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Just started this project yesterday, and I have already developed my own little technique for giving HL1 model's a smooth shader feel, but with a price. Basically it's just putting HL chrome to a good use. Keeping your diffuse texture but also adding chrome. I'm not sure if anyone else has thought of it before, but I havn't seen anyone use it in HL, and I think thats reason enough to call it my idea 
.
Here is an example of the technique used on a simple can [one of my old models]:
I wish I could get a video of it in action, because a still image doesn't do the technique any justice, but here is a pic of the can in HL model viewer without the fake shader:
But like I said, it comes with a price. For this to work properly you need to make a duplicate of your model, and for you MS3D users, you have to use the fatboy tool to make the duplicate a bit bigger then the model you duplicated.
The second step is to prepare the chrome texture to be transparent. This is done by simply editing the chrome texture's color table. First the texture must be indexed to 256 colors. Then you open up the color table [image\mode\color table for photoshop], and you select a color to be transparent, I don't think it really matters much to be honest, but you might aswell go ahead and select the darkest and most used color on the texture, so the brighter colors shine through.
Then the rest of the work is in the .QC file. You open it up and put this code in after your studio entries:
$texrendermode "whatever_chrome.bmp" "additive"
To compile you will need "studiomdl", which is the only compiler I know of that can compile this type of transparent texture. It's hard to find a download for it so here is a temporary download link:
http://s46.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=04UXKKLNNO8I62WA9WAMA0TSAH
It's not a perfect concept, but it gets the job done ^_^. [makes things shineh!]
I thought of this idea when I was trying to get transparent models into half-life. So big credits to VERC for the help on that. If anyone is interested in seeing the model in action I could post a temporary link just so you can get a better look at what it does.
Hope it helps someone who is trying to make things shiny, if anyone has trouble following it, I will post a more describtive tutorial later, when I have more time.
[edit]
YES! I got a smooth ingame video, this should give you a better idea of what this technique can do ^_^.
http://s50.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=31PSWAH75PZK005CS0KEFRXPDN
[1meg video]
. Here is an example of the technique used on a simple can [one of my old models]:
I wish I could get a video of it in action, because a still image doesn't do the technique any justice, but here is a pic of the can in HL model viewer without the fake shader:
But like I said, it comes with a price. For this to work properly you need to make a duplicate of your model, and for you MS3D users, you have to use the fatboy tool to make the duplicate a bit bigger then the model you duplicated.
The second step is to prepare the chrome texture to be transparent. This is done by simply editing the chrome texture's color table. First the texture must be indexed to 256 colors. Then you open up the color table [image\mode\color table for photoshop], and you select a color to be transparent, I don't think it really matters much to be honest, but you might aswell go ahead and select the darkest and most used color on the texture, so the brighter colors shine through.
Then the rest of the work is in the .QC file. You open it up and put this code in after your studio entries:
$texrendermode "whatever_chrome.bmp" "additive"
To compile you will need "studiomdl", which is the only compiler I know of that can compile this type of transparent texture. It's hard to find a download for it so here is a temporary download link:
http://s46.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=04UXKKLNNO8I62WA9WAMA0TSAH
It's not a perfect concept, but it gets the job done ^_^. [makes things shineh!]
I thought of this idea when I was trying to get transparent models into half-life. So big credits to VERC for the help on that. If anyone is interested in seeing the model in action I could post a temporary link just so you can get a better look at what it does.
Hope it helps someone who is trying to make things shiny, if anyone has trouble following it, I will post a more describtive tutorial later, when I have more time
.[edit]
YES! I got a smooth ingame video, this should give you a better idea of what this technique can do ^_^.
http://s50.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=31PSWAH75PZK005CS0KEFRXPDN
[1meg video]
