WiP in WiP, post your screenshots!

[Géza!]

Visleafs will be cut every 1024 units from the top view. (Marked with blue and brown lines)
Use Hint-brushes to make sure vvis wont to stupid things.

For some reason, some doorways I neatly prepared with hint brushes as to avoid problems still cause a doorway-sized visleaf to shoot off into the distance.

And then there's... This:

The sign thing is all func_detail, that is not the cause.

My god, visleafs just spaz out in the stupidest places, sometimes even AWAY from difficult geometry, but in the same basic shape. At what point are visleafs even optimized enough?

 

[Crash]

You should see the mess that is Probed's visleafs. 45* angle split with a circular world brush at the end of it.

 

[wareya]

>I just checked a few maps but on badwater, nucleus, upward and koth_badlands there windows were just normal brushes. they werent even func_detailed.

That's a decompilation problem. You will not find func_detailed transparent materials in decompiled maps.

For what it's worth, my SDK copy of badwater does have func_detailed windows in it in many places. The ones that aren't are inside of areaportals. I didn't check exhaustively.

 

[Pocket]

Come to think of it, does VRAD need -textureshadows or whatever it's called in order to let light through glass brushes that aren't func_brush'd? It's never come up before because I've never made anything with enough light going through a window to make a difference.

 

[Gadget]

Light will just travel through glass materials, doesn't matter if it's a world brush or entity. Textureshadows is for models only. See https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/VRAD

 

[Pocket]

That page didn't say anything about glass; is it just an unwritten special property of every material with its surfaceprop set to glass (and presumably also whatever chicken wire is), or is there something more complex going on?

 

[Géza!]

Where can I find a reference then as to how clean a map's visleafs ought to be to be playable and not cause performance loss?

And I'M still baffled as to why this is happening:

Shouldn't the hint brush in the doorway prevent this from happening?

 

[Uncuepa]

COMING PROBABLY TONIGHT

 

[Vel0city]

You'd think a func_viscluster makes one giant visleaf instead of 10 tiny ones, but no it doesn't. Damnit Valve.

 

[Uncuepa]

Pickups and finalising spawnrooms then release. Should be out in 20-30 minutes.

 

[Seba]

You'd think a func_viscluster makes one giant visleaf instead of 10 tiny ones, but no it doesn't. Damnit Valve.

func_viscluster doesn't change any leaves, it just tells VVIS that all the leaves within it can see each other at all times

 

[Vel0city]

func_viscluster doesn't change any leaves, it just tells VVIS that all the leaves within it can see each other at all times

That's what I said. And it's annoying to see that there's literary no way to tell VVIS that one area should only have ONE visleaf, not a bazillion.

 

[Géza!]

That's what I said. And it's annoying to see that there's literary no way to tell VVIS that one area should only have ONE visleaf, not a bazillion.

What are you taling about, clearly dividing up an area by the decorative brush splits in the walls is the best way to construct visleafs!

 

[3Dnj]

Viscluster don't merge leaves but calcutation times still is a lot faster and that's what count the most, not the number of leaves. Also it's up to you to reduce the number of leaves by using hint and other tips.

And Géza, you probably have a hammer 1024 unit line cuting your doorway. Every 1024 unit, vvvis is cutting the level in every direction (so a leaf can't be bigger than 1024*1024*1024) and if the hint doesn't work to avoid the door's leaves leaking, try using hint in another way (like covering a big part of the wall with a hint)

 

[Géza!]

I replaced that particular door's hint brush with an areaportal, 'cause that was my original intention anyway. The portal is tied to one of those small slide doors, but problem is, the areaportal seems to conceal the door from one side when closed, but not from the other... How do I solve this beside making the areaportal brush thinner than the wall?

 

[Kill_the_Bug]

I replaced that particular door's hint brush with an areaportal, 'cause that was my original intention anyway. The portal is tied to one of those small slide doors, but problem is, the areaportal seems to conceal the door from one side when closed, but not from the other... How do I solve this beside making the areaportal brush thinner than the wall?

Did you put the portal inside the door? Do you have it opened or closed when the door is closed? if no to the first but yes to the second is your answer.:thumbup1:

 

[Géza!]

I solved the problem, but the exact shape of the slide door model caused the void to be visible in a tiny strip.. I took to 2fort's spawn door areaportal for answers, and found it... Not tied to the door model at all? Apparently Valve doesn't bother with opening and closing areaportals for multiplayer, just keep 'em all open just in case. Perhaps I should do the same.

 

[Kill_the_Bug]

Geza - re your portals:

whn looking at your image I see a couple of things going on:

1. You have that ledge there that will make one of the lines and then the gap to the doorway the creates the second set.

2. Your hint brush is rectangluar - make it a pyramid - flat hint on the surface there with the pointy side inside the door with the skip texture on it.
3. You might be hitting the automatic portal every 1024 units.
4. You might be crossing the axis on the grid - if you can get your map all into 1 quadrant it does help a lot in cutting down the portals

 

[Géza!]

What difference does the shape of the skip-covered faces make? Also, the same visleaf shot off from the doorway even when I tried covering the whole wall in a hint surface in an act of desperation

As for moving the entire map into one quadrant- I've been thinking of that. Perhaps I'll do so! And the doorway IS hitting the automatic visleaf split- it's the one in the middle. It's the rest of 'em in the exact shape of the doorway that annoy me.

 

[Géza!]

Moving my map a good deal and realigning it to the colored gridlines made that visleaf mess go away.


Well then!

Progress picture time!