[WIP] Glass Prison

Avatar
Artesia
238 Posts
Posted Oct 17, 2007
Replied 32 minutes later
then why doesn't it tell me I have a leak? It does when I forgot to close a brush somewhere...

33 seconds... are you calculating radiosity? radiosity in a complex map only makes sense to take a long time...

besides, when you have a leak radiosity isn't calculated, meaning anything not in direct view of a light remains dark, which is not the case in my map

Advertisement
Registered users don't see ads! Register now!
Avatar
sKILLzkILLZ
19 Posts
Posted Oct 17, 2007
Replied 9 hours later
Wow....That map looks simply amazing....Great Work!
Avatar
msleeper
4,095 Posts
Member
Posted Oct 17, 2007
Replied 6 minutes later
There are occasionally errors that copying the whole map into a new VMF can fix. Yeah, it's weird and it doesn't make sense, but it's true. This has nothing to do with a leak.

Speaking of leaks, you don't need to add a water brush to your map to find a leak or not. I hope that was just a terrible joke.

Avatar
Artesia
238 Posts
Posted Oct 17, 2007
Replied 19 minutes later
yeah the pointfile doesn't exist so I dont think it is a leak.

but I do agree that something may be wrong...

last night I kept trying to compile it and it would take over half an hour before I ctrl-alt-del... im gonna try again this morning...

it happens when its calculating the portal flow, the closer it gets to 10, the longer each dot takes.

Avatar
msleeper
4,095 Posts
Member
Posted Oct 17, 2007
Replied 15 minutes later
Sounds like you fail at optimization. Spread some func_detail in your map.
Avatar
roger federer
75 Posts
Posted Oct 17, 2007
Replied 11 minutes later

Karkk wrote:
True, however I'd prefer seeing a puzzlerooms goal quite quickly after a look around and then figure out how to get to it rather than having to first figure out which one of 5 ways I'm supposed to go. I think that with good level design figuring out where to go can be quite fun but personally I can feel very overwhelmed if I start on a map with holes and buttons everywhere without any hints as to where I'm supposed to go.

i responded in the development forum, seems a better place for this thread.

viewtopic.php?p=1074#1074

Avatar
Artesia
238 Posts
Posted Oct 17, 2007
Replied 35 minutes later
sleeper...
if you look at the pics I posted, all those little window frames, everywhere in the map, are func_detail -_-

I dont know what else I could make func_detail, ive been pretty thorough on that...

one question, would lots of playerclips affect anything? should they be normal brushes or what should I make them? I have lots, and they are all normal brushes with the playerclip mat added

what im confused about, is why it would suddenly 1) crash and 2) drastically increase compile time.

if a light can see noclip objects, will the light go through the noclip? or will it bounce off?

Avatar
Mapster
396 Posts
Posted Oct 17, 2007
Replied 15 minutes later
Make a few things func_illusionary.
This makes them non-solid and can decrease compile time as well as file size.

I wasn't joking about the water, if you put water in your map, when you play the game and the water isn't there, then you have a leak.
Once you have finished the map you can remove the water and continue.

BTW:
Leaks are not just a whole in your map.
Leaks are anything that are outside the map, such as a brush/light/trigger_hurt or example.

I had 1 brush stretched outside the map which took me half an hour to read the compile log and find it.

Then the water in my map was normal.

Avatar
msleeper
4,095 Posts
Member
Posted Oct 17, 2007
Replied 1 minute later
Honestly I'm not sure if playerclip's affect the visibility. I would suggest loading the map up in glview and looking at your visleafs to see where the problem areas are. In fact, bringing your map up in glview is probably a good idea if you are getting such high compile times.

As far as nodraw brushes blocking light, I think they do but I don't remember 100%. You can make a quick map to test it out though.

Avatar
Mapster
396 Posts
Posted Oct 17, 2007
Replied 5 minutes later
When i looked at a few of the original portal maps, everything that you could not see such as the outside faces of the map had the texture "nodraw".

Perhaps try saving a backup and changing the outside faces and anything else that you can not see in the game.
That could also reduce build time.

Avatar
Artesia
238 Posts
Posted Oct 17, 2007
Replied 1 minutes later
what sort of things should I make func_illusionary?

my glass is func_brush, is that what it should be?

