The position of the celestial bodies is dependent from season and clime. Right now the 2D skybox uses one texture with some overlays applied and a procedurally generated static mesh for stars.
All weather effects, daytime, clime and season are synced between client and server. Weather is randomly applied based on the current climate and the time of day can be read from the hosts computer.
Additional information:
The shadowmapping code is written from scratch and not based on Valves technique in any way. In my current build two shadowmaps at 3072² and 1024² are drawn to allow a shadow with a range of 10k units (the video just shows the former one though), all factors are variable and can be changed to the users liking.
During a second pass of the main view various information (worldspace normals, screenspace normals, depth, sky mask, sharpen mask) are drawn via MRTs to different textures at once to allow post processing effects like SSAO, DOF, edge detection and godrays. All screenspace effects can be individually toggled as well.
The weather effects include particle effects, fog, color correction and sounds, every weather routine can be assigned a weight to allow more variety. Particle effects are partially drawn in worldspace and a seperate view similar to how 3d skyboxes work.
Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:
Engine (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2, HL2:DM)
Added sv_alltalk to the list of convars that are checked for the sv_tags list.
Fixed a model instance crash.
Removed engine ConVar "r_ForceRestore"
Other Games
Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
Updated to run on the Orange Box engine with CS:S, DoD:S, and TF2
Updates to Counter-Strike: Source, Team Fortress 2 and Day of Defeat: Source have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:
Source Engine Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2)
Fixed a crash on startup with some video drivers
Fixed a bug where the speaker config would be lost on Windows Vista / 7
Fixed a case where alt-tab would stop rendering models
Made the ‘X’ that closes the achievements screen visible by default in 1280x720 resolution
Made disconnect messages wrap so they don’t get truncated
Updates to Counter-Strike: Source, Team Fortress 2 and Day of Defeat: Source have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:
Source Engine Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2)
The mat_hdr_level, r_rootlod, and r_waterforceexpensive settings are now saved in the user’s config file.
Fixed clients being able to connect to servers with spoofed SteamIDs.
Fixed a bug where some video configurations could get reset by restarting the engine.
Fixed materials compiled into a map not being loaded correctly if they're in the root materials folder.
Fixed a case of uneven performance on multicore machines.
Fixed point contents not respecting detail brushes. This fixes a bullet penetration bug in some community maps.
Fixed clients being able to spam servers using the ai_set_move_height_epsilon, mission_show, and sv_querycache_stats commands.
Audio fixes:
Reduced overlap in the sound timing code.
Fixed a case where audio could skip.
Fixed voice communication getting corrupted while playing on a Mac.
sv_pure 2 now protects the game_sounds files in the scripts directory.
Updates to Counter-Strike: Source, Team Fortress 2 and Day of Defeat: Source have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:
Engine
Tuned thread initialization to improve performance on CPUs with more than four cores
Updates to Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source and Day of Defeat: Source have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:
Engine
Increased the resilience of client/server data table mismatches when playing back demos. This will make most old demo files playable again, but with potential visual side effects
Updates to Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source and Day of Defeat: Source have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:
Engine
Fixed client crash related flashlight usage.
Fixed several issues related to alt-tabbing (invisible players, etc).
Updates to Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat: Source and Counter-Strike: Source Beta have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:
Engine
Made several changes that improve stability for clients running low on addressable memory.
Changed all HTML controls to use Webkit for the rendering engine.
Updates to Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat: Source and Counter-Strike: Source Beta have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:
GameUI
Fixed the desktop resolution not appearing in the list of valid resolutions when using windowed-mode.
Server Browser
Fixed a crash caused by leaving the server browser open while playing.
Engine
Added client/server version check on client connect.
Fixed a crash caused by hitting ctrl-alt-del while playing.
Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:
Engine
Fixed servers being inappropriately delisted from the master server
Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:
Engine
Enabled Steam Cloud support for key bindings and custom spraypaint images
Added Options->Multiplayer->Advanced option to toggle off/on: default is on
I know somebody has already done this but they were being all bitchy about not telling how they did it. I, however, will happily tell you how it works. The whole this is an info_particle system, stored in the little orange box (hah, pun). The info_particle_system is set to trace all around it with a trace collision property.
Here's a download link if you want to play around with it. If you do it in GMod you don't need the particle_manifest.txt file.
Updates to Team Fortress 2 and Day of Defeat: Source have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:
Orange Box Engine
Fixed an exploit that allowed files to be uploaded to the server at arbitrary locations in the file system
Fixed a server crash caused by a client packet claiming to be an HLTV client when HLTV is disabled on the server
Fixed a server crash caused by spoofing a client disconnect message
Fixed a server crash caused by sending malformed reliable subchannel data
Fixed a server crash related to unbounded settings on some convars
Community requests
Removed centerprint texts for TF_FLAGTYPE_INVADE CTF game mode
Changed TF_FLAGTYPE_INVADE CTF game mode capture reward from 10 kills to 1 capture
Added OnCapTeam1 and OnCapTeam2 outputs to the item_teamflag and func_capturezone entities
Fixed HUD "carried" image for the TF_FLAGTYPE_ATTACK_DEFEND and TF_FLAGTYPE_INVADE CTF game modes using the wrong team color
Fixed dropped flag for the TF_FLAGTYPE_INVADE CTF game mode using the wrong skin
Updates to Team Fortress 2 and Day of Defeat: Source have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:
Updates to the Orange Box Engine have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:
Orange Box Engine
Updated the engine to report SteamIDs using the Steam_0 format instead of Steam_1
Fixed problems in Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal, and Source mods running the current Orange Box engine
A new Source SDK Beta has been released. To access the Beta, go to File -> Settings, and on the Account tab will be a drop down. Select Source SDK Beta, and then allow Steam to restart itself. The specific changes for this Beta include:
Enhancements
Particle Editor, Material Editor, and Commentary Editor are now included in the Source SDK
Updated SDK source code for Orange Box mods
Added example particle system files to SDK content
Bug Fixes
Updated Linux binaries and makefiles for dedicated servers and server plugins
The Faceposer phoneme editor now pops up a warning message when a phoneme cannot be saved
Known Issues
SDK shaders have not yet been updated for Orange Box games
New editors can be accessed by adding '-tools' to the launch options for Orange Box games or mods utilizing the Orange Box engine
