Room Effect

When you create a room effect, the type is set to "None". RED has 3 usable types available for Room Effects, and each has a unique purpose.

Sky Room

Sky boxes are a way of creating the illusion of a sky in your level. What it does is replace any faces that should be a sky with a view from inside the center of a "sky" room with cloud textures and such- usually shaped like a box in it’s simplest form. This view never moves (though it does rotate 360 degrees in any direction) in this sky box and there for gives the illusion of a sky being there because the rest of the level moves like it should when you walk/look around, but because the sky does not appear to move, it looks like it is very far away.

A Sky box can become very complicated with many textures, layers of clouds, light sources, moon/sun objects, and other sky type things. The shape of the actual room that represents the sky may also be complicated to get different effect. The best way to make nice sky boxes is to just fool around with them and discover what works for you.

The rules of a sky box:

• The sky box needs to be it’s own separate room. It can be made up of many brushes though.

• You must set the properties of any face in your level you wish to show the sky (use the "Show Sky" flag).

• Missiles and other such objects will not collide with faces marked as sky, they will continue on looking like they are flying up into the sky.

• Any lights placed in the sky box will NOT light up the level in anyway. You will need to put similar lights in the actual level where the sky is showing.

• If you don't wish to use lights in your sky box you can mark the faces in the actually sky box as fullbright.

• Keep in mind that all the faces, textures, lightmaps, and objects in a sky box will have to be rendered where ever you show the sky in the level.

Basic Skyboxes Tutorial

Liquid Room

Creating liquid (like water or lava) is done using the "Room Effect" object and setting the "Effect Type" pulldown to "Liquid Room". You in essence "Fill" a room with liquid to a certain height. The Room Effect object has several properties used for liquid. They are:

Surface Bitmap: This is where you can select the texture you wish to use for the surface of the liquid.

Liquid Type: Sets the type of liquid you want to have. Lava and acid will cause the player various types of damage for instance. It also sets the type of sounds that should be associated with that liquid type.

Waveform: This sets the type of motion (if any) you want the liquid to have.

Depth: This will say how deep the liquid is. It starts from the lowest point in the room and is measured in meters.

Liquid Color: This lets you specify the color of the liquid under the surface. It in effect changes the color of the volume fog.

Visibility: This value says how far you can see under water by changing the density of the volume fog. The value is in meters.

Basic Liquids Tutorial