[Solved] Skybox is causing optimization issues

[Kill_the_Bug]

Ok during playtesting a couple of you mentioned that the fps sucked and that it also lagged in a couple of other places. I may have found the source of the issue.

When I went into the fianl cap zone at one part of the map with mat_wireframe 3 on I looked up and saw that my entire map was being drawn in the skybox area although it wasn't being seen in game, When I did this my fps also went from 299 ish down to 25 fps so something is going on.

Any ideas to solve the issue? Currently my skybox box (where I have my planets and other props) is on one side of the map and slighty down a bit which would explain the angle of the map that I saw when I looked up at it. I'm using the 3D skybox method.

Should I try to rebuild the skybox, and is the procedure still the same - sky camera at 0 0 0 then move it?

Also I've seen on a couple of maps that some people will put a nodraw texture on the exterior of their skybox blocks, where I've just usually left the block as a block with the entire block covered in the skybox tecture.

I've also though about puting in 1 block cover with a block line of site texture but not sure if that would help.

My map is a bitch to optimize due to all the various heights of items and I can really only use area portals in some spots but I really think that it's the above item that's bringing the entire thing down.

I guess in other words, how do I keep my skybox from rendering my entire map in the skybox of my map?

thanks

 

[Tiftid]

From what you're saying, it seems like your sky_camera is in the same "box" (I should certainly hope your skybox isn't just one box) as the rest of your map. What you need to do is just make a hollow box in the void and shove the stuff you want in the 3D skybox in there, that way the sky_camera can't see any part of the main map.

Also, whether or not you put nodraw on the outside of skybox brushes doesn't matter, since VBSP just removes faces that are touching the void, no matter what texture they have.

 

[Kill_the_Bug]

I have the skycamera inside a rotating func_brush (box) with light, brushes and props. the inner face of this brush has my universe texture applied to it - this is what you see in game. All of this is inside another box and that box has the skybox texture applied to it.

 

[Kill_the_Bug]

I moved my skybox up and over the top of the grid that seems to have solved the problem