Problems Valley Created 15 years ago2009-05-14 08:46:10 UTC by Striker

Ok. Short : I'm making a garry's mod map using only hl2 resources. That means I can test it in hl2. So I'm making it. I'm compiling it. It has light. But again that stupid effect ... Light is dissapearing and appearing randomly in a building.

And the water doesn't render in game( you can't even "feel" it ! ) and I applied water texture only on the upper face of the solid. The rest of the faces are nodraw textured.

Here's the log. I won't be able to respond until maybe this evening, tomorrow evening or saturday.

Compile log removed

I don't know how this could be a leak when I have lighting ...

Source allows lighting (although poor) even if there's a leak. The reason why its acting weird in your map is probably because of that leak.

Fix the leak first, then see if there's still weird lighting in your map.

The water is caused by the leak, the lighting is caused by using model/prop/decal textures on brushes. Most model wall textures have a regular texture equivelant, so just swap with that.

edit: took a screenie to help make the pointnote that displacements do not block the world from the void.

Ok, I'll discuss more about this problem when I get home again. That's saturday. I just hope I don't have to "bump" the thread lol.

Wow, i was way off.

Lol , I loaded the pointfile and I discovered I accidently made some stairs func_detail.[EDIT] WTF, I eliminated the leak and the water still sucks. And that lighting bug still exists

wadsart323redsg(water) :[EDIT] Anyone ?

Try a different water texture (not a dev one), add a water_lod_control and add at least one env_cubemaps above the water surface (at eye height).

It worked ! I love you !

But the stupid light effect persists.

Here I am again , with another problem ( in the mean time, my map got big).

I let it to compile, and it arrived at "Final light face" or something like that.

1
1...
2..
......nothing ...
The compiler stopped working, I checked it in the task manager. Wtf ?

And what's with this ultra-strange errors I've never seen before that takes my mind back to the old leaf-saw-into-leaf ???

Compile log removed

[EDIT] Ok it was a leak(a damn small one, thank pointfile !) but what about the other errors ?

Fix the leak and the CONTENTS_SOLID errors should go away.

Water found with no water_lod_control entity, creating a default one.

I though you'd already placed one. Make sure its not in an invisible VIS group. Entities in invisible VIS groups are ignored.

Also, don't make the water out of multiple brushes. Use one big brush to cover the area's where you want to have water. The brush's edges and corners may stick out of your level, but that's ok, this won't cause leak.

I added a water_lod_control , fixed the leak and now it compiled.

But, 2 new problems now :

"WARNING: Cluster portals saw into cluster"

And the sky randomly transforms itself in "hall of mirrors" from specific positions in the map ( even though I made a tall skybox ! )

[EDIT] I fixed the problems .

Just a question , can you tell me a good blues sky ? ( not totally blue, but with fewer clouds than the default one)

Just a question , can you tell me a good blues sky ? ( not totally blue, but with fewer clouds than the default one)

I'd say make your own using Terragen. I once made a custom sky with it myself for HL2.

how do you get the sky after you terragrn'd

I tried that once, the script I found did'nt tell me what pictures to name what side of the skybox, and when I tried to put it ingame after converting to the right file format, HL crashed... But maybe that was just the script I used.

No , no no no, no no, no no no ! This is impossible !!
After Staying around for 1 hour and a half for the compiling(it's a gm map, it's huge) , the FINAL FUCKING STEP vrad had to do crashed and I went in with full-bright ...

Compile log removed

Wtf is this ?! No explanation.... at "9.." . WTF ! WTF ! I almost broke my keyboard !

P.S. Sorry I'm furious ( I mean WHAT THE FUCK ?! )

I use multiple brushes, well, 3 of them to make up the water in a level I have created. Is this bad for some reason? Seems to work just fine and I get the water to show up just fine.

I do have a question that I hope somebody can answer.

With this water I get alot of lines across the surface of the water. I don't get this when I load an actual game level from the HL series so I know it's not a graphic card problem or a video setting of some sort. What causes this and what the heck am I doing wrong. Is this where its not fully rendered or is it a cubemap thing?

I found an explanation :

Error trying to allocate [number] bytes

Description:
Vrad.exe did not have enough memory to finish it's task. There are two causes: 1) You are running low on memory (ram + pagefile). 2) Vrad.exe is chocking on some very complicated bit of your map, causing it to ask a lot of memory which doesn't exist (like infinite sizes).

Solution:
If you are running low on free memory (ctr+alt+del to see that) try increasing the pagefile if you aren't letting Windows take care of it. If not, use cordon tools to isolate the problemarea in your map (might be a broken brush, or simply too complex geometry) and see what you can do to fix it.
Dan Prati informed me that is mostly a problem with very large, open maps, or particularly detailed ones (or as part of an engine limitation to the total amount of lightmaps).

