ok I have a sprite in the center of the companion cube, the sprite will not always play but when it does I want it to completely obscure view of the cube, problem is as you can see, that since its in the center it only hides the back half. If I move it closer it would only work from the current view, not when you walk around to the other side. It would also be nice if the sprite would render over other geometry like the ground.

Nothing you can do I'm afraid, unless there is some sort of weird Render Mode that I'm not aware of. That's just the way the sprites work.

Change the render mode to additive or something,experiment with render modes.

*  rendermode

<choices> Used to set a non-standard rendering mode on this entity. See also 'FX Amount' and 'FX Color'.

Literal Value   Render Mode     Description (Click for more info.)
0   Normal  Default rendering.
1   Color   Obsolete.
2   Texture     Plain opacity.
3   Glow    No Z buffer checks. Fixed size on screen.
4   Solid / Alphatest   Obsolete. (Use alphatest capabilities in materials instead.)
5   Additive    Obsolete. Add this entity's color to what's behind it.
7   Additive Fractional Frame   Obsolete? Blend between animation frames.
8   Alpha Add (Not in FGD.)     Add alpha.
9   World Space Glow    No Z buffer checks. Fixed size in world (as opposed to on screen).
10  Dont Render / None  Don't render.

yeah ive tried all those, Color is what the pic above shows, World Space Glow looks really good, but isn't opaque enough to not see the cube through...

theres the transition I made... I'm willing to go other directions I just gotta find something that will work

Artesia wrote:

theres the transition I made... I'm willing to go other directions I just gotta find something that will work

Lol that's awesome, but yup there all right im afraid, no sprites will cast like that sadly, sorry.

well heres the variant I made

basically I just need some kind of effect, that hides the cube for 2 seconds while the cube changes textures. it has to be able to parent to the cube, smoke looked really cool but can't parent for some reason... fire and explosions wont work either, as you can see from above im working with colors...

any suggestions?

Might have to apply it to a sphere model? one that encompasses the whole cube?

That could work.

Could you draw it directly to the hud? like the "your kidney" or "your lungs" signs when you die in TF2

Maybe make the actual cube go translucent or transparant while the transition sprite is being played?

applying it to a sphere would allow you to see it from the side, and it wouldn't block the cube from all angles...

putting it on the hud I have no idea about...

what ill toy with later is using a world space glow, which only has the problem of being transparent, and making 2+ copies to make it more solid...