PART 4 -
SURFACES
In this tutorial I will
be covering how to make platforms, and how to make use of the
surface and content properties of a brush to make your
environment more realistic... Now who ever heard of
water that makes a walking on metal noise when you walk on
it... Come to think of it you shouldn't even be able to
walk on water...
And it is with water
that this tutorial will start. You may have tried to
make a brush into water before by using the water texture in
the common textures and found that (a) it is solid and (b) it
makes a noise very much unlike water.
WET
WATER...
To make your water act
like proper water first you will have to make a brush to fit
the space you want full of water. Try to make it obey
the laws of physics by making sure it fills the space :)
Then select the brush/brushes you want turned into water in
the usual way. The first thing to do to make them into
water is to apply one of the water textures which can be found
in the set of common textures. Once you have done this
your brush should look like water. Unfortunately it
still is NOT water. It is solid and probably makes all
the wrong noises when you try to walk on it.
Now to make your brush
into water what you will have to do is press S for surface
properties. In the 'surf flags' section of check boxes
select water. The surface of your brush must be
water. In the 'content flags' set of check boxes select
water. Your brush must be made of water. You can
modify the waters translucency by using the surface
flags.

A USABLE
LADDER...
If you have tried to make a
ladder before and it hasn't worked then you have probably
forgotten to adjust the surface properties of the ladder to
make it a ladder. Ladders are infact extremely easy if
you haven't tried to make one before. All you have to do
is use brushes to make two 'poles' and then use some more
brushes for the rungs joining the 'poles'. Once you have
done this press S for surface properties and under the content
flags select 'ladder'. Easy as that. Of course you could
assign the ladder value to any brush, if for instance you
wanted to make a tree or a rope climbable.
Once you have your ladder you
can also use the surface properties surface flags to modify
what your ladder is made of. This will adjust the
noise that is made when you climb the ladder and any effects
it may have on the player. You can do this to any brush
you make...
SOME MORE
ENTITIES...
Now for the final item in this
multipurpose tutorial I will explain how to make
platforms. By platforms of course I mean the quake style
platforms that rise when you step on them...
In kingpin they are really
quite simple to make. In your map where you want the
platform just make a brush in the shape of the platform you
want at its HIGHEST position. If you make the brush at
the position the platform will be in when it is lowered it
will not work. Don't worry though, although it appears
at its highest point in the editor it will be at its lowest
point in the game.
Now select your brush and press
N. Make the brush into a func_plat entity. Now you
will have to set some values for the entity for it to work
right. First set the key 'speed'. A value of 300
is usually quite good, but you can experiment with faster or
slower speeds. Secondly you will have to set the
'height' value. This is the distance you want the
platform to move. If your platform is 192 units from the
floor for instance you set the height value to 192. If
the platform seems to sink into the floor and get stuck try
reducing the number by decrements of 8, as one square in the
editor fully zoomed in is 8 units by 8 units.
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