Reducing the lightmap resolution on larger surfaces, or particularly complex objects, can fix this problem. If this is not acceptable, or does not fix the error, reducing lightmap resolution across the entire map may be necessary. This provides a solution when there is no single map element that is causing the error, and simply deleting map objects won't fix the problem.

But wait a sec, I have 4 gb of ram, how can it run low on RAM ?!
I'll try reducing the lightmap scale on some surfaces and come back with an answer.

But wait a sec, I have 4 gb of ram, how can it run low on RAM ?!

That Description gave you two possible causes. Read the second one:

Vrad.exe is chocking on some very complicated bit of your map

There's your problem. I think your map is simply too complex for RAD. To make RAD's live easier, func_detail detail objects and brushes, don't just leave them as solids.

The last time i saw a map (the vmf) of yours, everything was made of solids, there's were no func_details.

Optimize, you must!

The func_walling was actualy an obsession for me, and the maps worked well in hl1.
But I've lost the obsession. Maybe because now it's func_detail ? lol

Optimize I must !
[EDIT] Maybe the problem was that I had a displacement with a lightmap scale of 83 ?
Don't know, I set that to 16. I'm continuing to optimze the map before a new compile.

[EDIT2] Ultra-optimized the outer area of the map. A new compiling on the run.

[EDIT3] Ok this is .. not good. I decided to delete the displacement and just make a "pool" for the water, it's a gm map anyway and gm maps need to be as fast as possible, desinged for multiplayer.

So now vrad won't crash when it's finally complete, it crashes right from the start !

zero area child patch

I read about this on the interlopers. A face with no area ? This is stupid, almost any error during a hl1 compiling used to point you at some coordinates, this thing show me nothing
ALT+P , of course, indicates that all is ok.

Geez, you're map is really screwed up!

Send me your map. Ill check it in HL2 ( don't own Gmod, but its practically the same engine).

I have an architecture problem this time. So anybody who knows well architecture concepts, please help me.

I have to make a train track system in my map, but the problem is I don't know how to keep the same distance between the lines ( 79) in the curves or the S-bends.

I'll take a screenshot from gm_wireconstruct_rc , a popular gmod map that has train tracks.

here's what you do.
1) intersect the 2 legs of the track to make a 90deg angle
2)choose what radius you want for the track
3)create a cylinder with edges on the inside rail make a large amount of sides (48 should do). You're only dealing with 1/4 section of track so make it 4x how many links you want (in this case 12)
4)make a rail following the radius of that cylinder
5)delete the cylinder and follow step 3 and 4 with the outside rail.
6) delete the 90deg angle part of the track, tie into the curve and you're done.

Idk if that's how it's really done, but that's what i would do.

PS you want your 2 cylinders to have the same center point, else you're screwed.

I'm back , thank you very much Tetsu0, it works ! The train doesn't derail now.
My thank you :

coolbeans. thanks for the award!
any other problems you're encountering?

Yes. The s-bends.

I have a question for you before i answer that
actually 2
1) can the rails be displacements
2) have you tried making a spacer 80 units wide, and rotating it on every bend so that you know the track is always 80 units away?

And i know you can do S-bends using 2 circles and a tangent between them. I just have to figure that out in hammer.

1)Displacements ? I don't know what displacements have to do with the rails ... the rails aren't there for the eye, they serve as a real support for the train wheels in garry's mod. So the answer is no.
2)Yes. Actualy, I even test the curves in gmod so it works ( just have to reduce the speed to max 70 km/h)

And i know you can do S-bends using 2 circles and a tangent between them. I just have to figure that out in hammer.

I would like some images

http://books.google.com/books?id=gYZIAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=draw+an+arc+tangent+to+2+circles&source=bl&ots=SmQ_gNwQf6&sig=iQQ7N-TZ-EWybMYN5b61X77XkPY&hl=en&ei=6rQpSp_mOMOxtwfz0a2TCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8#PPA40,M1

See i knew how to do it. I saw it while taking drafting last year. I'll make a map if you need more info.

IT's just a little bit to complicated for me. Anyway, I'll have time to learn about S-bends. I decided I won't include them in my map.

But I have a hammer related problem now. It seems the objects I'm creating&modifying in the 2D views won't snap to the grid. It's like I see 8-unit grid but it works at 1-unit grid. And it only does this in my map.
What the fudge ?

Try copying the whole thing, opening a new map, and pasting it.
If not see if you can modify any of the 2-d window options. Maybe you hit a hotkey on accident..

