Environmental Lighting, Sun, Weather, & Outdoors
Topics directly relevant to making outdoor areas. (For general mapping help, see Category:Level Design.)
Articles
- Skybox (2D) — basic skies
- 3D Skybox — adding items (such as buildings) to the skybox
- Displacements — terrain (such as hills, cliffs, caves, and non-flat grass)
- Precipitation issues — to make sure your rain/snow works right.
Entities
- light_environment - Both Direct and Diffuse light coming from the skybox ("toolsskybox" texture).
- env_sun - places a glow sprite in the skybox to represent the sun itself.
- shadow_control - necessary to control the dynamic shadows cast by light_environment.

- func_precipitation - brush-based entity for rain or snow.
- func_viscluster - for merging visleafs in large, open areas.
- For nature props check the
props_foliage
folder in Hammer Model Browser.
Materials
- Search for
nature
in the Hammer Material Browser. - For smooth transitions between two types of material, such as grass to sand, use alpha blending with
blend
materials.