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From HalfLife 2 Knowledge Base

by RomeoJGuy

Water is one of the beauties of the Source Engine. Still this imposes quite a number of requirements on the mapper to use it.

How to create Source Engine Water

Step 1: You need to create your map and area you want your water. There can be no leaks or the water will not be compiled properly. This means your displacement brushes must not be at the edges of your map. Fix this by putting normal brushes behind all your displacement brushes at the edges.

Step 2: Select the texture toolsnodraw and create your water brush. You should have a big brush with nodraw on it.

Step 3: Go back and in the texture browser type in liquids in the search. This will bring up all the waters in css even the ugly directX 7 ones. Pick which water you would like to use and apply it to the top only of your water brush

Step 4: Now compile your map with VIS set to normal or fast and let it compile. After it finishes check the compile log during the vBSP phase to be sure your map contained no leaks. If it did then VIS won't and did not compile. You need to fix all the leaks and when you have no leaks compile and run your map and you should have beautiful refractive Source engine water.

*TIP* : To fix leaks best you need to load the Pointfile. It will give you the first leak found. To load the pointfile- After compiling your level, select from the Menu Map->Load Pointfile. Your map should have a red line in it after loading the pointfile. This line goes from the Entity that detected a leak, through the gap in your map, and into the "abbyss" that exists outside your map. You will need to comile again and see if you have more leaks. If you do you have to repeat the pointfile process till you have no more leaks.