Mapping Questions Megathread V6

[VIOLATION]

the compile window going into "not responding" will happen essentially every single time you compile and is not indicative of the compile failing or having issues.

are you letting the compiles ever finish, and if so how long are they taking? try compiling in fast settings or only compiling the bsp (not vrad or vvis) to check for leaks, other problems etc.
if it's taking an incredibly long time and isn't super large or complex of a map then you've definitely got some important issues you're overlooking

[dlight]

Even when the window freezes or you terminate the compile, the log should be printed into the log file in your mapsrc folder.

[Leigh]

I haven't been letting the compiles finish, it just stays on the compile screen for about 10 or even 15 minutes and then I just get sick of waiting.

[ficool2]

Leave it compiling overnight if you don't have patience.

[Leigh]

I left it compiling for two hours while I made dinner, and I just came back and it's still stuck on the portal flows :suicide:

[VIOLATION]

do a compile without vvis or vrad and see if there aren't any major errors or leaks

[Leigh]

That fixed it, turning off vrad, but now I've run into a separate problem: I'm trying to create a propper model from a displacement, but propper won't work since I assume that the displacement is too thin to count as a propper model. How do I fix this?

[joeyjumper]

for some reason, hint/skip brushes are casting shadows

[joeyjumper]

and there's nothing in the compile log to suggest this should happen

https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/157284/e183911b-4e49-4bb4-b71a-749c265ce799/19-18-44.png

[Kalimando]

The only thing I can think of is perhaps you have a non-tool texture on a brush with a skip face. All the faces of a brush must be a tool texture when skip is on a face or it will bug out.

Make sure they are all tool textures (and nodraw doesn't count by the way as it still adds collision)

[Mr.Kleiner]

I have total distruction of my hammer..... *.bsp wont update and map looks like this ! I tried to do everythinh: hide all areaportals, hide everything except simple geometry and static props. Nothing helped. Can someone help me ? please One more thing: i tried to copy entire map to new vmf Not works But i have a microbrush (Not my fault - i'm working on map with my friend and he did this). Compile log:

https://youtu.be/V5tqTNgQO7A

[joeyjumper]

overlay touching too many faces (touching 108, max 64)
overlay decals/scorch2model at -614.9 -2592.9 447.0

Description:
You have an overlay
(info_overlay) entity that is touching too many brushes, or parts of a
brush. The error message tells you also how much you have and allowed
(touching 108, max 64)

Solution:
You can find
the overlay using the coordinates. View -> go to coordinates( -614.9
-2592.9 447.0 ) You can delete, move or resize the overlay.

This error will cause your map to fail compiling completely

Interlopers.net <-- site to put your compile logs to check for errors

[DesertFoxZalem5]

Heyoo i have another question, Do you guys use instancing? and why does it appear in the 2013 hammer when online it says and only supported l4d2 and later?

[FestiSaumon]

Help guys, I've been trying to make some displacements for an inclined AND curved road for the past few days and i'm slowly losing my sanity over it :

https://i.imgur.com/ldXyRsG.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/dGizFeP.jpg

The only "working" solution i've found is to create displacements at the lowest level possible so that i can then "zip up" everything at the correct height, but now i'm having problems connecting it to the next part...

https://i.imgur.com/ckOVxmj.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/iQ3FVvc.jpg

Every other solutions i've tried ended up with incorrect geometry.

[Firegod522]

Check out Smooth curved and sloped roads using displacements

[FestiSaumon]

I'm using this to see the meaning of log errors : HL.LOGOUT.FR ( its in french tho )
These are the critical errors that most likely are breaking your map :

Occluder "" straddles multiple areas. This is invalid!
-> You've got one func_occluder that touch one areaportal ( or is between two leafs ), try disabling your func_occluders.

NODRAW on terrain surface! 
-> You cannot use nodraw on a displacement, try to find the bad displacement or disable them altogether.

Overlay touching too many faces (touching 108, max 64)
-> One of the overlay you're using is touching 108 faces ! for a maximum of 64 only.

[Leigh]

would anyone happen to know how to create a winding staircase such as this in a small space?

https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/113201/06545147-1aa0-4ffd-a89d-acb64535c23a/download.png

[Blueberry_pie]

More of a modeling question, but I figure this forum deals with static props more:

https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/132366/569bd23d-017d-447c-afba-f3cc9e7e1402/2018-06-18 19-27-08.mp4

All of these trees are merged into a single model (for performance reasons) but the whole thing lights up in this horrid manner whenever a light_dynamic is inside its bounding box. This only happens when collisions are enabled on the model. Any ideas on how to get around this, aside from splitting the collisions into a separate, invisible model?

My QC and VMT files are as follows. Using $bbox to override the bounding box size to something much smaller just seems to prevent the model from rendering in-game.

$modelname "boreas/exterior/trees01"
$model "body" "trees01.smd"
$sequence idle "trees01.smd" fps 30.00

$cdmaterials "models/boreas/exterior"
$staticprop

$surfaceprop "wood"
$collisionmodel "trees01_phys.smd"
{
    $concave
    $maxconvexpieces 100
}

VertexLitGeneric
{
    $basetexture "models/boreas/exterior/foliage"
    $surfaceprop "wood"

    $alphatest 1
    $allowalphatocoverage 1
    $nocull 1
}

[dlight]

Bury the $illumposition underneath the floor. It should be inside a brush aka outside of the visible and brush world incase you use displacements. The trees should not light up at all then.

[Blueberry_pie]

Still the same behaviour, sadly

[dlight]

Gotta add what i forgot. An info_lighting (being an internal entity) should do the same trick and should be able to be recycled if you have more batches that need this black room light.

[Blueberry_pie]

I thought about that too, but it doesn't seem to have the same effect as $illumposition. I believe it's only used by VRAD when per-vertex lighting is disabled on a prop_static.

Recycling isn't an issue in this case. All of my tree batches have the same origin, so I can simply use the same $illumposition on each of them

[taz010]

to get Instances working in src 2013 hammer use this GitHub

[Leigh]

What would be the best light_environment parameters to achieve this late afternoon sun effect?

https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/113201/7e0c3579-c78f-4040-a2ec-8b1631135d7f/download.png

https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/113201/85e321e7-6c5a-4553-a1cf-cc5f37038647/download (1).png