It's related only on this map. Other maps don't give me this bug. Anyway I succesfully compiled the last version.
Or could I say, a half-beta half-complete version ?
Doesn't matter, I'm releasing it. I may do a 2nd version which would be optimized not only for the textures, but also for the portals and stuff.

I'll post it in this map vault too, but first I want to ask you a question. Where are the cubemaps kept after I build them ? Because I want to include them in the rar. with the map, so the user won't have to type in buildcubemaps.
[EDIT] Doesn't matter. I found they're integrated into the bsp.

yeah, just make sure you run a map before you release it. Run cubemaps, let the nodes do their thing. you know.

Why they don't want to sew ?!??!?!?!
They have the same properties, and btw after reading the tutorial I saw you can sew even displacements with the same power of displacement,but with different sizes for the triangles.[EDIT] Btw I'm working on another title, GM_SuperBeach.

you have to make sure that the original faces (before displacement) match up with eachother.
Try just modifying the brushes (not the displacement) and aligning them.
If all else fails, start-over.
Displacements arent too bad to re-work. Trust me, i've been doing it all week.
You could also try to smooth the 2 displacements together before sewing?
I've never tried it but it could be worth a shot.

Nah, I resolved it in an nother way. I pushed the sand displacement into the mountain one so it seems they're sewed.
But now I have a stupid problem that gives me headaches. When I want to spawn a jeep, it just falls through the displacements . I have no fucking error in the compile log, just the hdr sky thingy , which is not important anyway.

[EDIT] ARGHHHH !! Hammer is ultra-fucking-stupid. 5 minutes ago it compiled, now vbsp crashed !! FUCK THE TOOLS.

[EDIT2] I'm trying to compile with -novirtualmesh enabled.

Ok.. well.. when you just push the displacements into one another, the lighting goes beserk.
And as for the displacements not being solid, did you texture all the non-displaced faces with nodraw, and then apply the blend texture to the displaced surface?

If that does not work, just get a bunch of nodraw brushes and follow the displacement terrain..

Yeah, and i'd reccomend actually sewing those displacements, Or if you want to start over, subdivide them first, and make sure you have auto-sew on, so they don't seperate on ya.

Also remember, displacements don't seal from the void. You need some form of backing. Again, regular brushes textured w/ nodraw works perfectly for this.

Also remember, displacements don't seal from the void. You need some form of backing. Again, regular brushes textured w/ nodraw works perfectly for this.

I know this. I've read the tutorials.

The problem was this : -novirtualmesh, because it's hl2's fault. In gmod it will work. Btw, I'm posting a topic somebody should sticky.

[EDIT] First result(ignore the error message, it's because I didn't made a jeep correctly) :Compile time: 16 minutes( iddn't try fast yet, but I'll have too when I'll add some small building and little detail here and there).

Btw, displacements don't afffect vis information do they ?

Btw, displacements don't afffect vis information do they ?

I believe vis sees thru them to the enclosing brush on the outside, but the faces do get lit and cast shadows.

I mean, they don't affect the vis portal and things like these ?

I've got some WIP screenshot from gm_superbeach, which will not be named like that anymore. It's too generic. I'll make it Gm_BeachPlay.I could also take some in-game pictures but I'm lazy now and I made some progress anyway. Last time I compiled it took 24 minutes, but the map was, from VIS's point of view... empty.
I added some "world" elements ( I like to call them, "lag-free rooms". even though I only added one room like this in the whole map... it's a beach anyway). I think it will take up to 40 minutes now ...
And I'm keeping the skybox low right now, in the final version it will be tall. That'll make the compile take even more time.

[EDIT] I feel the need for an i7 =))

[EDIT] I really need some good tree models for hl2 and I can't find. The hl2 tree models are designed for autumn ends ...

[EDIT] I worked hard at my map and it doubled in size, and it ... tripled in compile time.Just Vvis took 1 hour and 47 minutes + Vrad which took 34 minutes ( and heh, I was monitoring the activity with task manager, when I saw vrad.exe appearing I've estimated half an hour remaining, I was right ! )

In your last screenie, what's that matrix of dots over the water?

I am sorry but I don't know what you mean through matrix . I'm not really used to programming terms yet.

Ok what are those things floating over the water. To the left of the last screenshot.

Air nodes.

lol what for? birds?

npc_helicopters, birds ...

How can I make a monitor that displays the view of a camera ? I tried this and it didn't work. I thought first that I must use some special texture for the func_monitor, but I didn't found any tool texture for that.

http://www.twhl.co.za/tutorial.php?id=103
Done

Wait, but how can I use the props to render camera images on them ? ( like the monitor at the beginning of hl2:ep2 )

props? just make the TV screen and parent it to whatever prop you want. You don't even need any wires.