Portal file

megawac

L4: Comfortable Member
Oct 2, 2009
180
29
Portal file is what your visleafs look like and basically how the engine will render your map from any given point. Portal file is generated at the end of vbsp and is used in the vvis process which does the visibility optimization.
 

megawac

L4: Comfortable Member
Oct 2, 2009
180
29
No but there are some advantages to doing it that way as you can see everything the engine is rendering and what your fps is.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
You can load the portal file prior to testing your map ingame to check your visleaf formations directly from Hammer. The portal file will display the visleafs and you can then determine whether there are too many, whether some are too big, small or efficiently shaped. Allowing you to determine whether or not some brushes need func_detailing or whether some additional hint brushes may be required to cut existing leafs in order to resolve any potential issues that the aforementioned situations could cause. All before you even run HL2.exe and several debugging console commands.
 
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