.Map :: MoHAA Mapping

I wanted to compile my map with vis enabled, so i closed the gap in my skybox. When it started everything was just fine, but then i started wit vis-compiling, when it reached 27% and the time remaining was 23 hours , so is this normal or not, by the way i have got a AMD athlon 1700+.
What can i do the decrease the time to compile, please help

If your map is really big, with allot of entities and lots of models and stuff, youll bee compiling that long..

Hmm, you can make some of the brushes Detail, not all of them certain ones, like say a fuse box on a wall can be made detail, use your common sense anything that is just a detail change to detail. Select the brush, right click and Make Detail.

Also in the vis options in mbuilder you can change the blocksize, not sure if this will actually make it compile faster but as far as I know its a good thing to do, go into the vis options and type this _blocksize 0

Or after all you may just have a huge map and its gonna take a while to compile, I wouldnt believe the 23 hour message, I'm not sure how accurate it is at predicting how long its gonna take, maybe its correct I dont know.

The map is not that big, maybe smaller the the hunt. But if i compile wit a hole in skybox then the compiling is 2 min. so vis is not enabled, and if compile with a skybox without a hole, it took 6 hours when vis 23% and then it will take 23 hours, according the the compile program. Just madness.

My has 3276 brushes and 1112 entities.

How big is the visdatasize?

If you havn't used "detail" then do so.

My vis-data is 2.2 mb

What is the difference between a brush that is detailed and a brush that is not detailed?

2.2 meg of vis data and 1112 entities!!! I hope you have a Cray1 to compile and run it. Vis data you can deal with by converting brushes to detail. But, 1112 entities is way too many (unless 90% of them are AI paths).

Detail brushes (Ctrl + D) are ignored by the vis compile. I have seen big savings in compile time by just making steps, ladders (the fake brushes), railings, and ramps into detail brushes.

You have to be careful not to make everything detail because it can effect the light compile too. And, never, never make your skybox brushes detail.

You are lucky you are not getting an error because 2.2Mb is the max for visdata.

I have maked most brushed detailed except the skybox and some roads. Now visdata size is: 123016 (121 kb)

I hope this is better know. I'm now to work, and see if the compiling is ready when i come back.

Not every brush should be made into detail, just the ones that don't block the view. That means that walls, ceilings, floors etc should be structural. When you filter on detail you should have the basic room remaining but no details as in railings, doorframes, ledges etc.

I don't really understand why people compile their maps with a hole in the skybox!! Right! you will get a fast compile and take a look but you MUST compile it with full vis at a regular basis!! You can't wait until done, you will get a nasty surprise!! I bet your map (before you detailed) would take months to compile!

Try and learn and understand what VIS is....large VIS data does not have to be the same as weeks of compiling time! A well laid out map can have large VIS data, take relativly short time to compile, and will probably have good FPS

I think you will get terrible FPS in your map if you have "detailed" it down to a vis of 100k instead of 2.2 mb....I hope you have detailed the right brushes!!.....

This might help a bit......VIS for dummies

Another tip to reduce on compiletimes (and a little on visdatasize) is to avoid odd formed structural brushes like ones that remain after (bad) CSG substract or brushes that are clipped all over the place or ones with zillion faces.

Avoid also overlapping in structural brushes. Example a duplicate brush in your skybox can already multiple compiletimes by ten or more.

As TheStorm said: A big visdatasize does not always mean long compiles. You can compile a good map with 2M visdata in 2 hours and a map with 80k in few weeks.

Von