difference btwn nodraw, invisible, and skip textures

[EmNudge]

I know a few things about each of these tool textures, but not exactly how and when to use them.
I use invisible for solid, impenetrable walls and skip for one sided windows.

I used nodraw on outsides of non-viewable brushes as I believe it isn't rendered and just takes up space.

can anyone give me some more info on the differences and when to use them?

 

[tyler]

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Tool_textures

Sounds like you should be using clip or playerclip instead of invisible, and sounds like you're not using skip correctly.

If you can't figure out why based on this wiki page let me know.

 

[The Asylum]

I've got nothing better to do so I'll explain

Nodraw is used to seal maps. Because the texture itself is opaque, entities can't leak through it. Invis and skip brushes can't do that.

Invis is vestigial, unless you don't feel like editing visgroups. Then it's useful to see through invisible walls while mapping.

Skip is like invis, but has added functionality to be used with hint textures for optimization. AFAIK an invis-hint brush combo won't work like a proper skip-hint brush combo does. Skip faces are deleted from the compiled map