If I add water, do I have to do a full compile? (vis and rad) or can I turn them off, or just do fast... because it seems to be freezing on the 10 of portalflow

im trying the glview thing now

Avatar
Grudge
307 Posts
Posted Oct 17, 2007
Replied 6 minutes later

Mapster wrote:
4 minutes is NOT a good compile rate.

What are you talking about?

4 minutes is good especially for a great looking map like what Art has here. You might notice a difference if you make a box and a player start and its a bit quicker. Some maps take hours to compile.

Avatar
Mapster
396 Posts
Posted Oct 17, 2007
Replied 10 minutes later

Artesia wrote:
what sort of things should I make func_illusionary?

my glass is func_brush, is that what it should be?

If I add water, do I have to do a full compile? (vis and rad) or can I turn them off, or just do fast... because it seems to be freezing on the 10 of portalflow

im trying the glview thing now

Make this illusionary that you can not get to, such as small details on walls or on floors.

Grudge wrote:
What are you talking about?

4 minutes is good especially for a great looking map like what Art has here. You might notice a difference if you make a box and a player start and its a bit quicker. Some maps take hours to compile.

At the moment my map is 3.4mb which has a load of detail, and it compiles at 50seconds if i am correct.

Avatar
msleeper
4,095 Posts
Member
Posted Oct 17, 2007
Replied 1 minute later

Artesia wrote:
what sort of things should I make func_illusionary?

my glass is func_brush, is that what it should be?

If I add water, do I have to do a full compile? (vis and rad) or can I turn them off, or just do fast... because it seems to be freezing on the 10 of portalflow

im trying the glview thing now

func_illusionary has become obsolete, use func_brush in place of it.

Do you want your glass to be breakable? If so, use a func_breakable (or a func_breakable_surf, depending on what you want). If not, a func_detail would work fine.

No you do not need to do a full compile if you add in water. Doing a full compile is not necessary at all unless you are doing the final build, or want to test what the lighting or something else looks like.

Grudge is right, as long as VVIS is taking less than a minute (and even then, 1 minute is a very long time), you should be fine. VRAD normally does take a very long time to run when you have a large, complex map.

I would suggest using a batch compiler such as Nemesis: http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?c=32

Compiling your maps with Hammer open is a bad, bad idea since it gobbles up resources the compiling tools need.

Avatar
Mapster
396 Posts
Posted Oct 17, 2007
Replied 1 minutes later
lol, post at the same time.

I only use BatchCompiler for half life 1 games.
^But yeah what he said

Avatar
msleeper
4,095 Posts
Member
Posted Oct 17, 2007
Replied 2 minutes later

Mapster wrote:
lol, post at the same time.

I only use BatchCompiler for half life 1 games.
^But yeah what he said

A CHALLENGER APPEARS

Avatar
Artesia
238 Posts
Posted Oct 17, 2007
Replied 9 minutes later
I remember zoners tools when I messed around with hl1 mapping, I never finished any maps for that tho.

would you recommend using zoner's or steam's?

it is vvis that is taking forever now, ive tried hiding all my props but no change, im not sure what could be causing this.

Avatar
msleeper
4,095 Posts
Member
Posted Oct 17, 2007
Replied 37 minutes later
Zoner's tools are for HL1, they will not work with Source maps. The standard Valve tools should be sufficient.
Avatar
Artesia
238 Posts
Posted Oct 17, 2007
Replied 2 hours later
Good news...

After changing all my glass windows to Func_detail (rather than func_brush), changing other things like the blocks the cube is sitting on to func_detail, the compile time is back down to where it was, maybe a little less. file size is now sitting at 3.97 mb down maybe 30k from where it was. so I am free to continue yay!

Advertisement
Registered users don't see ads! Register now!
Avatar
Artesia
238 Posts
Posted Oct 17, 2007
Replied 1 hour later

just uploaded a video demo

http://youtube.com/watch?v=SFIZbU76P-g

and 2 new pics


a new problem, when I walk past the button, the model of the top part of the button, and the exit doors, disappear... incredibly odd... maybe I'll have to make them again... anyone have any clue?