idiot seeks help on vis blocking :)

(mazdaplz) #1

ok so my terrain looks like this: (all images i did in max because im more comfortable with it, i think they will do ok for this)

i’ve been doing some reading, and the creator of byzantine has this particular method of blocking vis on his map. so all i could find worth trying is this:


some structural caulks sitting below my terrain


and a hint brush sitting on top. at least i think that’s what he was suggesting and did on his map.

so my question is this, will this work? i tried but i used nodraw instead of caulk. and then when i tried to use hintskip on the other 5 faces the max map visibility error popped up. maybe im doing it wrong, is it posible for me to optimize a terrain shaped like that? because when im in one of the “roads” i can see the other 2 drawing

thanks o wise ones 8)

(Flippy) #2

I cant really see much from these pictures…
but if the mountain between the two “roads” is high enough, you could make the skybox cross over the mountain…
This way you can be sure that the other side is vis blocked, but at the same time you are unable to throw airstrikes, grenades etc over the mountain…

(mazdaplz) #3

they are pretty high, but i couldnt try your method because the goal of going through those corridors is to climb up and eventually reach a bridge on the highside. so instead i tried making structural skies inside my terrain and see if it blocked vis. it didnt :frowning: i have also tried with antiportals that go up to the sky with no luck

(Flippy) #4

Well, then i think your first idea should work…

Why did you texture your ‘caulk hull’ with nodraw? :S Just use caulk…

But, as soon as your players go higher than the hintbrush, they will see ALL of your map… which can’t be good lol… dont think there’s any way to optimize that other than with some very dense fog… (clouds?)

(DerSaidin) #5

Above the chalk hull he has (or should have) put a common/hintskip
(or hint or whatever it is) textured brush to ensure vis portals are cut right above the chalk hull. Then if a player is in any of those divisions, the others should be out of vis.

Don’t use no draw for chalking. I’m pretty sure that won’t do anything.

You should put a bottom on the chalk hull as well to break vis under those divisions.

I cant really tell the scale of those pictures to estimate how well that chalk hulling will work.

(SCDS_reyalP) #6

nitpicking:
caulk not chalk. hint and hintskip are very different things.

(d3coy) #7

would really need to see more about the map plan. Looking at that I see two valleys. will they be connected through the mountain, over the mountain or is it not two valleys?

If it is two valleys and not going over the mountain then it could be done imho. If you can go over the mountain, then the map better be small :stuck_out_tongue:

If you have more to show with possible build locations, it could be possible to break up the larger areas into smaller ones to improve vis.

(mazdaplz) #8

yes the 2 valleys and one of the outer sides of the terrain make for 3 ways to go up and through he bridge, and hopefully in a while there will be a castle on the other side of the bridge, i had to replace the custom textures i was using and make it simpler so as to send it, i actually have fog and fogclip on the map,
set to 2200, but since im not going to post shaders or something like that i took it out, as well as the custom skybox and constructibles to make this shorter, in my pc with fog on it runs average 100 fps but im worried about other machine specs
(btw the buildings look really bad because they will be replaced or pimped, it’s still rough i’ll add more buildings probably to keep the players on top of the hill from seeing the whole map at once.)

it’d be nice if someone told me why it doesnt block vis
it’s 900kb or so, add fog with a clip of 2300 and you will have what i have
the constructibles i erased were a cp and a pump

(d3coy) #9

the way you have that designed it wont be possible to optimizes it for fps… you have paths leading above your caulk hull. As soon as the player rizes above your hull… the game draws whats on the other side.

The hills in the middle and the bridge area are where its going to be bad.

Not sure how to do this one.

(mazdaplz) #10

even if i make walls around the stairways?
besides i plan to have the bridge walls high too, you wont exactly see anything but the bridge path when on it and i could close the third path up with rock models and separate the middle part with walls

or what if the construction and stairs were inside the mountain with no windows, im pretty flexible about all this
not really necesary in my map looking down on the valeys once your up. i never planed to have any windows and from the beginning i thought about separating the valleys area from the top bases with high walls

(SCDS_reyalP) #11

There’s a lot of threads on this topic n the forum.
This one http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10254&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 might have some useful stuff for you. If you are seeing terrain (or other stuff for that matter) drawn when you don’t expect it to be, see my comment there on metasurfaces.

