Cubemaps
Does anyone know how we can make cubemaps at the moment? When I try buildcubemaps in game I get an error that it can't find vtex_dll.dll.
From my understanding I need some cubemaps to make things like the pistons and metal walls look nice and shiny.
yah. Do you compile your maps with HL2:DM?
When you finish making your map, just open it in hl2dm and type into the console: "buildcubemaps" and it'll compile it for you, then shoot it over to Portal.
That's what I've been doing. It just crashes in Portal because... Well, I dont know why, but it does just crash, so try it in HL2DM.
Are you familiar with "env_cubemap" entity?
when I used it, it seemed to work fine on my level.
That's the goofball message that I thought only I got.. "can't find vtex_dll.dll" showed up, so I just shot the whole thing into hl2dm where it could find hl2dm.. I probably initially did something wrong, and rather than fix it, i just worked around it.
Ralph, when you process it in Portal, does it screw up the controls really bad? like if you try to walk around, does it have you all restricted to where like one or two of the directional keys work and the mouse goes dead? That's what mine did when it got that error.. Almost scared me out of even working with the editor until the sdk got brought up, but i just kept fighting along.
Yes - the controls got screwed up.
I tried it in HL2, that didn't work because it didn't have the textures, so I finally did it in the portal 'mod' I created when setting up the SDK, this worked fine. Copied the BSP back and enjoyed ma cubemaps in portal.
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You can build the cubemaps in any source game. I use sourceSDK_base, you just have to copy all the materials over from your portal mod to the sourcetest folder (or to whatever game you're using).
Take note that recompiling the map will delete the existing cubemaps, hence you should make building cubemaps the last thing you do before releasing the map.
I've been using HL:Ep1 to build my cubemaps. Portal maps seem to be a lot more forgiving than TF2 maps in terms of not crashing when you load it up in any given source mod.
SDK updated - supposedly buildcubemaps works in orange box games now.
Restart steam to update, and cross your fingers. :0)
Restart steam to update, and cross your fingers. :0)
Why did I have to read this at school. 
Now I want to go home and try it out! If anyone else has any luck with this, post back. I'm interested in finding out, and I'll be back on later today in studyhall.