Posts by NihiL

Here's an update for my map de_spice for the playtest tomorrow (Tuesday 30th June): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42455/de_spice_v16.zip

This is de_spice_v16.bsp

Hopefully it can be updated on the server in-time, it features some pretty big optimization improvements.

@jackophant I have a 'swimming pool' or skeleton of nodraws under my displacements already unfortunately! Nice thinking, though!

r_lockpvs sounds great, I will try and see what's happening exactly!

Thanks guys, it looks like my only way out at the moment is using hint/skip...

Episode 3 is out which talks about displacements and how to surround them so you don't get leaks. Also how to alpha blend textures and sew properly.

Thanks for watching, as always, and let me know if you have any suggestions for future topics. And, if this is too spammy to keep posting new episodes here, please also let me know and I will stop, don't want to step on any toes!

Thanks @Single for typing that out. I wasn't aware of that decal material property, good to know what the cause of this is!

About the vvis issue: thanks for making such a long post! I was unfortunately already aware of the way bsp/vis works and how func_details are used haha so that was, while very nicely written and hopefully helpful to others, not exactly news to me I have already func_detailed absolutely everything that isn't 'big' and blocks line of sight, every stair, arch, small trim/outline brush etc.

So let's stop talking about the compile time then, as you say correctly, it's CPU-dependant, I'm on an i5-4690k and 3k numportals take me 3 min as I said, but that's alright I guess. I just thought that vvis was supposed to take longer, talking about a full large defusal map that's fully detailed and 'done' here.

I did run around my level with mat_wireframe 1 after watching the tophatwaffle guide to map optimization and noticed that there are a lot of areas where vvis failed completely and the ENTIRE map is being rendered. Example:

[Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/EZsyNki.jpg]

There's LOTS of issues in other places of the map where vvis got it completely wrong - and yes, those houses left and right are world brushes. I don't know why I can see through all these world brushes according to vvis. So either I find a way to get vvis to work correctly again or I use one hell of a lot of hint brushes to make sure it's all cut up correctly... Sigh!

Thanks again for your very detailed answer, Single!

Quote from laminutederire

I understood, I said that because sometimes a non-optimal optimization make the compiler to be weird and it leads to compiling too fast because it overlooks things, which it thinks they are too complicated, and optimizing can help him figure it out and it can deal with it

Quote from FireWarp

That's too bad :(. My only guess would be that hammer is somehow overwriting your custom compilation parameters. To check if that's true, compile vis on fast and compare it with normal settings. What fast compile does is that it actually checks whether or not the visleafs created by vbsp are correct and that's pretty much iit. Whilst on normal setting vvis performs portal flow correctly, making source cull parts of your map during gameplay. All of this means that fast vvis does pretty much NOTHING. Compiling without vvis shouldn't make any difference

Thanks for the answers! @laminutederire: okay and with optimization you mean hint/skip brushes at this point, right? Because everything else that I'm aware of (nodraw and func_details) I've already done to the map, as I said. @FireWarp: Nah, fast vvis actually is done within less than a second for my map so it's not like Hammer is doing an actual fast vvis when it should do a full vvis. It's somehow not doing the full vvis right apparently...

In general, your walls should be 128 units high but that's a 'baseline' if you will. When actually greyboxing I wouldn't obsess over that kinda stuff too much. Put the brushes down the way they feel right, then adjust later for the texture that you choose. That's the way I do it anyways.

@laminutederire I don't think you understood my problem? vis is compiling too fast, not too slow. It's suspiciously fast and ingame it seems like it did 'a bad job'. I didn't change much about the map at all. Don't want to sound too aggressive, it sounds like you misunderstood my issue tho!

@FireWarp I haven't changed my skybox at all unfortunately. I've even gone ahead and changed it now (brought the ceiling down as far as possible) just to see and it doens't change anything.

So right now I optimized my map to have pretty much exactly 3k portals and vis takes a blazing 4 minutes only. Way too fast surely? On full settings with the slowest preset in Expert mode? No errors in the compile log (should I post that, would anybody look at it?) and map is optimized with func_details and nodraw but no hints/skips yet.

If anybody has any additional ideas or anything please let me know. This is kinda ruining my map when it used to be just fine optimization-wise, very frustrating because, again, I didn't really change much except add some func_details.

@onebit: Cool, will do that next!

Today I released Episode 2 in which I briefly recap texture alignment and nodraw, then show a method to get 'perfect' arches and finally talk a bit about func_details.

As always, I hope this helps, let me know if it did, if you have topic suggestions for the future or if you've got any other feedback on my videos. Cheers!

Haha thanks everybody. I was very nervous to post this here with all you experts. And naming the series 'advanced' was... risky... I thought. Because as an expert, it's all too easy to look down on this and scream "THAT'S SO EZ LOL I KNOW HOW TO THAT" hehe.

Aaanyways, it's very motivating to hear this this of value to some and I can only get better at these kinds of videos. I'll produce the next one tomorrow and focus on arches probably.

Thanks for the ideas so far. @3Dnj: Are you saying I should compile my maps FAST VIS? That's the first time I've EVER heard that so allow me to ask for other opinions on this? As for the decals, they are certainly normal decals:

[Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/8CzzizN.png]

That's an example of a flickering decal. Any further ideas?

@FireWarp: I have, it doesn't make any difference

@laminutederire: I'm aware of how important optimization is, I was asking my question because I used to get good in-game performance with VIS that took long, as expected, and now for no apparent reason it goes by much quicker during compilation (like 10x faster but not instant like actual FAST VIS) and I get way worse in-game performance (ie. FPS). And that's what puzzles me as I didn't do much except add a couple more func_details.

Thanks for the input so far, again. Do let me know if there are more ideas you guys have, I'll also continue to investigate.

