I'm fairly new to Hammer,but yet decided to go above and try making a custom water texture in VTFedit.
I made the texture in VTFedit, and the vmt in Notepad++ (Using a template. The "Custom_water" is the main texture and a placeholder for everything else)I placed the VTF's and VMT's in Portal/Materials.

My problem is that the water does not render correctly. In the Hammer Editor, the water appears solid white on the surface, but rendered correctly on the bottom (and animates? :s) In game, the water is rendered with pink and black textures like this.

Here's the code I used:

"Water"
{
   "$abovewater" 1
   "%compilewater" 1
   "$forceexpensive" 1
   "$reflectentities" 0
   "$envmap" "env_cubemap"
   "%tooltexture" "/custom_water"
   "$refracttexture" "/custom_water"
   "$refractamount" "0"


   "$reflecttexture" "/custom_water"
   "$reflectamount" "2"

   "$bumpmap" "/_normal_water_map"
   "$normalmap" "/_normal_water_map"

   "$surfaceprop" "water"
   "$bottommaterial" "/custom_water"
   "$bumpframe" "0"

   "$fogenable" 1
   "$fogcolor" "[63 214 225]"
   "srgb?$fogcolor" "{63 214 225}"
   "$fogstart" -1024
   "$fogend" 0

   "$scroll1" "[.01 .01 .05]"
   "$scroll2" "[-.025 .025 .075]"

   "Proxies"
   {
      "TextureScroll"
      {
         "texturescrollvar" "$bumptransform"
         "texturescrollrate" .01

         "texturescrollangle" 25.00
      }
      "WaterLOD"
      {
      }
         
   }

}

There were no compile errors when running the map. Could anyone help?

Try looking up a tutorial on the VDC or Interlopers on how to make reflective textures. Also, you have cubemaps in the map and they've been built, right?

Dontbyvista wrote:
I can't find anywhere how to make a reflective or a refract texture.

Use the default ones, custom ones do not work well, or at all.

To find these, look in source materials.GCF,nature folder, find a water VMT and copy/paste the relfect/refract parameters.

Groxkiller585 wrote:
Dontbyvista wrote:

I can't find anywhere how to make a reflective or a refract texture.

Use the default ones, custom ones do not work well, or at all.

To find these, look in source materials.GCF,nature folder, find a water VMT and copy/paste the relfect/refract parameters.

Beg to differ with you there, I've made a few custom refraction textures and they actually don't look all that bad. It depends on how good you can make the normalmap.

WinstonSmith wrote:
Groxkiller585 wrote:

Dontbyvista wrote:

I can't find anywhere how to make a reflective or a refract texture.

Use the default ones, custom ones do not work well, or at all.

To find these, look in source materials.GCF,nature folder, find a water VMT and copy/paste the relfect/refract parameters.

Beg to differ with you there, I've made a few custom refraction textures and they actually don't look all that bad. It depends on how good you can make the normalmap.

Wait, you mean it uses regular normals? I thought they needed something...more...

Either way, making animated normals isn't simple, I can never get it to go slow; it is either choppy is I slow it and too fast if it is normal speed.

Oh well, thanks for the info!

Groxkiller585 wrote:
Wait, you mean it uses regular normals? I thought they needed something...more...

Either way, making animated normals isn't simple, I can never get it to go slow; it is either choppy is I slow it and too fast if it is normal speed.

Oh well, thanks for the info!

Well, I just actually meant refractive textures, not water. I haven't tried making a water texture quite yet.