Forum posts

I have the same problem with Intel HD and ATI mobility Radeon.
The Intel HD driver maybe does not work with VHE.
I can force my system to use the ATI card for all applications by denying to switch to Intel-drivers in Catalyst. Maybe there's a similiar solution on NVIDIA-systems.

http://twhl.info/forums.php?thread=17830
VHLT has many fixes for lightning.
For more information:
http://forums.svencoop.com/forumdisplay.php/217-Vluzacn-s-Map-Compile-Tools

for the lamp, convert it to func_detail (VHLT only)
The thing with the door is really old. I don't know if VHLT has a built-in fix for this, but if not then putting a light inside the door-brush should light all faces of the brush.

Edit: aaaah, too slow ^^

including the problem with cloning brushes

It's not invalid anymore, but it still creates the "texture axis perpendicular to face" error for me :/ For now it does not happen every time (like it did before), but like every second or third time i clone a brush. That's very strange i think... I know this is fixable by selecting the brush and re-align the textures, but doing this nearly every time when cloning a Brush is really frustrating.

Edit: Error occurs only when "texture lock" is enabled

i just created a simple Block-Brush, pressed shift and dragged it with left mouse button. So now there are 2 Block brushes. When I go to "Check for Errors" it says "invalid solid structure" and about 4 times " texture axis perpendicular face"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P1FBbfcLWk

ok, I think I tracked down the cause of the Error.

a) In Hammer you can only split faces when you select vertices of the same type (2 orange vertices // 2 white vertices), but not mixed. In Seldge you can select 1 orange vertex and 1 white vertex and split the face.

b) the "merge overlapping vertices" sometimes creates orange vertices instead of white ones which causes an invalid solid structure.

rmf/vmf/map-file

Another thing i noticed:
The brush-duplicate feature (Shift-key + mouse-dragging) makes the copied brush invalid.

Oh, yes OGL 3^^ sry

@ciba43: press z in the 3D-window

hmm... "hide Null textures" works fine for me.

-sometimes the brush-tool does not create brushes.

-"split face" in the VMT does not work properly. For example see the following pictures. If I split the face from the center to the bottom right vertex first then i can split the face a second time.But if I split the face from the center to the upper left vertex first, then i'm not allowed to split a second time.I've choosen the vertex to the upper right as an example for the second splitting. It's the same result for the 3 other directions in both cases.

-Smart edit for entities does not work for me. Can't change/add/remove entries

btw. nice editor

as far as i know HL can record videos by itself.
while you are in console:
record xyz //this records the demo xyz
viewdemo xyz //you can watch your recorded demo xyz in HL
startmovie xyz FF //with this HL saves the frames to your harddisk (FF is the framerate you want, if you don't know what to take, use 30)
endmovie //when you finished saving

then you have many bmp's in your HL folder you can put together to a movie with virtualdub or bmp2avi or videomach...

If you like playing old maps you probably enjoy playing old cstrike versions, too.
A friend of mine has some servers running with cstike beta 5.2 and beta 6.2.
Actually we are not playing the beta-versions often, because there are not many players. Maybe some of you like to join us

You can find cs-beta at:
betastrike.net (german)
http://www.order-of-phalanx.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2088#2088 (english, the downloadlinks are not linked correctly, you find the file at http://www.order-of-phalanx.net/files.php?dir=half-life )

One more question: How did you get subdivide 256 working? When I try to set it to another value higher than the default 240 there are tons of errors :/

"So if I make every other brush a func_detail I'll have my shadows and lower my w_poly theoretically."

That's not right. func_detail still cuts other func_details. It does not make sense to make everything func_detail. Sometimes it makes more sense to not use func_detail because the cutting of a world brush creates a leaf portal. Excessive use of func_detail will increase w_poly count.
If you make ALL the world brushes in your map to func_details of the same detail level you won't notice any difference to world geometry. So only turn brushes to func_detail if it really is detail.

"Since it blocks vis and it would make sense to, for example, make the walls of a building func_detail while the ground is a world brush thus eliminating cutting there."

Bad idea. The func_detail blocks vis, but the floor has to be in one VIS-leaf. So for the engine the objects on the floor are in the same VIS-leaf as you and renders them though you can not see them.

"The e_poly from my experience has always been the main influence on lag online."

w_poly is world geometry and e_poly is model geometry.
w_poly is slow and e_poly is fast. This makes w_poly cause more lag. The difference is, every w_poly could be rendered alone while e_polys are always displayed as a group.
I.e. you have a 6-sided cube (world geometry) but only see 3 sides. Then you have 3 w_poly.
If you see the same cube as a model all 6 sides are calculated because you can see some part of it.
So if a high-poly model or player is in your field of view, then the e_polys increase by 3000 or so, and if there are lots of players there are more e_polys that the engine renders. So e_poly cause lag, only when there are many of them.
gimli posted a wpoly-epoly-ratio some years ago which can be used as reference:

100 wpoly + [x100] 10,000 epolys
200 wpoly + [ x45 ] 9000 epolys
300 wpolys + [ x25 ] 7500 epolys
400 wpolys + [ x15 ] 6000 epolys
500 wpolys + [ x10 ] 5000 epolys
600 wpolys + [ x8 ] 4800 epolys
700 wpolys + [ x6 ] 4200 epolys
800 wpolys + [ x4 ] 3200 epolys
900 wpolys + [ x2 ] 1800 epolys

These values should work fine on every machine. There should not be more than 1000 wpolys + 5000 epolys in a place. More than this will cause lag on nearly every machine when playing in multiplayer.

what really is unclear is the detail 1,2 and 3. I just set them to 2 because according the post of the new vhlt tools, 2 doesn't cut anything.

world cuts world and all detail levels.
detail level 1 cuts detail level 1,2,3,4,... but no world
detail level 2 cuts 2,3,4,... but no world or level 1
detail level 3 cuts 3,4,... but no world or level 1 and 2
and so on

" A large area means that everything visible from that area must be loaded even if it isn't exactly visible by the player."

That is untrue with hint brushes.

I think Rimrook is right. Large areas are "open" areas. In open areas you can see all VIS-leaves. Cutting it into more leaves with HINT makes no difference. You can still see all VIS-leaves.

HINT and SKIP are used to cut VIS-leaves. Cutting planes is a side-effect which is necessary to create valid VIS-leaves. Sometimes HINT creates new leaves without cutting planes.
So the main purpose is not optimizing poly-count. It only reduces the poly-count because:
(a) there are sometimes better solutions to cut planes than CSG and BSP calculate (there is no need to use HINT/SKIP in this case, because you will reduce the poly-count only by 1 or 2)
(b) due to the fact, that HINT/SKIP cuts VIS-leaves, it's possible to hide surfaces from being calculated by the engine. Normally the engine calculates all the polys which are in the VIS-leaves you see (also the polys you do not see as long as they are in the VIS-leaf!). With HINT/SKIP you make the amount of polys in visible VIS-leaves smaller, so less polies are calculated. (In opposite to this there may be more polys generated by the compilers, but less polys are calculated at every position you can stand at)

Of course this only works if you use HINT/SKIP correctly.
If you use lots of point entities (like cycler_sprite to display models) it is is necessary to use HINT/SKIP, because it's possible that the model's center is not in a visible VIS-leaf and this would make the model invisible (the VIS-leaf containing the model is not rendered).

Info: Maybe you should do some research about "potentially visible set" (PVS). HINT/SKIP influences the compile process, when VIS calculates the Matrix of the PVS.

func_detail is a mix between world_brush and func_wall. