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Featureful SDK provides support for rain, snow and fog weather effects similar to ones used in Counter Strike and Condition Zero.

env_fog

Use env_fog to put a global fog on the map. Set the entity name to make it toggleable by triggers.

There's an option to choose between Linear and Exponential fog (OpenGL terms), but after the Half-Life anniversary update it doesn't work as expected anymore. Linear fog uses start distance and end distance values and it will look for a player like a wall of color starting with a certain distance. Exponential fog relies only on density, which should be a number smaller than 0.01, and it's considered to be more realistic.

• By default in GoldSource the fog is exponential (exponential-squared to be precise).
• On steam_legacy branch the custom fog type will be applied as expected.
• On the current (anniversary) version the fog will always be exponential if the shaders are on. Otherwise the behavior is the same as on steam_legacy.
• To get the linear fog on the current version of GoldSource with shaders on you must copy platform/gl_shaders subdirectory to your mod and edit the fs_world.frag to always use the linear fog. Note that it will force the fog to the certain type disregarding the configured type in the env_fog.

Notes:

• Fog covers the whole map (including the indoor areas). There's currently no alternative to it.
• You can use several env_fog entities on one map, but it's better to make sure that only one is active at time.
• Beams may look weird in the fog (the transparent part won't render correctly). There's no fix for this. Avoid using beams in the foggy areas.

env_rain

Featureful SDK implements rain effect similar to one used in Counter Strike and Condition Zero (e.g. de_aztec map).

Use env_rain to put rain on the map. The raindrops will appear around the player giving the illusion of global rain. To make rain localized in the certain area independent of player position you can use Localized spawnflag. By default raindrops appear only under the sky. To allow them in the indoor areas tick the Allow indoor spawnflag (that will make it look like raindrops appear from the ceiling).

To turn off/on the rain, give env_rain a name and call it by some trigger.

Besides falling raindrops rain includes other particle effects:

• Splashes when raindrops hit the ground.
• Ripples when raindrops hit water.
• Windpuffs - little clouds flying near the ground.

These extra effects can be turned off in spawnflags.

The particle parameters like sprite, color, lifetime and speed can be configured in env_rain options. If you don't provide any value the default ones will be used. Default sprites used for particles (and must be presented in the mod resources) are:

• sprites/effects/rain.spr - for raindrops
• sprites/effects/ripple.spr - for ripples
• sprites/gas_puff_01.spr - for windpuffs
• sprites/wsplash3.spr - for splashes (doesn't need to be distributed in the mod, already present in base Half-Life).

The way how the particles are lit depends on the light mode parameter:

• Light doesn't affect color - surrounding light won't effect the color (this also makes particles visible even in the complete darkness).
• Light color affects color - the resulting particle color will be mixed with color of the surrounding light.
• Light intensity affects color - the resulting particle color will be scaled by the surrounding light intensity (sum of color components).

Raindrops and winpuffs are affected by the global wind. The wind changes its strength and direction randomly. There's currently no way to configure the wind (will be implemented later).

Hints:

• Use different color to create the "acid" rain.
• The Rain Intensity, Rain max distance and Update period parameters affect the resulting number of raindrops. The default numbers are provided in fgd Help description.

env_snow

Featureful SDK implements snow effect similar to one used in Counter Strike and Condition Zero (cs_office_cz).

env_snow is similar to env_rain, but spawns snowflakes instead of raindrops. It doesn't have any extra effects besides snowflakes. Like rain, snow is affected by the global wind.

The snowflake default sprite is sprites/effects/snowflake.spr.

Hints:

• Snow and rain can be used together to create mixtured precipitation effect.
• Use different color to create other kinds of precipitation like dust, falling ashes, etc.
• The Snow Intensity, Snow max distance and Update period parameters affect the resulting number of snowflakes. The default numbers are provided in fgd Help description.

func_rainvolume and func_snowvolume

Alternatively to env_rain and env_snow you can use brush entities func_rainvolume and func_snowvolume. They are always localized within their bounding box. Note that despite the brush entity can have any geometry the resulting area will depend on the bounding box. Create several entities if you want to cover areas of the more complex shape and adjust Intensity parameter accordingly to the size of the brushes - the smaller the area, the smaller intensity should be to avoid high density of the precipitation (unless that's what you want to achieve).