Random questions I have.

[Klymarx]

1. What happens when there are too many VIS Leaf cuts?
2. What happens when I reach the entity limit? Does some kind of prompt tell me I have reached it?
3. Is there anyway of knowing how many entities are present?
4. What is an area portal?
5. Where can I find some good snow textures? Specifically snow/metal and snow/stone blends.

 

[Freyja]

1. Nothing apart from your map taking longer to compile in the VVIS step. Theoretically, more vis leaf cuts mean a more optimized map, but it's a balance with compile time.

2. No prompt, your map will just crash. There is an entity count in the compile log though (edict count). It's very unlikely you'll get there unless you're making something very entity heavy like trainsawlaser.

3. See above. However remember that the game also creates lots of entities during gameplay for the players, their hats and projectiles, etc.

4. A "window" between two completely sealed areas of your map. Because it requires each area to be perfectly sealed from each other, it can completely unrender the other area on an input. Areaportals also have the innate ability of being culling windows, where anything you can't see directly through the areaportal will be culled as well. They're a great way to gain lots of optimisation in your map even if you don't use the input.

5. Most people use the snow textures from barnblitz or viaduct which you can find under searching snow in the texture browser. As for the blends, they're fairly easy to make yourself from two existing textures. Here's a tutorial, an old one but the method is still the same

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK9MRl4WQpw

 

[henke37]

The compile log does not include an edict count. That is something you need to measure at runtime. There is a console command to list all entities, but I don't have it memorized.

 

[Klymarx]

1. Nothing apart from your map taking longer to compile in the VVIS step. Theoretically, more vis leaf cuts mean a more optimized map, but it's a balance with compile time.

2. No prompt, your map will just crash. There is an entity count in the compile log though (edict count). It's very unlikely you'll get there unless you're making something very entity heavy like trainsawlaser.

3. See above. However remember that the game also creates lots of entities during gameplay for the players, their hats and projectiles, etc.

4. A "window" between two completely sealed areas of your map. Because it requires each area to be perfectly sealed from each other, it can completely unrender the other area on an input. Areaportals also have the innate ability of being culling windows, where anything you can't see directly through the areaportal will be culled as well. They're a great way to gain lots of optimisation in your map even if you don't use the input.

5. Most people use the snow textures from barnblitz or viaduct which you can find under searching snow in the texture browser. As for the blends, they're fairly easy to make yourself from two existing textures. Here's a tutorial, an old one but the method is still the same

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK9MRl4WQpw

Thanks