Areaportals

Jack Ruby · Post by **Jack Ruby** » Fri Jun 18, 2004 9:32 am

Wheat, I hoped you would find the gensurf plugin inside that zip.

It builds terrain from brushes, so it might be better for your fps than the meshes you have right now.

It might be worth a try, though I guess you would need to make a couple of practice terrains before you attempt using it on your almost complete map.

agentmad007 · Post by **agentmad007** » Fri Jun 18, 2004 12:02 pm

corrupted zip ......cant unzip

Jack Ruby · Post by **Jack Ruby** » Fri Jun 18, 2004 4:01 pm

uploaded the zip again, hope it works

Wheat · Post by **Wheat** » Fri Jun 18, 2004 4:42 pm

Its still corrupted. I get this when I open it, "unexpected end of archive."

Jack Ruby · Post by **Jack Ruby** » Fri Jun 18, 2004 7:12 pm

Dont know why it corrupted, I zipped it up again and uploaded to a different server, maybe this time it'll work.

www.bikesandpeds.com/plugins2.zip

Wheat · Post by **Wheat** » Fri Jun 18, 2004 7:43 pm

Sweet, it works. Tried it out and its a bit confusing. Not sure what to do with it. Any tutorials on this plugin?

Jack Ruby · Post by **Jack Ruby** » Sat Jun 19, 2004 12:14 am

I am pretty sure you import grayscale bmp's, with say white being high ground black being low ground ( or vice versa ) you then import them and it builds a terrain from the image, similar to LOD.

Dont quote me on anything I just said there as I only played with gensurf a couple times myself.

Try a google search and a search on here for gensurf,

Wheat · Post by **Wheat** » Sat Jun 19, 2004 5:35 am

I have solved my fps problem. I have massive sized brushes that are caulked on all faces you can't see. I looked around on these forums and found that the caulk texture adds to the visdatasize but the draw does not. So for a quick experiment i applied that no draw texture replacing most of the caulk. Compiled my map with two vis_leafgroups (which i could not do before) and my visdatasize was cut in half. Because of that, i can use the leafgroups to help my fps where before i could not.

Wheat · Post by **Wheat** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 4:38 pm

Okay, I have reconstructed major parts of my map. It is lookin a lot better then it did before. But I am still having major trouble with my areaportals not working. It still says, "areaportal brush 1 does not touch to areas." something like that. And sometimes it will say that about the same brush more then once. EX:

areaportal brush 1 does not touch to areas.
areaportal brush 1 does not touch to areas.
areaportal brush 1 does not touch to areas.

That is how it shows up during the compile. Wierd no? I made sure that there are no holes. I used my detailed filter and made sure that everything inside is enclosed with structural brushes. Tjhe Areaportal sticks out of the door on all sides except the front and back and goes into the structural brush. I have three doors on three different levels leading into my tower. I have spent many hours of trying to get this to work and have had no success. Are there someother variables that I am not aware of?

tltrude · Post by **tltrude** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 6:51 pm

I don't think nodraw is structural, but I'm not sure. The area outside the buildings (inclosed by the skybox) is considered one area. So, if the skybox is not sealed, and/or the building/room area is not sealed, you will get that error. So, you must look closely for leaks between the two areas.

It helps if you filter out details, entities, and patches from your view--they are all invisible to vis--so is LOD terrain.

Wheat · Post by **Wheat** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 7:50 pm

everything here is textured on all sides. Plus, I have used all caulk this time. I'll try and take a closer look and then I will get back here. THanks

bdbodger · Post by **bdbodger** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 10:36 pm

maybe take the building you are trying to seal and make it a prefab and put it into a map with no skybox then try to compile it if there is a hole it will show up in the pointfile . Just make sure your info_player start is inside the building although now that I think of it if you are not going to try to play it then you don't have to do that . I guess or maybe you do so you have at least one entity inside it .

Wheat · Post by **Wheat** » Fri Jul 02, 2004 4:39 am

Well, I found no holes in my tower. I have no entities either.

But, my vis datasize is now down to 284744 because of the help of Bjarne! So, I want to say thanks to him for all his help. He took lots of time explaining a lot of stuff to me. Once I took his advice the results were amazing. I have only compiled my map using fast vis. Now, that my vis is low it should compile fairly fast without the fast vis option? I am going to do this first before i mess anymore with the areaportals because I have read that it could increase your fps around 20 all over the map. IF that happens, i'll be set. But, I also heard, that vis is stupid! That it may not make a difference.