSteamSteamAppsyourUserNamesourcesdk_contentportalmapsrc
Yeah, I've been looking at the room #5, and it's been quite a help.
I thought I built the window like in room #5, but while the radiosity light goes through the window just fine, the window brush itself isn't clear.
That's why I was wondering if there was a tutorial that went the other way... instead of reverse engineering.
There really isn't a need to make a tutorial on how to create the window part. Looking at the VMF, the glass parts are a single func_brush, and the window frame is a func_detail. You would create the window frame out of brushes like you would a normal wall, floor, etc. The reason it is a func_detail is 1.) to optimumize the map, and because 2.) func_details cast shadows like normal geometry, hence giving the shadows across the walls and floors.
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But a tutorial on how to do the whole thing would be kickass. Volunteers?
The refract texture must be on all sides of the brush, and the brush itself needs to be a func_brush, not a func_detail.
Author of Minecraft mods (MAtmos, Minaptics, NoteSlider) and Garry's Mod addons (Gunstrumental, SharpeYe, GarryWare, DepthHUD).
actually the thin edges, the ones you dont see, should be nodraw 
Not the frames. Looking at the Portal VMF, only the glass has a nodraw back; the window frame func_detail is fully textured (since nodraw does not cast shadows).
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I should have been more specific, I was talking about the glass...
also any brushes you wont be able to see from outside the observation room, at any angle, can be given a no draw texture. sure you could noclip and see it, and it would look like a leak, but theres no use calculating anything for something you shouldn't be able to see
I decompiled maps a while back to look at the observation rooms, they used nodraw on anything not directly visible, then had a very bright spotlight in the room shining out.
Just a note that I'm working on a Wiki page tutorial of this:
http://wiki.thinkingwithportals.com/wik ... Room_Guide
I'm writing this as I discover the process, and adding to it as I have free time to play with Hammer. If you have an idea for something else I should add, add it to that discussion page, or better, add it here 😀