Additional Hammer Compiler Commands

Open Blade

L420: High Member
Nov 30, 2007
439
34
Flame away on me but I still use Hammer to compile my maps. grazr told me that there are additional commands codes you can put into the "additional game perameters" field at the bottom of the pop up menu when you run map. I've noticed that the lighting on my tracks is kind of odd. Shadows is turned off but when a shadow from a building cuts across only half of a track piece, the entire track piece is then darker then the next piece. It doesn't allow a nice smooth lighting effect on my tracks. He gave me a partial name, something like -staticproppy or something. I searched valve site and can't find anything on this.


Is there a link to all the additional commands and what they do?


Thanks.
 

Cameron:D

L6: Sharp Member
Sep 28, 2008
363
145
-staticproplighting (Or something like that)
It makes an individual light map for each prop, so increases file size, but make it look better on a final release
 

Open Blade

L420: High Member
Nov 30, 2007
439
34
Thanks, I found this through some links here.




Common options:

-v (or -verbose): Turn on verbose output (also shows more command
-bounce # : Set max number of bounces (default: 100).
-fast : Quick and dirty lighting.
-fastambient : Per-leaf ambient sampling is lower quality to save compute time.
-final : High quality processing. equivalent to -extrasky 16.
-extrasky n : trace N times as many rays for indirect light and sky ambient.
-low : Run as an idle-priority process.
-mpi : Use VMPI to distribute computations.
-rederror : Show errors in red.

-vproject <directory> : Override the VPROJECT environment variable.
-game <directory> : Same as -vproject.

Other options:
-novconfig : Don't bring up graphical UI on vproject errors.
-dump : Write debugging .txt files.
-dumpnormals : Write normals to debug files.
-dumptrace : Write ray-tracing environment to debug files.
-threads : Control the number of threads vbsp uses (defaults to the #
or processors on your machine).
-lights <file> : Load a lights file in addition to lights.rad and the
level lights file.
-noextra : Disable supersampling.
-debugextra : Places debugging data in lightmaps to visualize
supersampling.
-smooth # : Set the threshold for smoothing groups, in degrees
(default 45).
-dlightmap : Force direct lighting into different lightmap than
radiosity.
-stoponexit : Wait for a keypress on exit.
-mpi_pw <pw> : Use a password to choose a specific set of VMPI workers.
-nodetaillight : Don't light detail props.
-centersamples : Move sample centers.
-luxeldensity # : Rescale all luxels by the specified amount (default: 1.0).
The number specified must be less than 1.0 or it will be
ignored.
-loghash : Log the sample hash table to samplehash.txt.
-onlydetail : Only light detail props and per-leaf lighting.
-maxdispsamplesize #: Set max displacement sample size (default: 512).
-softsun <n> : Treat the sun as an area light source of size <n> degrees.
Produces soft shadows.
Recommended values are between 0 and 5. Default is 0.
-FullMinidumps : Write large minidumps on crash.
-chop : Smallest number of luxel widths for a bounce patch, used on edges
-maxchop : Coarsest allowed number of luxel widths for a patch, used in face interiors.
-LargeDispSampleRadius: This can be used if there are splotches of bounced light
on terrain. The compile will take longer, but it will gather
light across a wider area.
-StaticPropLighting : generate backed static prop vertex lighting
-StaticPropPolys : Perform shadow tests of static props at polygon precision
-OnlyStaticProps : Only perform direct static prop lighting (vrad debug option)
-StaticPropNormals : when lighting static props, just show their normal vector
-textureshadows : Allows texture alpha channels to block light - rays intersecting alpha
surfaces will sample the texture
-noskyboxrecurse : Turn off recursion into 3d skybox (skybox shadows on world)
-nossprops : Globally disable self-shadowing on static props
 

Big Lou

L3: Member
Mar 17, 2008
120
27
Flame away on me but I still use Hammer to compile my maps. grazr told me that there are additional commands codes you can put into the "additional game perameters" field at the bottom of the pop up menu when you run map. I've noticed that the lighting on my tracks is kind of odd. Shadows is turned off but when a shadow from a building cuts across only half of a track piece, the entire track piece is then darker then the next piece. It doesn't allow a nice smooth lighting effect on my tracks. He gave me a partial name, something like -staticproppy or something. I searched valve site and can't find anything on this.


Is there a link to all the additional commands and what they do?


Thanks.

How do you NOT use hammer to compile?
/noob

Thanks for the extensive list!
 

TMP

Ancient Pyro Main
aa
Aug 11, 2008
947
560
Batch compiler.

EDIT: That was for Lou.
 
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grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
-StaticPropPolys : Perform shadow tests of static props at polygon precision

I thought i remembered right on that. Although i didn't know you needed the capitals in there (do you?). Glad you found this stuff though. Try it out on one compile to check that it's the desired effect, but i wouldn't bother with it further until you do your final compile, really, as it adds to your file size and compile time.
 

Open Blade

L420: High Member
Nov 30, 2007
439
34
-StaticPropPolys : Perform shadow tests of static props at polygon precision

I thought i remembered right on that. Although i didn't know you needed the capitals in there (do you?). Glad you found this stuff though. Try it out on one compile to check that it's the desired effect, but i wouldn't bother with it further until you do your final compile, really, as it adds to your file size and compile time.

You sure it's that one, sounds to me like it might be the other one. I want to make sure I run the right one, since either will probably take forever to compile. Would rather not run the wrong one and have to do it twice. :)

-StaticPropLighting : generate backed static prop vertex lighting
 
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Open Blade

L420: High Member
Nov 30, 2007
439
34
Well I ran a final compile and used -StaticPropPolys and nothing changed regarding the tracks. The have the same lighting as before.
 

Open Blade

L420: High Member
Nov 30, 2007
439
34
-staticproplighting

Yup, guess I have to give that one a try next. I tried the other first because I read this from a Youme totorial and it refers to the tracks specifically. So does everybody just compile using all 3 commands? What could it hurt? Or do they just normally compile with the -staticproplighting?

there are three extra commands, -staticproppolys -staticproplighting and -textureshadows. The first and the last deal with taking shadows from the props exact outline rather than the collision mesh (great for props with no collision mesh like the payload tracks!) and taking shadows from props with alpha textures(great for chainlink fences). The middle one, -staticproplighting works out the lighting on props based on each vertex instead of the origin, so one side of a prop might be in light and lit nicely whilst the other side might have the light blocked to it so it will be dark.
 
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Open Blade

L420: High Member
Nov 30, 2007
439
34
Well, It doesn't seem to be working for me. I ran final compile with -staticproplighting and I am still getting a section of track with shaded lighting rather then an accurate shadow over only part of the track. I even built the cubemaps to see if that would do it but nope. Suggestions? This map is ready for beta release right now, if I could only get the track lighting fixed. Thanks.

track_lighting.jpg
 

YM

LVL100 YM
aa
Dec 5, 2007
7,135
6,056
You need BOTH -staticproppolys (to get good ground shadows) AND -staticproplighting for what you want, -texture shadows deals with other stuff (mostly chainlink fences, pine trees and shrubs)

but you can't just stick them in the "additional" bit at the bottom, you actually have to use "expert" mode

Hit this bitton (expert)
expert-button.jpg


and then follow the tutorial i wrote about it, first page, the third page is just an explaination not an actual tut.

[ame="http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=2994"][Tutorial] REMOVING UGLY SHADOWS - TF2Maps.net Forums[/ame]