If this is going to become a general Q and A thread, I have 2 questions:

1.) Some decals, when I put them down with the overlay tool, flicker in Hammer. Is there any known workaround/fix for this? It's pretty damn annoying when I want to align them and have to move the camera to even get the full decal to show up in the 3D view.

2.) I used to do a full compile in expert mode (the preset with "(slow!)" in the name) and that would take ~2 hours for VVIS alone on ~4k portals. End result was good, my map ran well as it should. Then, for testing purposes, I've done a number of compiles on FAST VIS using the normal page as opposed to the expert page on the F9 dialog. Now when I go to the expert tab again and select the full slow compile preset, VVIS is done suspiciously fast (but not like if it was on FAST, if VVIS is on fast, it goes by within seconds, right now it's 10-15 minutes for 3.5k portals) and I get some pretty big optimization issues/FPS drops. Has anybody ever come across this issue? Can anybody recommend good render parameters for final shipping?

Thanks ahead of time.

Ah okay, that I understand, the warehouse (B bombsite) should probably look universally nicer. I can do that!

Thanks, please do make that texturing post, I'm very interested!

Thanks @Vaya for taking a look.

#1 Optimization: I don't worry about until I'm basically done with the actual map. Apart from func_details (if you played the most recent version there shouldn't have been any stairs/arches that weren't func_details tho) I have NOT used hint/skip brushes yet at all. Comes later in my workcycle. Having said that, I'm currently trying to investigate and solve a VERY weird issue where suddenly my vvis takes WAY less time then it used to even when I'm doing a normal full vvis in expert mode. I have ~3.5k portals and it used to take ~1.5 hours for vvis alone, now it does it in 10 minutes and I have no idea why. And that's where most of the FPS drops are coming from, the map USED to run much better when vvis took the full 1.5 hours. No idea currently, might open a thread in the 3d section of this forum to ask for help.

#2 Setting: As I said in my original post, one of the issues I'm aware of with this map is the lack of distinct setting. It's supposed to be Middle East. Since it's simply too late to change the setting of the entire map, I was asking for those places where it sticks out the most, so I can fix these at least. Maybe I'm just really bad at it, but as far as textures go, how do you tell the difference between, quote, Middle East and Mirage-style Africa for example? I don't see that. And about the office area, what makes that Office 'un-Middle-Eastern'? I'm trying to understand what I'm looking for here. To me it looks like an Office that could literally be anywhere in the world? The thought that everything has to be run-down and, well, shitty and third-world-country-like just because it's in the Middle East seems a bit... wrong? So my question is: what makes it look European?

One of the biggest things I've learned from the map so far is to go with more references, as you say, @jackophant. Again, it's just simply too late to change the overall feel right now, so I'm trying to do whatever I can to 'hack' in and fix the style where it stands out as 'mixed' or wrong the most.

Hey all, I make YouTube videos and have been asked to talk about advanced concepts when it comes to mapping in Hammer, so I started a little series. I don't go over the basics (making brushes, applying textures, putting down entities like player spawns, props etc.) because there's already more than enough high-quality video tutorial content out there on these topics, but instead I talk about more advanced topics; how to make the most of Hammer, how to work efficiently with it and who knows what else haha.

This first episode briefly goes over unit scale and then focuses in on how to get textures to look good and trims. I expect a lot of you experienced Hammer users to know all this already but maybe this is still of some interest to some of you that are not quite total beginner but also aren't experts yet?

Do let me know if this helped you out and if you want to see more. Cheers!

(I also hope a shameless self-promotion post is okay here on Mapcore, it DOES have the goal of helping others and is relevant at least? )

Okay the radar issue for Spice should be fixed now, this time I've only included the bsp in the zip archive, everything should be packed into it appropriately: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42455/de_spice_v14.zip

Thanks!

EDIT: Cheers, Spice is now green, yay! Looking forward to the 30th!

Hey there, I turned in my map de_spice for playtesting on the 30th of June last night. I'm currently recompiling the map because the suffix was missing and I need to rebuild a nav mesh as well as the cubemaps because I forgot to do that. Will edit in an updated Dropbox link!

EDIT: Here's the new link: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42455/de_spice_v14.zip Please replace this in the document and also change the filename to "de_spice_v14.bsp"

EDIT2: Apparently radar isn't working? The map has a radar map which works locally on my end and on the workshop. How do I get it to show up for the contest in the 'raw' bsp distribution? How are other people doing this? Do I just stick the .dds radar map texture into the zip file so people place it in their resources/overview folder themselves?

Thanks Vaya. The theme is a big issue with this map, I see what you mean. Please do run around the map and give me some more feedback, that'd be greatly appreciated. Maybe if you could point out textures that feel off the most? I've looked at it for a year now and I'm starting to lose my ability to tell hehe.

There are actually a lot of displacements but I don't think they're emphasized enough, gotta paint them more intense I think. Good point on the ground detail though, I'll see where I can introduce more maybe.

Cheers!

Thanks @Vorontsov! Anything in particular that stands out to you as far as the visuals are concerned? I'm currently hard at work to make sure the map looks as nice as possible.

Not sure if anybody is still following this because it's getting pretty lonely in here haha. I just pushed out a big update to the workshop. Please do run around in the up-to-date map and let me know what you think, what could still be improved.

STEAM WORKSHOP LINK[/b] http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/fi…s/?id=271742721

ALSO: Spice has now been in development for exactly 1 year! Pretty cool, it came a long, long way!

And another update video, in case anybody is watching these hehe:

In this one I talk about the default CT stance or position that I envision for the map and how that affects the way I come up with layouts.

Let me know if you have any thoughts or anything!

I'll be back with more screenshots and possibly a stream later this week probably!