there's a way to put nodraw on all surfaces that don't need to be seen, and I don't know it. Someone care to help me out or link me to a thread with the answer?

You just go into the Texture Editor, and select the side you want to nodraw, select the texture, and click apply.

Wait, did I just answer a question?

OHSHIT PARADOX

First of all, keep in mind that any surface of a world brush that is either A.) facing the void, or B.) is completely covered by another world brush, are automatically not rendered. It's not necessary to put nodraw on every face that is facing the void since they are removed anyway.

To answer your question, no. How could there be? How is Hammer supposed to know what is or is not "supposed to be seen"? I might nodraw something that you might not, or vice-versa. There is no easy tool for this - break out that Texture tool and get to work.

Portalboat wrote:
You just go into the Texture Editor, and select the side you want to nodraw, select the texture, and click apply.

Wait, did I just answer a question?

OHSHIT PARADOX

His question wasn't how you apply nodraw to a surface, his question was how to automatically apply it to all faces that are not seen by the player.

Oh.

damnit, I just wanted to be lazy

I shouldn't be saying this, but here goes:

There is no substitute for hard work.

Pretty pointless though...if you want to be lazy just leave them whatever texture they are...not like it matters.

Remmiz wrote:
Pretty pointless though...if you want to be lazy just leave them whatever texture they are...not like it matters.

Boy is that not true! Maybe in Portal where the maps tend to be smaller and there is a lot less rendered at any given point, but nodraw'ing faces that do not need to be rendered is NOT pointless. You can save some serious budget if you are smart about it. Load up some HL2 maps or TF2 maps and see how smart nodrawing can save your life.

msleeper wrote:
Boy is that not true! Maybe in Portal where the maps tend to be smaller and there is a lot less rendered at any given point, but nodraw'ing faces that do not need to be rendered is NOT pointless. You can save some serious budget if you are smart about it. Load up some HL2 maps or TF2 maps and see how smart nodrawing can save your life.

So, nodrawing non-seen faces makes loading faster?

Portalboat wrote:
I shouldn't be saying this

agree *1

but aside from just selecting multiple surfaces there is no way (as sleeper said) and like he said there's really no need, the only reason i started doing it is cuz when i first got into portal mapping all the tutorials and sample map said to do it. so i thought that (for portal) it might be important. once i relized it was like any other bsp based mapping engine, in that "If there is no way to see it i ain't gunna render it", then i stoped doing i. the ONLY reason i would see in doing it is so that you, the mapper, could differenciate from different areas. Like if you are outside and have some parts of the map turned off (using the vis groups) you can tell if you are still "inside" or "outside" [rambling complete]

[edit]> msleeper wrote:

Boy is that not true! Maybe in Portal where the maps tend to be smaller and there is a lot less rendered at any given point, but nodraw'ing faces that do not need to be rendered is NOT pointless. You can save some serious budget if you are smart about it. Load up some HL2 maps or TF2 maps and see how smart nodrawing can save your life.

Wait what? i need to nodraw them? the outsides? what? or just stuff INSIDE the map that isn't rendered?

Portalboat wrote:
So, nodrawing non-seen faces makes loading faster?

msleeper wrote:
HL2 Map Editing Optimization Guide: http://www.student.ru.nl/rvanhoorn/optimization.php
Everyone needs to read this from front to back atleast once. This is the most comprehensive, in-depth, and thorough explaination of how the Source engine works and how to optimize your map. Read this right now.

Maybe if you read the stickies such as the most important thread in the world, you'd know.

Again msleeper misinterprets my replies and thinks I'm always replying to him :p

Of course you nodraw on brush entities (ie - func_detail) which have faces that are completely covered by world geometry or other brushes. That's like Mapping 101.

msleeper wrote:
First of all, keep in mind that any surface of a world brush that is either A.) facing the void, or B.) is completely covered by another world brush, are automatically not rendered. It's not necessary to put nodraw on every face that is facing the void since they are removed anyway.

Really? That is great, it will save me a lot of work... so I will put a nodraw texture on faces which are never seen by the player only.
Anyway, the example map has outer faces nodraw-ed... why is that then?

because its more professional, 'cleaner' and easyer to understand/edit again. Atleast thats what I think...

Mek wrote:
Really? That is great, it will save me a lot of work... so I will put a nodraw texture on faces which are never seen by the player only.
Anyway, the example map has outer faces nodraw-ed... why is that then?

Who knows...it might speed up the compile by a fraction of a second as it already knows it doesn't have to draw those instead of having to calculate it after the vis is run.

Yeah as Remmiz said, there might be some fractional difference, but as far as I know it doesn't help anything. It also just might be easier to see and understand, I still nodraw the outer faces so I know what is going on.

it'll prevent rendering those area's, even if there's a leak in the map!

Mostly I don't nodraw outer faces of world brushes. I often copy-paste brushes, and it's easier if they got the same texture applied to all faces. Nodrawing first comes when the map is finished and I refine the optimization.

But that's just me. Everyone got a different mapping technique. For example I first used 8-units thick world brushes for the outer edges, but because everyone else used 16-unit and I got into serious trouble with prefabs, I switched to 16 units.