TRANSLUSCENT WATER F.A.Q.     -by Bob Averill

The one most overlooked effect in the build engine is the ability to make 
see-through water. To my knowledge I'm the only person to figure out how to 
do it.  The following FAQ will teach you how to pull off this complex trick 
in your own maps. It is an extremely complicated effect, but simple to make 
once you know how, so be patient and read this entire F.A.Q. and do the 
described exercises so you understand how everything works.  A sample map, 
(Water.MAP) is also attatched.

Translucent water works moslty like regular water, and uses the same sector 
effector and sector tags, it's really a bug in BUILD that makes it possible.

Start out by imagining a room in build with a parallaxed sky. Build it if 
you like. now, imagine a sector within that sector, which also has a 
parallaxed cieling. Now try and think what would happen if that sector was 
lowered down to the floor. would it block your view? No! In build, a 
parallaxed sky sector, if surrounded by a larger parallaxed sky sector, is 
invisible! it's still there, but you can't see it.  This is the bug that the 
effect works on.

In this Tutorial, you will be making a medium sized square room, with a sky 
cieling, and a pit in the floor. switch to the largest grid size, and make 
your room 4 grid squares by 4 gridsquares. Now, while still on the largest 
grid size, make a child sector inside that is 2 gridsquares by 2 
gridsquares.  Now here's the confusing part. Switch to the SMALLEST grid 
setting, and MOVE EACH VERTICE (corner) OF THE SQUARE CHILD SECTOR OUTWARD, 
DIAGONALLY.

After this is accomplished, you should have a large square room
with a square child sector inside it. Switch to the biggest grid setting 
again, and you'll notice that the child sector ALMOST fits on the gridlines, 
but not quite. This is as it should be. NOW, you must make another child 
sector WITHIN the first child sector, make this one 2 gridsquares by 2
gridsquares. DO *NOT* STRETCH THE CORNERS OUT LIKE THE FIRST ONE! now you 
have the room, a square child sector, and a SLIGHTLY smaller sector within 
that sector.

Now, go into 3d mode, and parallax the cielings of ALL of the sectors with a 
sky texture, the yellow one is a good one.  texture the walls
and floor and align them, and DO NOT CHANGE THEM. I will explain why later 
on.   this is where it gets wierd;  You must parallax the TWO CHILD SECTORS, 
but NOT the room's floor. In other words, only parallax the floors of the 
two innermost squares.

You're almost done with your above water sector. That's right, there will be 
two of these, and they have to look IDENTICAL, so DON'T SCREW WITH THE 
TEXTURES. Now, if you'll go into 3d mode, and carefully put the cursor on 
the OUTER, THIN SQUARE SECTOR that borders the middle most one. Left-click, 
and HOLD IT. Now, while holding left-click, push page down as many times as 
you have the patience for. The goal is to make it so that you cannot see the 
"floor" of the sector, since there is no floor, only sky. Now notice the 
cool part; you can walk right over  what looks like a pit--Without falling 
in! That's because only the outer sector was lowered, and it's to thin to 
fall into, but since both are parallaxed, the sector you are walking on is 
invisible! This is the key to the effect. Now, in 3d mode, put the cursor 
where the "invisible" sector's FLOOR should be, and press "PageDown" key 
twice. This will be explained later. Now, in 3D mode, place the cursor on 
the rim of the wall of the square "pit" you've created, and hit "V".  Now, 
select a believable texture, like stone or something, and make all four 
walls of the pit this same texture, align the textures, but ONLY the pit 
walls' textures, and LEAVE THEM THAT WAY.  Now, save the map.

Now that you've got an invisible floor sector, here's what you do: Go into 
2D mode, and set the grid size to the BIGGEST grid size,
then hit "G" twice. once this is done, place sprites at intervals on
gridpoints, so as to cover the innermost sector entirely, like making a 
sprite floor, but on the ground. Now, while still in 2D mode, give the 
innermost sector a lotag of 1.  Then go into 3D mode, and put the cursor on 
one of the sprites, and hit "V". Now find the "Water" texture, and select it 
and hit enter. Now, flatten the sprite by pointing the cursor at the sprite 
and, while holding left-click, hit   "R"   twice, and ONLY twice.  the 
sprite should now be flat against the floor. MAKE SURE IT IS NOT A "BLOCKED" 
SPRITE. IT SHOULD APPEAR LIGHT BLUE IN 3D MODE, NOT PURPLE. Make all the 
other sprites like this one; water-textured, not blocked, and flat against 
the floor. Now, you have what looks like a regular old pool of water in 
BUILD.  Now, point the cursor at one of the flattened sprites, and hit "T" 
once. it becomes translucent. Hitting it again makes it VERY translucent, 
almost invisible. I recommend this translucency setting.

