I'm trying to use the cubic environemt mapping shader in Ventilator's wiki, and there are a couple of things I don't understand.

It uses cube+6.tga, and I see there is another script that generates 6 bitamps to be stung together to create the cube+6.tga. I ran the script in an empty level, and I got 6 bitmaps that look exactly like this:



Now, there must be something wrong with that. Am I supposed to run this script inside the level that I use the shader?

Also, it says that the model should have a texture with an alpha channel for how reflective to make it. I did this. Is this a separate texture to the cube+6 texture, or am I supposed to somehow map the cube+6 texture onto the model?

the cube map generation script simply creates 6 screenshots. the screenshots shouldn't look that way! what graphics card do you use?

the environment mapping material uses one base texture and the cube map. the base texture could be rust for example and in it's alpha channel you can specify where the rusty areas are. i think if you don't need a base texture you could use one of the environment mapping effects jcl provided in the effects.wdl.

you should run it in the same level and at the same place where you use the entity.
if you want to move the entity thu the whole level, and you have an indoor level, then you should find a representative place where you can snapshot the environment.

on your metal question: i once made some nice metal materials just by using material-specular , amissive, ambient and diffuse values. thus you be very compatible.

another way would be to set a view onto the entitys coordinates and use that with a shader. this is very realistic, but also very performance dropping. i tried that, but it caused the nvidias to crash thus i didnt post it

Thank you both for explaining that to me. The card I am using is one of those notorious Invidia's (FX 5700). Still, any shader has to compatible with them since they are so common (unless you have an ATI card and are only making stuff for yourself and other ATI users).

I haven't finished the level yet, so perhaps it is too early to take screen shots anyway. Ello's solution of playing with specular effects might be best, since the balls are pretty small anyway.

Thanks again for the explanation and advice.