A question about hint brushes and areaportals

wait till basic layout is done is what i normally do for the hints and are portals.

Vertical are the orange textures, horizontal are the grey ones

I found that if you design your map right, streamline your portal flow, use func detail where you should as well as nodraw, you really don't need hints. Even a perfectly used hint brush still can cause gaming issues. Sometimes players are not seen quite as fast as without a hint. Try building your map smartly using what I said above before adding hints and stuff. You might find that you don't even need them. That's just my 2 cents.

Even if your layout is good enough it's smart to add them in obvious places, because the engine usually renders more than it needs to regardless of layout.