Make all the other sprites exactly as translucent as this one.
the easiest way to do this is to point at the sprite, (The translucent one)
and hit "TAB". now, point at a no-translucent water sprite, and hit "ENTER".
it is now translucent. Repeat the process until all the sprites are
translucent.  Go into 3d mode, and save the map, because you now have the 
beginnings of a translucent water pool.


All you can do right now is jump in the water and wade around, you cannot 
SUBMERGE yet, that comes next. (It's still pretty though, isn't it? )

Now, go into 3d mode, and place a sprite on the ground around the water. it 
will be a water sprite. Change it to a sector effector, and make sure it is 
no longer translucent. Point at it, and hit "TAB". Now you can delete it, 
and go into 2D mode. put a sprite somewhere in
the innermost sector, in the corner, somewhere simple, preferrably, and 
notice that the sprite is automatically a Sector Effector. Make sure it is 
not blocked.

Go into 2D mode, and give the Sector Effector a lotag of 7 and a unique 
Hitag.  Now, save your map again.

This is the hardest part: In 2D mode, zoom out enough that the room is
relatively small, and put your mouse at the upper left hand corner of the 
screen, and hit and HLOD the "ALT" key, and drag the mouse to the lower 
right hand corner of the screen , and let go of the "ALT" key.

The entire room should now be flickering, and green on the inside.
Now, carefully put the cursor inside the room somewhere, and press and HOLD 
DOWN the left mouse button. While holding the left click down, push the 
"INSERT" key ONCE, and, while STILL HOLDING THE LEFT MOUSE BUTTON, carefully 
move the cursor to a new spot, and a copy of the room will follow, make sure 
it's completely free of the original room, and put it to the left a good 
distance from the original, then let go of the left mouse key, and press the 
"ALT" key once. This will eventually be your underwater sector.  Now, in 2D 
mode, go to the new room, and give the innermost sector a NEW sector tag of 
"2", because it is now an under water sector.  Go into 3d mode, and Place 
the cursor on one of the water sprites. Pres PageUpabout 3 or 4 times, and 
now place the cursor on the bare spot where the water tile just was. Hit the 
"P" key, and the "invisible" sector now becomes visible. Now, put the cursor 
on the "bare spot" again, and, while holding the left mouse key, also press 
the "PageDown" key 3 or 4 times. Notice that the sprites all move with it. 
move the sprites one by one back to a height of 2 clicks below the level of 
the ground around the water. once they're all in place, and at the same 
level as each other, go below them, (IF you are above them already,) to 
where you are very close to the floor of the innermost square sector, andput 
the cursor on the floor, and lower the floor by holding down the left mouse 
key, and the "PageDown" key. Be sure to follow it as it moves down. Remember 
that original thin square sector that you moved really far down a while 
ago?keep on lowering the floor till it's at the same level as the thin 
sector. You'll find that the thin sector still has a parallaxed sky teture. 
change this, AND the texture of the innermost sector to the same texture, 
UN-parallaxed, of course, preferrably something like stone or metal. Be DAMN 
SURE not to accidentally change the textures of the pits' walls or anything 
else, and save the map again.

NOW, while still in 3d mode, go back up to the top of the "pit" you've
created, and--Here's another wierd part--Place the cursor on the CIELING of 
the innermost sector ONLY, UN-parallax it, (Temporarily), and LOWER it DOWN 
to a height of 2 clicks BELOW the surrounding grounds' level. As you do 
this, the water sprites will probably start to move with the ceiling, 
butdon't worry about that. Once the cieling is in place, Raise ALL BUT ONE 
water sprite to the exact same height as the cieling, so they are all flat 
against the cieling, and then put the cursor on the bare spot where you have 
not yet raised a water sprite into position, and hit the "P" key. Now that 
the cieling is parallaxed and invisible again, raise the last water sprite 
to the SAME HEIGHT AS THE OTHERS.

Now, in 2D mode, move the player to the original room, (the one on the
right) put him on the surrounding ground, and hit "ScrollLock"
only ONCE.     Save the map, because.....
                                          YOU'RE FINALLY DONE!!
                                           Try it out, and if you
                                          like the effect, E-mail me
                                          at Bobaverill@