Locating degenerate faces?

[Piesofthesky]

Simple question: Is there a way to locate degenerate faces?

I have been trying to compile the newest version of my map, but I loaded up the map only to find that it is stuck in fullbright. I have been getting an error in my compile log that says "2 degenerate faces". Unlike with leaks, there is nothing in the log to tell me the location of the problem.

So far, I have tried deleting all of my new brushes and compiling without them, section by section. Unfortunately, it has been some time since I last tested the map, so I must have missed something, and I don't know where it could be.

 

[Kill_the_Bug]

use cordon tools and compile, compile, compile making each one smaller as you do - might even be a displcement i.e. you have a cube accidentally make it degenerate then make it a displacement so you can't see all the sided, since they don't really exist visually but the engine still sees the problem and crashes your map

 

[Da Spud Lord]

Degenerate faces are not usually an issue, both my DuskTillDawn entry and cp_cathedral have around 25. The issue likely lies elsewhere. Can you post your full compile log?

 

[Piesofthesky]

** Executing...
** Command: "D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\bin\vbsp.exe"
** Parameters: -game "D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\tf" "D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\tf\maps\hammer\koth_boxes_a3.vmf"

Valve Software - vbsp.exe (Sep 23 2019)
4 threads
materialPath: D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\tf\materials
Loading D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\tf\maps\hammer\koth_boxes_a3.vmf
ConVarRef mat_reduceparticles doesn't point to an existing ConVar
Patching WVT material: maps/koth_boxes_a3/swamp/nature/blendswampdirttograss001_wvt_patch
fixing up env_cubemap materials on brush sides...
ProcessBlock_Thread: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
ProcessBlock_Thread: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Processing areas...done (0)
Building Faces...done (1)
Chop Details...done (0)
Find Visible Detail Sides...
Merged 188 detail faces...done (0)
Merging details...done (0)
FixTjuncs...
PruneNodes...
WriteBSP...
done (0)
writing D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\tf\maps\hammer\koth_boxes_a3.prt...Building visibility clusters...
done (0)

FindPortalSide: Couldn't find a good match for which brush to assign to a portal near (46.4 22.0 62.2)
Leaf 0 contents: CONTENTS_SOLID
Leaf 1 contents: CONTENTS_SOLID CONTENTS_WINDOW CONTENTS_TRANSLUCENT
viscontents (node 0 contents ^ node 1 contents): CONTENTS_WINDOW
This means that none of the brushes in leaf 0 or 1 that touches the portal has CONTENTS_WINDOW
Check for a huge brush enclosing the coordinates above that has contents CONTENTS_WINDOW
Candidate brush IDs: Brush 125298:

Creating default LDR cubemaps for env_cubemap using skybox materials:
   skybox/sky_hydro_01*.vmt
! Run buildcubemaps in the engine to get the correct cube maps.
Creating default HDR cubemaps for env_cubemap using skybox materials:
   skybox/sky_hydro_01*.vmt
! Run buildcubemaps in the engine to get the correct cube maps.
Finding displacement neighbors...
Finding lightmap sample positions...
Displacement Alpha : 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10
Building Physics collision data...
done (0) (352209 bytes)
Placing detail props : 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10
Water found with no water_lod_control entity, creating a default one.
Compacting texture/material tables...
Reduced 1589 texinfos to 948
Reduced 40 texdatas to 33 (1227 bytes to 951)
Writing D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\tf\maps\hammer\koth_boxes_a3.bsp
Wrote ZIP buffer, estimated size 322209, actual size 320253
2 seconds elapsed

** Executing...
** Command: "D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\bin\vrad.exe"
** Parameters:  -game "D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\tf" -noextra "D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\tf\maps\hammer\koth_boxes_a3"

Valve Software - vrad.exe SSE (Sep 23 2019)

      Valve Radiosity Simulator     
4 threads
[Reading texlights from 'lights.rad']
unknown light specifier type - lights

[56 texlights parsed from 'lights.rad']

Loading d:\steam\steamapps\common\team fortress 2\tf\maps\hammer\koth_boxes_a3.bsp
No vis information, direct lighting only.
Setting up ray-trace acceleration structure... Done (1.13 seconds)
5605 faces
2 degenerate faces
1706882 square feet [245791008.00 square inches]
0 Displacements
0 Square Feet [0.00 Square Inches]
sun extent from map=0.087156
60 direct lights
BuildFacelights:     0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (11)
Build Patch/Sample Hash Table(s).....Done<0.0350 sec>
FinalLightFace:      0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (4)
FinalLightFace Done
0 of 0 (0% of) surface lights went in leaf ambient cubes.
ThreadComputeLeafAmbient: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (17)
Writing leaf ambient...done
Ready to Finish

