Suddenly map is all black.

Luigi1000

L2: Junior Member
Dec 12, 2015
65
14
Hey everyone lets get a few things outta the way: I was moving a group of objects and brushes, deselected all brushes which enclose the map (the skybox) and went on about working on some other work. When I got to checking it out it is completely black minus a select few props. Now in all my years of mapping I haven't heard of this suddenly just happening.

Things to note:
- No leaks reported in log and no pointfile generated. (Even did an extra check by enclosing the skybox in a bigger solid enclosed box but to no avail)
- Light does exist in the map in the form of a light_environment along with other smaller lights for certain areas.
- Vrad used to do 18 bounces, now it goes up to 100.
- Both vis and rad set to fast for development and testing reasons.
- Only recent changes were: Moving solid geometry, converting some solids to func_detail and adding of prop_satics.
- I do have an env_cubemap which is set to default.

Any ideas or help would indeed be appreciated.
 
Mar 23, 2013
1,013
347
sometimes a corrupt brush can cause this as well. Compile parts of your map with your cordon tool until you could hunt down the error.
 

Luigi1000

L2: Junior Member
Dec 12, 2015
65
14
I've also seen situations where a light entity stuck inside of a prop or brushwork can suck all the light out of a map. It's a weird one, but look for any errant lights.
Not any lights stuck in walls, they got moved along with the other objects. Thanks for taking the time to reply anyways crash.

Also applies to any light with a negative brightness value.
I have no idea why ANYONE would do that. I mean logically speaking 0 is the lowest one expects it to go and for it to be off at that point.

sometimes a corrupt brush can cause this as well. Compile parts of your map with your cordon tool until you could hunt down the error.
I only ever had (I guess I can call it the pleasure) of having to use the cordon feature in hammer twice in my 7 years of working on maps, so at that moment in time I kind of forgot about that. Not a corrupt brush however, something much stranger.


Ok well after playing what I can only call a game of hide and seek with a section of the map I eventually found what's been causing that issue. Seems that for some reason unknown to me, when a brush is 1/2 way into the displacement I had it caused the issue but when its approx. 1/3-1/4 the way in (which I need to achieve the effect of two walls connecting) it is all good and lighting works as it should. If anyone knows or wants to look into why this happens, have fun (seems like some kind of collision issue possibly).

Anyways thanks everyone who did offer some help, it is indeed appreciated and hopefully if someone else has this problem they can search for this thread.