artpass_macgta

[Macgta]

hello all

first time on the forums but the contest seemed like a good idea mainly for practice, as i was working on pretty much the same thing (art pass for another map). Main them i've decided is a quarry setting, and daytime; don't have much time to work on this and i will probably progress quite slow but i will try to upload screens and keep progress up to date anyway

 

[Macgta]

Just to reitterate i AM working on this and i am making progress, but i feel the screenshots are a bit irrelevant at this stage given that i have not yet worked out what lighting i am going to use, and as such will only be uploading hammer screenshots.

 

[Macgta]

Figured it'd be a good idea to post this now so i don't save it till it's too late;

Having just finished the outside area i have sealed the map and have started to work on the 3D skybox (it's not complex, but the map setting does require it) and i am having quite a serious problem in terms of leaks. I have sealed the map fully, and sealed the last few leaks using the pointfile; The wierd thing is, if i delete a certain leaked entity, the map will not compile (vvis.exe will take 100% CPU). But if i leave the leaked entity in the map, the map will compile fine except the 3D skybox will not work. If anyone can help me fix this i'd appreciate it.

I apologize if this issue is incredibly trivial and easy to fix, but i am relatively new to mapping and don't really know any better.

 

[YM]

What is that entity? Is it a prop or a brush entity?

Either way, it's origin is outside of the map.

If it's a prop, select it so you can see it's origin (red/green/blue axis floating in mid air) and build a little box out of nodraw around it and attach it to the rest of the map in a discrete way.

If it's a brush based entity turn on helpers and select it, you should see a blue sphere at the leak, on the 2D views there will be a little white circle, just drag that inside the map. (preferably to the centre of the brush.)

 

[Macgta]

The entity is a prop_static; Well the issue was that if i remove the leaked entity altogether the map won't compile, so ironically it only works when its there.

 

[Draco18s]

Just make your no-draw walls thicker. Origins inside brushes don't leak.

 

[Macgta]

Just made a quick "breakthrough". The entity leak i mentioned above actually has nothing to do with the vvis.exe 100% CPU thing. For some reason it only does it when the map is sealed. I unsealed the map and recompiled just to check and it works, only it skips vvis.exe. I'm quite new to this and im not exactly sure what vvis.exe does.

 

[YM]

Your breakthrough is actually somewhat of a misnomer. Your map will have fatal errors if you have leaks, and it's meant to hit 100% with vvis. vvis compiles the visability stuff for better performance ingame. It's at 100% cause it's calculating as hard as it can and it has a lot of stuff to work out.

It is supposed to be at 100%. It does not reach 100% with the leak, or even 0%, since it won't run if there is a leak, which is bad. Leaks are evil, evil things and vvis must run for any map that is being released, for testing locally though you can skip it.

If "your map doesn't compile" because vvis is at 100% for ages then you just need to learn some optimisation techniques, like func_details for example. vvis for a finished map should be under 10 minutes. My artpass map currently only takes about 50 seconds for vvis to run, though I have an i7 so I'd say the average pc/map combo are probably looking at ~2 minutes for vvis. It varies lots depending on how good your optimisation is, but generally it should be shorter, but sometimes a longer calculation will actually give better results.

 

[Macgta]

I wasn't going to compile the map with a leak that was just testing stuff. Anyway i tried compiling the sealed map with fast vvis and it works so i'll try optimizing it fully before going any further, i really am quite new to source mapping so most of this is new to me; anyway thanks for your advice, i appreciate it

 

[Macgta]

Few screenshots in its near-finished stage

 

[tyler]

Get rid of some of those ladders and use something else. Looks good!

 

[Draco18s]

Get rid of some of those ladders and use something else. Looks good!

This. The double-width ladder looks terrible.

 

[Pocket]

It's a double ladder all the way up to the bridge! What does it mean?!!!

 

[Macgta]

Damn; hoped you didnt spot it - There is still a lot i need to do in terms of detail, and im having a lot of issues with optimization; hopefully i get it done in time.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

Nice displacements.

 

[lana]

Disable the shadows on some of those fences.

 

[Macgta]

*Fixed the shadows and lighting on props now; All thats left to do is add a bit of detail to the skybox and RED base, and it's done! Only issue being optimization; i have absolutely no clue what i'm doing despite reading quite a few tutorials on it. I've laid down some areaportals and an occluder between BLU spawn and the 2nd RED cap, but that's about it; Anything else i do seems to throw up a fuss when it compiles.