Leaks o.o

dt890

L1: Registered
Jan 25, 2012
6
2
So...

A mortal being as myself, there are 2 things i am afraid of in life.

First, is to stop loving TF2,

Second is Leaks...

And by this mortal fear, i built all my skyboxes like this up until now:

6dbC8.jpg



Every edge, every crack must line up perfectly, and this gets exponentially harder with every little detail:

6ddAz.jpg

6ddRJ.jpg


all because of the fear of leaks if they didn't line up, and look like this instead:

6dco0.jpg

Or This
6ddaX.jpg

Or This
6ddiW.jpg

Or This
6dgbp.jpg



So i guess thats a neat thing, to know that isn't the case... because either of these do create a leak. or it does matter, and im just going insane.
 
Last edited:

Freyja

aa
Jul 31, 2009
2,994
5,813
There are a few things that cause leaks;

An entity (model, brush entity, whatever)'s origin is outside of the sealed map. The pine trees you have in the last screenshot probably do have their origin outside (the little X on the 2d view when you select it)

An areaportal not sealing an area, which is a whole different ballgame entirely that you'll get to when you optimise.

VBSP not being able to assign a certain brush to a portal, this only happens when you have a really really big brush and you can't really forsee this one coming.

What DOESN'T cause leaks is:

Brushes sticking out (any face or part of a face touching the void is removed automatically). The "overlap' you have in the second last screenshot does not matter because the "overlapping" bit will be culled anyway.

Displacements sticking out (even fully outside).
 

FiLi

L4: Comfortable Member
Nov 14, 2009
195
102
You are, of course, using "snap to grid", right? Brushes are much easier to join and align when you aren't working on a 1 unit scale.
 

dt890

L1: Registered
Jan 25, 2012
6
2
There are a few things that cause leaks;

An entity (model, brush entity, whatever)'s origin is outside of the sealed map. The pine trees you have in the last screenshot probably do have their origin outside (the little X on the 2d view when you select it)

Brushes sticking out (any face or part of a face touching the void is removed automatically). The "overlap' you have in the second last screenshot does not matter because the "overlapping" bit will be culled anyway.

Displacements sticking out (even fully outside).

Do these things apply for areaportals too? and if those leak or not.
 
Last edited:

Freyja

aa
Jul 31, 2009
2,994
5,813
Area portals will only leak if you can draw a line from one side to the other without passing through solid geometry (ie, not func_details, entities, props) or another areaportal. It doesn't really matter if entities or brushes are crossing the areaportal as long as the "area" they're portalling is sealed in.
 

henke37

aa
Sep 23, 2011
2,075
515
For the record, you don't need to nodraw skybox brushes.
 

Snowbat

L4: Comfortable Member
Apr 23, 2013
165
74
Just a few things to keep in mind too:
- Displacements don't seal off the world
- The origin of all your entities, wether point-based or brush-based must be inside the world
- Areaportals must also not leak. Aly explained it perfectly.
- Brush-based entities don't seal of the world
- I hope you use the pointfile when you do have a leak? (Map--> Load Pointfile) it shows you what entity leaks through what hole
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,694
2,579
For the record, you don't need to nodraw skybox brushes.

Or anything else on the outside of the map, for that matter. But it makes it easier to look around at the map from the outside, because you can toggle nodraw to be invisible.