At my wit's end with pointfiles and areaportals

  • If you're asking a question make sure to set the thread type to be a question!

ExtraCheesyPie

L420: High Member
Jan 29, 2015
484
151
Edit: Problem solved. Don't bother with replies


Everything is sealed. I go over with details turned off and everything looks fine.

Half of the map is fine. I mirror.

I compile.

4 areaportal errors, they're not touched 2 sides. 2 areaportal bugs for each half of the map. Every areaportal in my map looks like it is closed, so the doorways are a glitchy mess.

I click on "Load Pointfile" and the red line goes through 3 solid walls and ends in the air, with the other end at one of the glitchy areaportal.

Any ideas?
 
Last edited:

EArkham

Necromancer
aa
Aug 14, 2009
1,625
2,773
With areaportal problems, it's almost always caused by one of the areaportals not fully touching the surrounding world geometry. Or somehow one of the areaportals brushes is no longer a func_areaportal. For example, if you had "solids" selected instead of "objects" and copied the areaportal, it'd just become a brush without func_areaportal.

You can also get problems if two different areaportals are lined up. Like two different doors on the same wall. Shift one slightly forward and one slightly back within the doorframe to avoid that.

The pointfile never seems very accurate for areaportal problems even though it's perfectly accurate for normal leaks.

What I do is turn EVERYTHING off except for world geometry and skybrushes. Displacements, props, everything. Then turn on just the areaportal brushes and go in and inspect the edges of each and every one individually for gaps.

I also name my areaportals ap0, ap1, ap2, etc so if VBSP catches the leak, it'll spit out the name of the specific areaportal that has a problem: "Brush ap02: areaportal brush doesn't touch two areas." You can remove the names later after areaportals are working correctly; I think removing the names might reduce the ent_data slightly but I'm not 100% positive.
 

ExtraCheesyPie

L420: High Member
Jan 29, 2015
484
151
Thanks, but in a last ditch effort before i was about the give up and sob into a bowl of cereal, i placed a needless area portal in some random doorway and it fixed it.

I don't know how that works, but i'll take it.
 
Last edited:

UKCS-Alias

Mann vs Machine... or... Mapper vs Meta?
aa
Sep 8, 2008
1,264
816
If there is an areaportal leak they will follow the path of the areaportals where they leak. There are a few exceptions when the areaportal itself is not correctly placed inside a doorway (instead of 2 sides it has 3 or more) and it decides to randomly point to an area. This could also be the case you have. And the worst part being that it might not even show the portal that is being the cause

Then there is the problem that 2 areaportals acros the map are on the same line. they get merged. And this happens even acros the map which again can give problems.

To debug the portals select all of them on 1 side and put them in a visgroup. hide it. Then compile. No error. Do the same to the other side. If it works seperately it has to do with 2 portals on each side which most likely got merged. if only 1 side is broken repeat the steps on that side until you are left with only 1, 2 or 3 portals.
 
Last edited:

tyler

aa
Sep 11, 2013
5,102
4,621
Thanks, but in a last ditch effort before i was about the give up and sob into a plate of cereal, i placed a needless area portal in some random doorway and it fixed it.

I don't know how that works, but i'll take it.
Sounds like your area simply wasn't sealed. Area portals are like plugs in a ship: leave a hole open and it leaks.