compile times:

[dime1622]

when i started my map, just with a few test things, my compile times were really low. however, i now have a decent sized open area, not too big, but no lighting other than sunlight. its taking FOREVER to compile, its on the PassagePortalFlow stage and its been on 4 for a long time. this would ahve taken maybe 30 mins to compile in call of duty or medal of honor, but its been almost two hours now. my visdata size is 198,728. when i tried using a batch file, it did this bounce thing and i quit it on the 4th time of 8 when it was taking forever long, then tried compiling thru radiant and it then took about 10 seconds. but now compiling thru radiant (i have a pretty beefy system) is going slower than ever.

id much prefer to run from a batch file, but this is taking soooooo long… what can i do?

[ThompZen]

well, i have a medium sized map i’m working on now, and the compiling takes about 10 seconds without lighting. maybe it’s your computer that’s too slow

[dime1622]

lol, theres no problems w/ me computer

i hit the X in the cmd window because i was sick of it taking so long, but it then went onto the bsp stage and finished compiling in about 5 seconds. weird. the only problem i experienced was that one of my custom textures (that sits in my etmain/textures/ dir) didnt show up. any ideas?

[ThompZen]

did you create a .shader for the texture not showing? maybe you should try reinstalling gtkradiant…

[Chruker]

I’m using this batch file for my compiling needs:

@ECHO OFF



:PATHS
SET MAP_NAME=border_crossing
SET GAME_PATH="G:\Games\Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory"
SET MAP_PATH="G:\Games\Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory\etmain\maps"
SET Q3MAP2_PATH=E:\Q3MAP2\q3map2.exe

 

:BSP
	SET BSP_VAR=-meta -leaktest -verboseentities
rem	SET BSP_VAR=-meta
rem	SET BSP_VAR=-meta -verboseentities
rem	SET BSP_VAR=-meta -verboseentities -leaktest
rem	SET BSP_VAR=-meta -verboseentities -debugportals
rem	SET BSP_VAR=-meta -verboseentities -debugsurfaces
rem	SET BSP_VAR=-meta -verboseentities -leaktest -notjunc



:VIS
	SET VIS_VAR=-vis -saveprt
rem	SET VIS_VAR=-vis
rem	SET VIS_VAR=-vis -saveprt
rem	SET VIS_VAR=-vis -saveprt -hint
rem	SET VIS_VAR=-vis -saveprt -nopassage



:LIGHT
	SET LIGHT_VAR=-light -fast
rem	This one is used by SD on their maps: SET LIGHT_VAR=-light -fast -samples 2 -filter -bounce 8 -external -lightmapsize 256 -approx 8
rem	SET LIGHT_VAR=-light -fast -bouncegrid
rem	SET LIGHT_VAR=-light -fast -nogrid -thresh 2
rem	SET LIGHT_VAR=-light -fast -bouncegrid -border
rem	SET LIGHT_VAR=-light -fast -bouncegrid -bounce 3
rem	SET LIGHT_VAR=-light -fast -bouncegrid -debugsurfaces
rem	SET LIGHT_VAR=-light -fast -bounce 3 -bouncegrid -border
rem	SET LIGHT_VAR=-light -fast -bouncegrid -bounce 3 -super 2
rem	SET LIGHT_VAR=-light -fast -bouncegrid -super 4 -shadeangle 35 -thresh .5
rem	SET LIGHT_VAR=-light -fast -bounce 3 -bouncegrid -super 2 -patchshadows
rem	SET LIGHT_VAR=-light -fast -bounce 99 -bouncegrid -patchshadows -shadeangle 35 -super 86 -thresh .45



:OPTIONS
SET GEN_OPTIONS=-game et -fs_basepath %GAME_PATH% -fs_game %MAP_PATH% -v



:ACTION
	%Q3MAP2_PATH% %BSP_VAR% %GEN_OPTIONS% %MAP_NAME%
rem	%Q3MAP2_PATH% %VIS_VAR% %GEN_OPTIONS% %MAP_NAME%
rem	%Q3MAP2_PATH% %LIGHT_VAR% %GEN_OPTIONS% %MAP_NAME%
PAUSE

Start by changing the paths and map name in the PATHS section, to fit your needs.

Now the ACTION section is where it all happens. A complete compile of a map has 3 stages:

1. Calculate geometry
2. Calculate VIS(ibility), ie. what can be seen from where in the map
3. Calculate lighting

Each of these three stages corresponds to one of the lines in the ACTION section.

To see you geometry you only need stage one. However when you are going to test ligting you’ll need all three stages.

The VIS stage can tage a very long time if you have many structural brushes which should have been detail brushes. More structural brushes creates more places for which VIS has to be calculated. Therefore it can take ages.

Within the three stages you can select different compile options. For the geometry and vis stages you should be set with the above settings, however the ligthing stage is currently set to the simplest settings.

[seven_dc]

The vis stage will take very long if you have a lot of structural brushes or overlapping structural brushes. Try turning more of your brushes into detail. ie I had forgotten to turn two ladders in my map into detail and making them detail made vis compile to be about 10 times faster.

---

KE100

[G0-Gerbil]

Also the bounce thing is often unecessary - and even those who like it usually only enable it for final final final compile - it does (by default) an 8 pass radiosity lighting routine, which will bring even the most powerful computers to it’s knees.

As the others say, too many wrongly structural brushes will increase compile times in the VIS stage - also check in worldspawn that you haven’t got too small of a grid thing going on, that can up compile times too.

[dime1622]

now this doesnt apply to non-visible brushes, such as clip, correct? i can have that overlap anything i want, right?

i have 5 custom textures in the map, but only one doesnt show up.

its also fairly small yet (only 2700 brushes, and my terrain of course is a bunch of triangles)

what should i do to the terrain to knock down my compile times?

[dime1622]

awesome, that compile works great,and taking about 5 seconds, if that, but its compiling in fullbright. how do i turn on the other functions?

[G0-Gerbil]

For such a small map you shouldn’t be getting too bad compile times.
Bear in mind there are different flavours of each compilation stage.

EG for VIS stage you can do:

• No VIS
• Fast VIS
• Full VIS
  in increasing order of time to compile. Always remember to release your final map with a full VIS.

Similarly lighting can be off, fast, full, or bounce (radiosity) and again, which compile (and how long it takes) is up to you, but for final map release you definately want to do either full or with radiosity.

BSP has a few options, but probably nothing you’d really want to play with - the only thing off the top of my head you might want to tweak would be the -meta switch (for finals, it’s usually best to include it).

If you just want to run around your map to see if a change you made works, then the fastest (just BSP) is often fine, while for final release you want to go the whole hog.

[dime1622]

sweet, thanks so much for your help!