As I’ve said before, the key to understanding why something is being drawn when you don’t expect it is r_showtris and the prtview plugin.

Another point that a lot of people aren’t aware of is that collision geometry can also be a large source of FPS problems, especially on open terrain maps. Some posts here describe the issue in detail http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=14512

since Der’saidin mentioned hintskip here’s a thread that describes it
http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=13588

(DerSaidin) #12

Thanks for the [hint][skip] info :slight_smile:

Some more links:
http://www.swat-clan.com/marko/mapping/q3map_doc.htm
http://splashdamage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7475
http://tremmapping.pbwiki.com/Understanding%20Vis%20and%20Hint%20Brushes

(that last one is a different game, but same stuff, also it has nice pics :>)

(mazdaplz) #13

maybe knowing this would further help me:

how should an independent leaf look in the prtview?
should it have 5 sides cut off with structural and one side split with hint?
im going to be looking at an example map if i can find one

is there a way to make fogclip tridimensional? leting the player more vision towards x than y? i guess not. it couldnt hurt asking tho
also; is there a way to make caulk not bullet-clipable?

EDIT: i found this on my last question: Q3map treats common/hint brushes exactly the same way as structural brushes when creating the leave-nodes, because common/hint shader contains surfaceparm structural.

funny, i never suspected this. i think it is a key concept i was missing

(DerSaidin) #14

Once loaded with prtview, a vis portal look like coloured regions boarded by thick lines of the same colour.

As I understand it, a leaf is a bunch of faces in that vis portal.

Once it has been made, it doesn’t matter what are on the sides of the vis portal, or how many sides there are.

The vis portal will only be cut by a structural brush or a hint brush. These are important for making the brush.

yes, you can make caulk not bullet clip, but then it wouldn’t be caulk. What do you want to use it for?

I dont think theres a way to make fog as you said.

(mazdaplz) #15

ok i adjusted the fog culling so it gets some better fps, but im not happy with it. could you tell me what’s the best way to set up vis for a beach leading to 3 valleys ending up in some kind of entrance to some other vis blocked part?
i would asume to make curved paths but i dont know about the high valley walls or mountains in between, they should have no roof naturally i havent had any luck with that

something must be wrong with my radiant too because i downloaded nib’s example maps for hinting and showtris 2 shows me the whole map regardless of hints.

http://nibsworld.com/rtcw/tutorial_detail_and_hint_brushes_part2.shtml
:S HELP PLEASE

im using a clean ET btw

does anybody know of a hinting example map that blocks vis? i appreciate the help

(DerSaidin) #16

I’d need to know more of the layout to tell you how to improve FPS, but some general techniques are: Z shaped bends (the angles of the Z right angles though)

PM me if you want to show me your map and I’ll give you some help.

(SCDS_reyalP) #17

Silly question, but what compile are you using ?

You need to use one that includes -vis but not -vis -fast

(mazdaplz) #18

oh thanks SCDS_reyalP!!!
i wasnt compiling without fast :oops:
still i find the only way for it to work is to do a second compile with single vis
that’s the only way it will work for me but hey, better than nothing.
i didnt have to change the map after all. i used huge brushes with hint and hintskip to block the vis from one mountain to the other.
im not worried about players being on top since the fogclip does it’s job and keeps the fps steady, my problem actually was within the valleys. (there’s going to be stuff going on in the valleys, a lot.)
the way i sorted it out was to use hint brushes as a continuation to the caulk hull, making it sort of imaginary caulks that cut the sky on similar squares.
then i used the principles of hallways both horizontally and vertically to hint it

(Flippy) #19

That’s exactly the (only) way to use hint brushes :stuck_out_tongue:

(SCDS_reyalP) #20

fast means fast compile, not fast runtime performance :smiley: