Adding an atmosphere

An atmosphere is needed to add sky, ambient light and sunlight to the outdoor areas of the map.

Add an atmosphere entity by right-clicking in one of the views and selecting atmosphere -> atmosphere. Place it high above your terrain, making sure it is not inside any geometry, and not outside of the map's whole caulk hull. In the Property Editor (N), give it a key pair of atmospheredeclarea22_01. This is Area22's atmosphere; a bright, clear day.

In order for game components to behave correctly later on, we need to define an outside area in our map:

1. Like the caulk hull, by using 6 brushes, create a small room from textures/common/caulk underneath the terrain.
2. Texture one of the brushes with textures/common/nodraw, and nudge the brush inwards so the outer face is flush with the adjacent four sides.
3. Now texture the outward face with textures/editor/outsideportal. It should look like the image below.

This tells the game which area is outside and which is inside. Inside being the room we just made, and outside being the rest of the map.

See Also

• Common Textures
• Portal Basics