How to give Textures a nice Glow

Originally written by gleeful on http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/2377

Write a material for the glowing Texture

textures/darkmod/gleeful/ctywindow02_lit
{
  noSelfShadow
  noshadows
  forceoverlays

  {
     map textures/darkmod/gleeful/ctywindow02_lit // this is the regular diffusemap
  }

  {
     blend add
     map textures/darkmod/gleeful/lit // this is the .tga to blend it with - an orange to
                                      // white gradient in my case

     red 0.3 // with the rgb values you can regulate the intensity
     green 0.3
     blue 0.3
  }
}

Make a Patch Mesh

Then make a simple patch mesh in the editor (slightly bigger than the window), put the "flaresizeable" texture on it (which you can find in the sfx folder) and make it a func_static.

Place the Patch Mesh

Place the mesh one 0.125 unit before the window to avoid z-fighting.

Set the Flare Color

Now press "k", choose a color for the flare and diminish it's brightness until it is translucent. you can also use the key/value pair "shaderparm4/negative or positive value" to increase/decrease the size/intensity of the flare-effect.

The Result

An example can be seen here: