the issue is when i turned around, I see the rest of the entire map from beyond the walls. What causes this and how can i fix it?

Fracture wrote:
yeah I only know the normal compiling method. How do you do the vvis compile?

It's just one of the steps in the compile process. If you did a normal compile then you ran vvis.

looks like i will need to move the room to an area far away beyond render distance and world-portal it

EDIT: okay another issue, I apprently just realised i worked myself in a corner where one part of the map depends on a 3d skybox and another part of the map depends in a regular skybox. I know I cannot have 2 because of how far apart these areas are and that a skybox camera cannot be turned off and on.

So does anyone know where i can get a NORMAL sky texture that can function just like the rest of the textures?

The only effective way I could find to prevent this was areaportals. For example, if you use any item (cube or player) dropper with a column on the top of it to let the item be dropped along, and your skybox is on the ceiling near it, you'll see that column made out of brushes through the skybox; well, adding an areaportal right at the ceiling level or maybe a bit higher (trying that the player won't ever see it open... maybe turning it on and off) will avoid it.

Fracture wrote:
EDIT: okay another issue, I apprently just realised i worked myself in a corner where one part of the map depends on a 3d skybox and another part of the map depends in a regular skybox. I know I cannot have 2 because of how far apart these areas are and that a skybox camera cannot be turned off and on.

What?

I don't know if this will necessarily work for your condition, but try it anyway.

skyboxes should be in places that are unreachable. so if your skybox comes down a wall to an area you walk near, this is a mistake... either cover that wall with some other texture, or have some door close, and manually close an areaportal on the visleaf showing the area

The best way to prevent the regular level geometry from showing through the skybox is to put something between the two areas that is textured black on the side facing the skybox. This will cause the skybox to appear solid even though the engine does not consider it solid. You will in essence see black through the skybox and since the engine does not render black over the skybox, you won't have the "transparent sky" problem. It also can depend on the sky texture the skybox is using.

And I have to note for the 100th time, It makes no damn sense that a sky camera doesn't directly project from where itself is located in the map. They should expand on its flexibility by making it work similarily to the point_camera and monitor somehow

Fracture wrote:
And I have to note for the 100th time, It makes no damn sense that a sky camera doesn't directly project from where itself is located in the map. They should expand on its flexibility by making it work similarily to the point_camera and monitor somehow

The thing is that its position is compared to the origin of the map.
The camera registers the stuff that's around him. It needs to know what the area is where he's projecting from.

It might look like it might have been useful if you could just place the position from where it would project but in the end it would still have the same effect: You need a reference geometry with the sky camera fixed in the position from where it projects. The only thing it'll do is add an extra entity...

Fracture wrote:
too bad you can't preview something to it's exact rendered detail before compiling

If you have a scaled down replica of your main map in your 3d-skybox you can see if your 3d-skybox matches up with your normal world geometry. The best way to make sure you don't mix your geometry and skybox it's best to put the scaled down world geometry in a custom visgroup