Nodraw placement For Optimizing

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static2601

L2: Junior Member
Nov 4, 2010
79
4
Should a put a nodraw on faces that touch other brushes and has zero space between them or does the engine remove these automatically? I need to reduce my lightmaps and most the brushes have shadows on them and must be a lower number to look any good at all. Ive nodrawed faces that you will never see but i need alot more nodrawed, I am actually getting areas that are darker then they should be or brush areas that look like bright square sections.
 

A Boojum Snark

Toraipoddodezain Mazahabado
aa
Nov 2, 2007
4,775
7,669
Faces butted up to each other or on the outside of the map touching the void are removed, it isn't necessary to nodraw them for lightmap purposes.

Some helpful console commands you can use to find out what is being rendered and/or lit.
mat_wireframe - outlines faces
mat_luxels - displays the lightmap grid (might be broken, it was when I last used it a year ago)
r_drawfuncdetail, r_drawstaticprops, r_drawdisp (and several other r_draw* commands) can be used to stop rendering certain things which can "reveal" to you faces that are hidden behind stuff and lit in complete blackness that could be nodrawn.
 

static2601

L2: Junior Member
Nov 4, 2010
79
4
Ok thanks! I also tried the mat_luxels 1 and it just showed blue patches everywhere, the skybox was completely blue and seemed like randoms patches everywhere. I dont think it worked. Ill have to try the others.
 

henke37

aa
Sep 23, 2011
2,075
515
Use mat_fullbright 2 to see the lightmaps. There is also a command to lock PVS, great for figuring out just what the PVS is.