Looking forward to checking this out when I get home form work. Scanning your code makes me wonder 2 things so far:
1> You mentioned needing a texturealpha command. Wouldn't applying the texture to a brush and using BrushAlpha do essentially what a TextureAlpha command would do or am I missing something (very likely at this point).
2> When you hide your trails, it makes me want to test the speed of zeroing an entity alpha versus hide entity to see if HideEntity might be a performance boost (slight if any I imagine...but I will take any speed where I can).
On a similar note...why are you hiding the trails for the env map? Are the trails not part of the environment? It may create a nice "reflection" of the exhaust if you keep them around (or maybe you tested and it is hideous...lol).
1> You mentioned needing a texturealpha command. Wouldn't applying the texture to a brush and using BrushAlpha do essentially what a TextureAlpha command would do or am I missing something (very likely at this point).
2> When you hide your trails, it makes me want to test the speed of zeroing an entity alpha versus hide entity to see if HideEntity might be a performance boost (slight if any I imagine...but I will take any speed where I can).
On a similar note...why are you hiding the trails for the env map? Are the trails not part of the environment? It may create a nice "reflection" of the exhaust if you keep them around (or maybe you tested and it is hideous...lol).