Ok there are a few things I am having a little bit of trouble with atm.

1: Im using a bounce gel dropper instance, and the flow is really lagging even my Sandy Bridge PC.

What can I do about that? Is there a way I can reduce the flow of gel that comes out of an instance? Before I had just used a dropper prop, but it didnt look near as good as the instance does. But I also dont need a huge flow, and especially if its going to cause stuttering on a Sandy Bridge build (most maps ive seen dont have that lag).

2: Logic gates. Can anyone explain them a little better to me. Ive read the wiki, ive read a few other articles, but for some reason logic gates go right over my head. I mean I know what they are and what they do, but I cant seem to grasp how they work and how to incorporate a logic branch in with a listener.

3: This is general noobness on my part, especially since I am still just working on my very first map ever, but when I am putting brushes together, to form a wall, I cant do corner to corner (I am doing corner to corner for outside walls), and so should I be texturing the inside edges with a nodraw texture before putting them together? Just for optimization sake? Or does the engine not render them if you join them together?

{SOAP} Pm@c wrote:

2: Logic gates. Can anyone explain them a little better to me. Ive read the wiki, ive read a few other articles, but for some reason logic gates go right over my head. I mean I know what they are and what they do, but I cant seem to grasp how they work and how to incorporate a logic branch in with a listener.

Logic gates are like relays but they can be turned on and off. in one entity, using Boolean. 1 being ture (on) and 0 being false (off). For example you can have a light that goes on and off with just one logic branch.

OnTrue -> Light -> Turnon
OnFalse -> Light -> Turnoff

The logic_branch_listener does just that, listens to branches. Lets say you have 2 branches that controls a light, but you want the door to open when both lights are on only so you would do is linkt he branches, and do something lime this:

OnAllTrue -> door -> open
OnAllFalse -> door -> close
OnMixed -> door -> close

Blue Portals: Extended Play uses a bunch of logic branches to communicate between doors and buttons, light elements, ECHO bouncepad and much more! the most benefit on using logic branches is that if you set your prefabs to work with them, they are very easy to communicate to one another. Lastly, I do not recommend you jump into logic_branches until you are familiar with the I/O system first.

{SOAP} Pm@c wrote:

3: This is general noobness on my part, especially since I am still just working on my very first map ever, but when I am putting brushes together, to form a wall, I cant do corner to corner (I am doing corner to corner for outside walls), and so should I be texturing the inside edges with a nodraw texture before putting them together? Just for optimization sake? Or does the engine not render them if you join them together?

I would personally still make the outside walls facing the void Nodraw so I can use that 'nodraw invisible' feature! Also, I think it has been proven that it does not really matter, since the compiler process automatically makes faces covered or not seen nodraw anyway.

Default gel spawner settings are really system intensive. You will need to turn down the "max blobs" settings in you World Properties (under the Edit menu), as well as possibly either 1.) collapse the instance into your map (so that it's no longer an instance) or 2.) make a copy of the instance and modify the copy with the changes you want. I think the default paint dropper settings have the blog size, speed, and other properties set way too high for most uses.

Just because you can use an instance, doesn't mean you always should. It's also not a horrible terrible idea to use an instance simply to collapse it into your map, either.

reepblue wrote:
{SOAP} Pm@c wrote:

2: Logic gates. Can anyone explain them a little better to me. Ive read the wiki, ive read a few other articles, but for some reason logic gates go right over my head. I mean I know what they are and what they do, but I cant seem to grasp how they work and how to incorporate a logic branch in with a listener.

Logic gates are like relays but they can be turned on and off. in one entity, using Boolean. 1 being ture (on) and 0 being false (off). For example you can have a light that goes on and off with just one logic branch.

OnTrue -> Light -> Turnon
OnFalse -> Light -> Turnoff

The logic_branch_listener does just that, listens to branches. Lets say you have 2 branches that controls a light, but you want the door to open when both lights are on only so you would do is linkt he branches, and do something lime this:

OnAllTrue -> door -> open
OnAllFalse -> door -> close
OnMixed -> door -> close

Blue Portals: Extended Play uses a bunch of logic branches to communicate between doors and buttons, light elements, ECHO bouncepad and much more! the most benefit on using logic branches is that if you set your prefabs to work with them, they are very easy to communicate to one another. Lastly, I do not recommend you jump into logic_branches until you are familiar with the I/O system first.

{SOAP} Pm@c wrote:

3: This is general noobness on my part, especially since I am still just working on my very first map ever, but when I am putting brushes together, to form a wall, I cant do corner to corner (I am doing corner to corner for outside walls), and so should I be texturing the inside edges with a nodraw texture before putting them together? Just for optimization sake? Or does the engine not render them if you join them together?

I would personally still make the outside walls facing the void Nodraw so I can use that 'nodraw invisible' feature! Also, I think it has been proven that it does not really matter, since the compiler process automatically makes faces covered or not seen nodraw anyway.

I mean inside brush faces that arent being seen. Should those be nodraw as well?

Inside faces of world brushes are culled by the renderer, so doing it manually won't do you a whole lot of good. Doing this with func_detail brushes, though, is a good idea.

So any inside brush that is not touching an entity, I just tie to a func_detail?

No no, you totally misunderstood what I said. Any brush face of a func_detail that is not going to be seen by the player (either because the face is against another brush, or simply in the background where the player can never reach) should be nodraw'd. World brush faces that are completely covered get automatically culled - effectively what the nodraw texture does.

How to properly func_detail your map is another subject entirely. I suggest you read this page of this wonderful article, and when you're finished go back and read the rest of it. Oh and there is a page on when to use nodraw, too.

I have nodraw on all my brushes before I start the texture process. But if I need to test things out, I use the dev textures. (Dev textures -> nodraw all -> texturing frenzy)