What thing(s) have you found effected displacements in your map that you didn't expect?

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Werewolf

Probably not a real Werewolf
aa
Apr 12, 2011
873
309
If you had seen my previous thread, you'll know that I have been having trouble with displacements not being rendered when they should. Eventually I gave up and went to bed. Now having slept on it, I began thinking.

While it is capable of a great many things, we know that the hammer editor can also be buggy pile of crap at times. So I am wondering if the troubles I am having with displacements are due to something not mentioned in the various instructional guides we have here and elsewhere on the internet. Either something no one has noticed cause a problem before, or just one of hammer bugs that happens from time to time.

For example a few of the displacements I am having trouble with are in the skybox, which has a func_viscluster in it. Another area of the map with displacements has a lot of hint/skip brushes around it. There is no reason to assume either of those things would cause a displacement not to render, but through some hammer magic-fuck-up-ery they still cause a problem.

QUESTION: What thing(s) have you found effected displacements in your map that you didn't expect?
 
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killohurtz

Distinction in Applied Carving
aa
Feb 22, 2014
1,016
1,277
1. Displacements may not retain their correct shape in instances. I don't know the specifics, but my issue involved tunnels at 45 degree angles. Collapsing the instances before compiling fixed it.

2. IIRC a map called pl_displacement was named after displacement rendering issues. I can't get a post number on mobile so look through this thread. Maybe its author has information that could help you.
 

Sergis

L666: ])oo]v[
aa
Jul 22, 2009
1,874
1,257
1. Displacements may not retain their correct shape in instances. I don't know the specifics, but my issue involved tunnels at 45 degree angles. Collapsing the instances before compiling fixed it.

as far as i understood during my instance displacement troubles the displacement direction ignores the instance rotation

so if you displace a vertex 10 units along x axis the vertex will be displaced 10 units along main map x axis no matter the instance rotation

very unhappifying

displacing them along the instance rotation axis should work fine i guess
 

Fruity Snacks

Creator of blackholes & memes. Destroyer of forums
aa
Sep 5, 2010
6,394
5,571
Displacements can work in instances, if you don't vertex manipulate them too much. (Most of snowplow early on, including the entirety of the final point was an instance, displacements included).

Displacements must always be a quadrilateral. Not too many people know this, I think, but they must always have 4 sides. Anything more or less and they break or vanish.

Weird VVIS cuts can cause displacements to go invisible.
 

Idolon

they/them
aa
Feb 7, 2008
2,105
6,106
I don't know of the specific cases, but anything that causes a lot of small cuts in a wide area. Usually a cluster of microcuts or something can muck with things.

I've had a few times where a bunch of small cuts in one area could actually make small portions of world brushes appear invisible - I have a hunch that, if this happens anywhere in a displacement, the displacement goes invisible.
 

I dinne ken

Has currently had enough
aa
Apr 16, 2016
324
432
Sewing a displacement with a blend texture's usual beta texture as the alpha to a normal brush will make the original alpha texture on the displacement have an outline on the border between the brush and the displacement

1.

hzc2pYb.png



2.

wJEmO0F.png
 

UKCS-Alias

Mann vs Machine... or... Mapper vs Meta?
aa
Sep 8, 2008
1,264
816
1. Displacements may not retain their correct shape in instances. I don't know the specifics, but my issue involved tunnels at 45 degree angles. Collapsing the instances before compiling fixed it.
Any XYZ modifications you made are applied as if the displacement was not in an instance. So if you moved something on the Y axis and your map was rotated 90 degrees on the Z axis, your adjustment moves into the X axis in the instance itself.
As image (the red line is the adjustment you made on the displacement and the dot its original position):
displacement%20in%20instances.png

(the A and B are reference points)

And on collapsing it handles the displacement correctly by giving it the correct angle. This goes wrong in vbsp.
 

Gale

L1: Registered
Aug 28, 2016
38
14
If you subdivide the sides of a cube to make a cylinder, and change the scale to 2 it will make a nice looking pillar! I've deleted the tops and the bottoms so you can see the shape better on the grid:
ss+(2016-08-31+at+12.33.44).jpg
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,694
2,579
"Affected." And... ooh! I got one! It's only sort of a displacement thing, but blend textures don't work underwater. Check it:

C489167A9C4A29039243EE2B65E517A22DD54E0D


30506F55F9B60BE696C20418485527AAB0160FEE


It's really weird and I don't know if anyone ever talks about it.
 

Blade x64

Logical insanity
aa
Sep 3, 2009
239
633
Dislacement blends still work, the issue is that blendmodulates do not when viewed through the water shader/vis system.
fFVGsRe.jpg
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,694
2,579
That's what I meant by "blend textures"; I keep forgetting the proper name.
 

henke37

aa
Sep 23, 2011
2,075
515
That's because you mix up textures with materials.
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,694
2,579
No, it's a texture. It's a red-and-green texture that determines how the other textures blend. If I had said that blend materials don't work, that would have been wrong, as Blade pointed out.
 

Skittelz

L6: Sharp Member
Mar 17, 2016
399
281
Off-grid displacements can't sew with other off-grid displacements. BUT if the displacement is half sized (and on one edge of the other displacement) it will sew together. For example:

Before and After (off-grid)
dis.PNG

Before (equivalent)
diss.PNG

After (equivalent)
DISSED!.PNG

Works with halves
dinn.PNG

DINNE_%20wut.PNG
 

Idolon

they/them
aa
Feb 7, 2008
2,105
6,106

That's just how displacements work. They have to share an edge (or exactly half an edge) to able to sew to each other. The grid has nothing to do with it.