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Refract Shader

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How to make a refracting texture that displaces the world behind it.

This tutorial was written by Smiddy.

1 Requirements
2 Creating the Texture
3 Creating the Bumpmap
4 Creating the du/dv map
5 Tutorial
6 Examples
7 credits

Requirements

Adobe Photoshop CS

nVidia NormalMap plugin for Photoshop (get it here.)

knowledge of how to compile .vtfs / edit .vmts

Creating the Texture

1.Italic text create a new canvas in photoshop, i made mine 512x512 and this is probably the recommended size, but you can make it whatever you like.

2. fill the background with about a 50% gray

3. add noise, make it monochromatic, gaussian and put it at about 20

4. motion blur the noise vertically (filter>blur>motionblur) of about 10

5. gaussian blur it for about 2.5 (filter>blur>gaussian)

6. repeat the above motion blur, same values

7. increase the contrast by about 25 (filter>adjustments>brightness+contrast)

8. tint it a bluey colour by going into image > adjustments > hue + saturation and ticking colorise. move the sliders until you see a blue you think will suit it.

9. your done, and your texture should look something like this:

10. save it as something like ice_texture - you won't need to convert this file to .vtf as it is just a reference file for the bumpmap and dudv map.

Creating the Bumpmap

1. open up your ice_texture, and add a bumpmap as show in the following tutorial.

http://www.hl2world.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=11832

2. save the file as ice_normal

Creating the du/dv map

1. open up ice_texture and go about adding a bumpmap as you normally would, however, when the normalmap dialog comes up, change your selection to the option highlighted in red below.

2. your preview will come up as a black/yellow/red thing. that is correct. 3. press ok to apply it 4. save it as ice_dudv

Tutorial

1. Create a new file in photoshop, the same size you made your texture. fill it with a blueish color

2. Save it as ice, and then compile all three - ice, ice_normal and ice_dudv. You need to compile the ice texture with the Refract Shader though.

3. Put them all in the one folder where you want them to be kept, and create a .vmt file.

make it look like this:

       "Refract"
       {
	"$model" "1"
	"$bluramount" "1.5"
	"$refractamount" ".1"
	"$refracttint" "{100 100 100}"
	"$scale" "[1 1]"
	"$dudvmap" "folder/ice_dudv"
	"$normalmap" "folder/ice_normal"
	"$basetexture" "folder/ice"
	"$envmap" "env_cubemap"
	"$envmaptint" "[.5 .5 .5]"
       }

and save it as ice.vmt in the same folder

4. you're done! hope that wasn't too bad

5. tell me if it doesn't work!