Ridiculously Long VIS Compile Time Created 17 years ago2007-07-29 00:02:06 UTC by StoneFrog

As of late the VIS segment of my map's compiliation takes EXTREMELY long - longer than RAD!

I use ZHLT tools, here is the VIS segment of the log.

--- BEGIN hlvis ---
Command line: C:PROGRA~1VALVEH~1HLCThlvis.exe "c:program filesvalve hammer editormapsgigawatt"
1160 portalleafs
3765 numportals

= Current hlvis Settings =
Name | Setting | Default
------------------|-----------|------------------------
threads [ 1 ] [ Varies ]
verbose [ off ] [ off ]
log [ on ] [ on ]
developer [ 0 ] [ 0 ]
chart [ off ] [ off ]
estimate [ off ] [ off ]
max texture memory [ 4194304 ] [ 4194304 ]
max vis distance [ 0 ] [ 0 ]
priority [ Normal ] [ Normal ]

fast vis [ off ] [ off ]
full vis [ off ] [ off ]

BasePortalVis:
10%...20%...30%...40%...50%...60%...70%...80%...90%... (5.38 seconds)
LeafThread:
10%...20%...30%...40%...50%...60%...70%...80%...90%... (327.03 seconds)
average leafs visible: 203
g_visdatasize:96164 compressed from 168200
332.67 seconds elapsed [5m 32s]

--- END hlvis ---

It seems obvious - the LeafThread takes an eternity.

But what IS the LeafThread, and is there a way to lessen how long it takes?

5 mins 32 secs? that's nothing

Seriously. That's really fast for a big map.

Make your map compartmentalized, bend hallways connecting different areas, etc.

Yah, wait till you start getting 12 hour compiles.

Actually, 5 minutes is not that long, i've seen longer...

You may have some serious complex brushwork in your map. Converting those into func_wall might actually decrease the compile time. Use with caution though, as func_walling may cause higher r_speeds, since they're rendered quicker.

As of late the VIS segment of my map's compiliation takes EXTREMELY long

HAHAHAHA 5 minutes is EXTREMELY LONG? HAHAHAHAHAHA. What the hell dude.
Like Ant said, wait for 12 hour compiles. Now THAT is long.

In this map, http://www.twhl.co.za/mapvault_map.php?id=4073 , I can't get it to compile. RAD goes on and on, I killed hlrad.exe after 3 hours.

Dave, your map suffers from Fit_Button_Syndrome.

It seems that rather than take the extra time to line up the textures (on what is actually quite impressive) brushwork you seem to have hit the fit button to save yourself the effort.

The edges of these stairs for example. Rather than rendering 4 small 16x64 trim style textures the engine is having to render 4 128x128 textures that have been horribly compressed.These crates will rape and murder RAD. You've obviously selected the whole thing and hit the fit button and ignored the "treat as one" flag. Therefore rather that rendering the texture 6 times its doing ot 60 times per crate and you have about 10 of these in the map. Thats 600 textures being rendered where there should only be 60!!!More textures horribly compressed with the fit button. It also saves time to render a small portion of the texture rather than the whole thing.And again. You've packed a 128x256 texture onto a 128 x 16 unit face. You could have used a trim texture or simple aligned the one that was there already.Just something to get you started.

Those screenshots are evil. :r

Ooh! Ooh!

In my map, I have a boobytrapped crate. Flipping what you THINK is a lightswitch (and it IS a lightswitch, though it has been rigged so it can also...) causes the front face to burst open revealing two turrets.

Any way, I will consider the func_walling. I know there is one hallway in my map where things are a bit sloppy in terms of design (I ended up adding a second brush to represent the outer "wall" of the building as the interiors were wonky zonky).

5 minutes isn't evil? Tell me by the way, am I being told this from people whose computers can run Source games fairly well (like mine) yet think GoldSrc is cooler for mapping, or are you the guys who map for GoldSrc because you run on Commodore 64s?

Either way I'm still fairly new to mapping and this one project of mine is the biggest I've ever made, to the point where I've never seen something so long before.

Since RAD takes an eternity, but I knew that, like many people, not compiling with RAD on except when I need to check lighting/final map release.

I've been running with the -fast flag on VIS and see no noticeable differences, aside from it being 5 SECONDS rather than 5 MINUTES. I see no difference in fast and full VIS, so, like RAD, I may use full VIS for the final compiliation only.

Also even I know not to use the fit button on such tiny things - but that's only because I'm paranoid that an X value of 0.23 and a Y value of 2.00 would cause a Bad Surface Extents error (maybe 0.23 and 20.00 would, though).

5 minutes isn't evil? Tell me by the way, am I being told this from people whose computers can run Source games fairly well (like mine) yet think GoldSrc is cooler for mapping, or are you the guys who map for GoldSrc because you run on Commodore 64s?

My most complex level (lab17_quake) has a compile time of 22 hours, running on a 3GHz P4. Of course, probably 2/3 of that was RAD, but much of the rest would have been VIS...

No, 5 minutes is nothing!

How warm does your room get?

When I was letting hlrad.exe crunch away with 100% of a 2.66GHz P4, my room got 15(F) degrees warmer after 3 hours.

2048mb RAM, 256mb ATI x1950 pro PCI-E video card, 2.13Ghz Core 2 Duo E6400, Asus P5N-E SLI Motherboard

my latest(unreleased) map took 3 hours to compile.

There's dimishing returns after about a P4 2GHz and 384MB.

But Hunter, that's Source, isn't it? I've personally never had a GoldSrc map take more than 30 minutes to compile. And those are the biggest ones, with extra RAD and full VIS.