Object names       Objects/Maxobjs  Memory / Maxmem  Fullness
------------       ---------------  ---------------  --------
models                  29/1024         1392/49152    ( 2.8%)
brushes                875/8192        10500/98304    (10.7%)
brushsides            6630/65536       53040/524288   (10.1%)
planes                4186/65536       83720/1310720  ( 6.4%)
vertexes              8148/65536       97776/786432   (12.4%)
nodes                 1928/65536       61696/2097152  ( 2.9%)
texinfos               948/12288       68256/884736   ( 7.7%)
texdata                 33/2048         1056/65536    ( 1.6%)
dispinfos                0/0               0/0        ( 0.0%)
disp_verts               0/0               0/0        ( 0.0%)
disp_tris                0/0               0/0        ( 0.0%)
disp_lmsamples           0/0               0/0        ( 0.0%)
faces                 5605/65536      313880/3670016  ( 8.6%)
hdr faces                0/65536           0/3670016  ( 0.0%)
origfaces             3563/65536      199528/3670016  ( 5.4%)
leaves                1958/65536       62656/2097152  ( 3.0%)
leaffaces             6606/65536       13212/131072   (10.1%)
leafbrushes           2125/65536        4250/131072   ( 3.2%)
areas                    3/256            24/2048     ( 1.2%)
surfedges            41366/512000     165464/2048000  ( 8.1%)
edges                23846/256000      95384/1024000  ( 9.3%)
LDR worldlights         60/8192         5280/720896   ( 0.7%)
HDR worldlights          0/8192            0/720896   ( 0.0%)
leafwaterdata            2/32768          24/393216   ( 0.0%)
waterstrips            308/32768        3080/327680   ( 0.9%)
waterverts               0/65536           0/786432   ( 0.0%)
waterindices          7071/65536       14142/131072   (10.8%)
cubemapsamples           2/1024           32/16384    ( 0.2%)
overlays                 0/512             0/180224   ( 0.0%)
LDR lightdata         [variable]     2225580/0        ( 0.0%)
HDR lightdata         [variable]           0/0        ( 0.0%)
visdata               [variable]           0/16777216 ( 0.0%)
entdata               [variable]       39533/393216   (10.1%)
LDR ambient table     1958/65536        7832/262144   ( 3.0%)
HDR ambient table     1958/65536        7832/262144   ( 3.0%)
LDR leaf ambient     13418/65536      375704/1835008  (20.5%)
HDR leaf ambient      1958/65536       54824/1835008  ( 3.0%)
occluders                0/0               0/0        ( 0.0%)
occluder polygons        0/0               0/0        ( 0.0%)
occluder vert ind        0/0               0/0        ( 0.0%)
detail props          [variable]           1/12       ( 8.3%)
static props          [variable]           1/37140    ( 0.0%)
pakfile               [variable]      320253/0        ( 0.0%)
physics               [variable]      352209/4194304  ( 8.4%)
physics terrain       [variable]           2/1048576  ( 0.0%)

Level flags = 0

Total triangle count: 15860
Writing d:\steam\steamapps\common\team fortress 2\tf\maps\hammer\koth_boxes_a3.bsp
34 seconds elapsed

** Executing...
** Command: Copy File
** Parameters: "D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\tf\maps\hammer\koth_boxes_a3.bsp" "D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\tf\maps\koth_boxes_a3.bsp"

 

[Piesofthesky]

You were right Spud Lord, my problem wasn't the degenerate faces. I had a "Texture axis perpendicular to face" issue too. I didn't know about the check for problems window.

 

[Da Spud Lord]

FindPortalSide: Couldn't find a good match for which brush to assign to a portal near (46.4 22.0 62.2) Leaf 0 contents: CONTENTS_SOLID Leaf 1 contents: CONTENTS_SOLID CONTENTS_WINDOW CONTENTS_TRANSLUCENT viscontents (node 0 contents ^ node 1 contents): CONTENTS_WINDOW This means that none of the brushes in leaf 0 or 1 that touches the portal has CONTENTS_WINDOW Check for a huge brush enclosing the coordinates above that has contents CONTENTS_WINDOW Candidate brush IDs: Brush 125298:

You should probably also fix this, if fixing the "Texture axis perpendicular to face" error didn't solve that. Also, whenever you do a lighting compile, run VVIS on fast otherwise your lighting will look bad.

 

[Pocket]

If I recall, the perpendicular texture thing happens if you get careless with Alt+Mouse2 texture wrapping, and causes the surface in question to glow red (as in literally emit red light, in compiles that are able to execute VRAD). That should make it easy to find the problem spot.