How would I add vis hints in this situation?

[kimangroo]

Calling all optimisation experts...

I've got to the stage in my map where I should probably start adding hints and stuff to keep compile times down and fps up.

I've looked at some tutorials and I thought I understood the basics of optimization, but now that it comes down to it I'm not sure what the best approach would be in this section of my map:



The pipe cylinder connects the top and bottom room and is a func_detail (may become a prop later) but of course I don't want to render the middle room when you are in the top or bottom rooms etc...

So this is where I'm confused. Even if I add some square hint brushes around the cylinder, because it's a func_detail it's not going to block visibility and everything is going to get rendered anyway.

All I can think of is walling off the cylinder with 4 rectangular brushes, but that will ruin the look of the layout for me and I'd rather avoid that if possible.

Is there anyway to optimise this layout, or will I have to make the cylinder a world brush and just put up with huge vvis compile times to make it playable?

Thanks for any help!

 

[Paria]

the only way i can think of doing it if you want the pipe to look like a pipe from the inside and outside is either- move it back the world - or make the pipe thick enough to be able to place a simpler no draw geometry inside it on all edges.

 

[Paria]

ok just had a quick play around in hammer to make a quick and dirty example

using a cylinder as world geometry you get the first screenshot, making a rectangular "pipe" of nodraw and then making the cylindrical pipe func_detail you get the second example,

Literally this is a 5 min example in hammer so i'm sure you could make it even better

i've included the vmf file in the zip for a very rough example.

 

[kimangroo]

Hey thanks a lot for the vmf and the piccy Paria! That's a great idea.

I fiddled about with your example and I think what I'll do is have a nice smooth pipe-looking 32 sided cylinder as the func_detail and instead of a square shape inside it, I'll put a 5 or 6 sided cylinder in it instead. That way I can find a compromise between pipe wall thickness and number of vis leaves.

Thanks again.