Hammer Tutorial 3 REVISITED: How To Fix Cubemap Reflections (Updated Guide)

Mild epileptic warning for 5:06 to 5:12! In this tutorial, I will demonstrate how you can fix cubemap reflections in your maps WITHOUT needing to use external applications like Pakrat. Thanks to Jonny5125 on Reddit for sharing this method, if you want to check the thread out and find further information which you may find helpful, please go here:
/ handling_cubemaps_in_2...
Hopefully you found this tutorial helpful, and leave your comments below with feedback/suggestions/questions. If you don't want to watch the video, here's what to do:
- Make a Hammer map with env_cubemap entities in it
- When you compile the map, make sure you are in Expert compile mode
- When you have selected the configuration i.e. Fast, HDR Full Compile, click 'New' and 'Move Up' twice. Check the little checkbox to the left of the newly added empty field to allow this to run.
- Under 'Command', type in bspzip.exe and under 'Parameters', add -deletecubemaps $path\$file.bsp then run the compiler.
- Open the map in the respective game (preferably in HDR mode) and type mat_specular 0 and mat_hdr_level 0.
- buildcubemaps
- mat_hdr_level 2
- buildcubemaps
- mat_specular 1
- mat_reloadallmaterials
- restart to reload the map, and impulse 81 to obtain cubemap weapon, which checks to see if reflections work!
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[@TheMaster974]

Mild epileptic warning for 5:06 to 5:12! Anyway, thanks to Jonny5125 on Reddit for sharing this method, you can check out the thread here for more information: www.reddit.com/r/SourceEngine/comments/7zvt28/handling_cubemaps_in_2013_sdk/
Hope you find this helpful!

[@xxdannyxanny420]

for anyone using mapbase, this process is simplified a bit, you don't need to disable mat_specular, just load a map and build cubemaps for hdr and ldr, you can also automate this by using the -autocubemap parameter on the game when compiling, you still need to use bspzip tho

[@mpy6273]

Thank you this helped a lot!

[@TheMaster974]

Glad it helped!

[@origin3284]

Massive thanks, i tried so many cubemap tutorials before this one that did not work, leaving a black texture on all of my reflective surfaces. This one finally fixed it, i cant thank you enough. My only question is how to retain these reflective textures without redoing the whole process every time I load a map?

[@TheMaster974]

Thanks for the comment, I'm happy you found the video helpful! Unfortunately, I don't think there is a way to keep cubemap reflection textures upon recompiling your map as vbsp.exe overwrites those textures during the compilation process, with no way to stop it from doing that (as far as I know).

[@ItsStapsGDM]

Big thanks!

[@TheMaster974]

No problem!

[@Ex-Syndicate]

Will the cubemaps stay if I upload them as a .gma (Garry's Mod Addon)?

[@zefnoly9147]

(SOLVED. READ COMMENT BELLOW FOR MY FIX) Trying to do this in portal 1. Followed all the steps exactly. But no matter what I do the game refuse to generate cubemaps. Well what I mean is that the non HDR and HDR generation of the cubemaps looks the same with you when performed. But even after restarting the game they are not present and reflctions are black when using impulse 81...
Yes I did the exact command in the compiler as well in hammer. Although I noticed the log says "warning: falling back to auto detection of vproject directory" when it gets to the part so it is failing to delete it...

[@zefnoly9147]

Nevermind! I ran the game through the portal 1 bin and despite hammer having right configs something was not right. To fix it I had to download the source SDK. Launch it once through there (but this caused a different problem again, to solve it read further). And then exit hammer (with right config there) then re-launch it from the bin again like before. Now it is working! Thank you!

[@TheMaster974]

Strange...well, at least you fixed it! The comment I would have left originally would have asked if you compiled the map with HDR lighting, as an indication of a map which has not been built with HDR is the cubemap creation procedure being the same as LDR mode, however it seems the bspzip.exe application didn't run as intended. I may be wrong, but I believe this might have something to do with the Portal Hammer configuration. For example, changing vbsp.exe to use the Mapbase mod's version in the standard Portal configuration will cause an issue and the map won't even compile, so it could be that a new configuration would need to be used for it to work. Whatever the case, you found a solution that worked for you which is great!

[@itstommymate]

Still doesn't work for me

[@Billy_Yee]

Does this also apply for the people who play your map?

[@TheMaster974]

Yes because the cubemap reflection images gets saved in the .bsp file when cubemaps are built, so other players will see the reflections if they have a copy of the map!

[@Billy_Yee]

@@TheMaster974 cool, thanks