Seams! Why are there Seams Everywhere?

Dr Forrester

L2: Junior Member
Aug 15, 2008
60
23
So, I've started working on a new map, but every time I go to compile it, there are tiny little seams in the floor, like there's somehow a 1 unit gap between the sections. The floor is currently make of sections, some of which I clipped from a larger block to allow for some ramps and such (I at least know better than to carve)

Can anybody help me figure out what's going on so I can correct/prevent this from happening? I've tried resizing/moving the blocks to no avail.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
I suppose the obvious thing to ask is are you using the grid to begin with. Cutting displacements also causes the vertices to skew.

Zoom in as much as you can on your brush vertices to see if they are really alligned to the grid.

Also pics will help people understand your situation.
 

StickZer0

💙💙💃💙💙
aa
Nov 25, 2008
664
647
I know Ati cards can sometimes have this problem when two brushes are next to each other it looks like there is a seam
 

Dr Forrester

L2: Junior Member
Aug 15, 2008
60
23
So this is what I'm looking at in game:

ctfoceanstadiuma10000.jpg

ctfoceanstadiuma10001.jpg


And this is what I'm seeing in hammer:

hammerproblem.png


I've tried selecting the brush and adjusting single sides of it to make it snap to the grid when I move it back to the original size, but it doesn't seem to matter. It just keeps looking like this.

When I'm building, I try to make sure all the faces the player won't see are nodraw, so I start with each block only having that texture, then changing it as I go. The top screenshot is where I textured the edge the player shouldn't see, hoping that would make it go away. Instead it just resulted in a line of unlit texture. The second shot you can see the water underneath the map, it's uncubemapped face shining through the gap.

The super annoying part is, you can only see the seams from one direction; from the opposite direction, it appears solid and unbroken.

If I have to, I'll just try tearing up the floor and starting that bit over from scratch, but I'm hoping it won't come to that.
 

Dr Forrester

L2: Junior Member
Aug 15, 2008
60
23
Ok. So it's just going to drive ME bonkers then. I suppose that's better.

I'm probably going to tear that floor up anyhow. not really liking how flat it looks...
 

Psy

The Imp Queen
aa
Apr 9, 2008
1,706
1,491
It is a problem with the way Source renders things. I've put it down to AA. When I have it on, I can find all sorts of tiny gaps in the geometry but when it's off everything is flush.

Tis very annoying and ugly. :(
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
Yea, two things you can try: the obvious one is making sure the grid is on and rebuild the brushes on both sides of the seam.

The other is that you can manipulate the vertices using the vertex tool in the camera view. It's not really that useful as doing so will usually end up creating an invalid brush (and it's not always clear which axis you are manipulating on). But occasionally it's helpful in awkward scenarios (such as working on a vector shared by many brush vertices or modifying triangular brushes en mass, which is hard to do in the 2d views). The vertice modifications will automatically align to the 2 relative axis planes the camera views most head on (perpendicular too) and snaps to the current grid setting: This is useful for snapping unalligned vertices to the grid, which can happen after rotating several brushes at once, at an angle. Select a single vertice, move it up 1 grid movement, then back down, then side to side, then rotate the camera to do this once more on the remaining axis. Do this for all the corners, one at a time, and this re-aligns an oddly positioned/shaped brush. But this is often more time consuming than simply remaking the brush from scratch.
 
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Dr Forrester

L2: Junior Member
Aug 15, 2008
60
23
Yeah, I just rebuilt the floor. That seemed to take care of it (no pun intended).
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,694
2,579
I think the seams are where two visleaves come together. It's more visible in dark areas like inside Egypt's tombs. Source auto-creates visleaf divisions at regular intervals (I forget what scale), but there might be a way to force an area to be all one visleaf. Might be worth looking into, but you'll probably wind up with some of these cracks anyway.

This news that it may be an ATi-specific bug is disturbing to me, as an ATi owner who has no intention of switching brands when I upgrade.
 

Dr Forrester

L2: Junior Member
Aug 15, 2008
60
23
Honestly, I'm starting to think it had something to do with using the clipping tool on the block to cut it up when it was only textured in nodraw. As it is, I suppose I should be thankful I had the good sense not to carve it :p