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I was playing the stock map "duhoc_assault" and I noticed that the water in the trenches looked extremely realistic. It seemed to act like a mirror and reflect what was near it. Knowing that the engine used in COD2 cannot produce mirrors, I was puzzled at how the game makers made this possible. I don't know who came up with this, but this is extremely simple and genius to produce an amazing effect.

Now then, back to the tut. Here's the duhoc water puddles. This is what we'll be replicating in our map. The process is not hard, and anyone can do it. I described the steps in detail and explained some things, that's why the tutorial is long, but I garuntee that it's not hard.




Step 1)
Okay first start up radiant. In your map, create a 384 by 128 brush. Now we need to texture it with a special texture called "duhoc_trench_path". To find this texture, go to the top of radiant and click on textures/surface type/mud. Make sure that the "usage" and "locale" texture options are checked on "all". Now the "duhoc_trench_path" texture will be the 3rd texture from the top.

Step 2)
Okay, now with the brush selected, make it a terrain patch. It doesn't really matter what the width and height are, all that matters is that it must be a terrain or curve patch. You'll see why is just a second, but for now this is what it should look like. To make it look more realistic and beleivable, try to not edit the patch very much in terms of height. Try to keep it as flat as possible (as they did in the duhoc map). You'll see why in a second. In fact, for the tutorial, I didn't edit the height at all, I left the patch flat.


Step3)
Now lets create some stuff around the water to mirror. Here I just created some trench walls and two beams over the trench walls. It's not very fancy, feel free to do whatever you like.


Step4)
Now here's the amazing part. You are going to create the mirrored image. Select your stuff that you want mirrored. Don't select the terrain patch.

Press spacebar to copy and paste it. Now rotate your brushes so that it is a direct mirrored image, pretending that the terrain patch is the mirror (which it will be in the game).


Now deselect everything. With it all done, this is what it should look like. It already sort of looks like a mirror.


Now complie the map. I've never tried compiling the map without lighting and seeing if it works, but it should. For the tutorial, I compiled my map with lighting.

And here's the product:


Not too stunning huh?
It is kind of hazy and not as defined and as clear as the duhoc map. The reason for this is contrast. We are trying to get the brown mud and wood to contrast with the greenish bottom of the skybox. The low contrast does not produce a stunning image. BUT there is something we can do.

Find a texture called "d_duhoc_sky_reflect." It can be found as the first texture when you set the textures to usage/sky. Make a brush under the trench and texture it with this texture. This texture cannot be used as the skybox texture, but it is good for the underbelly of the trench. Just look:



In this picture you can allready see the reflection in radiant.





Just a final word: I don't know how many other textures they made in the game that can do this, but I'm sure this reflect effect is seen in more than just the duhoc map. If you see reflected water or puddles anywhere in the sp missions, most likely they used this technique to do it, and you can be sure to find a reflective mud texture for that map somewhere out of all the textures in the game.

And unfortunately this will not reflect AI, actors, or players, but the effect is convincing and adds some realism to your maps.



Here's the map and it was compiled with lighting. Now with the high amount of contrast created by the duhoc sky brush under the trench, the effect is more beleivable and professional looking. Happy mapping!
-Armormaster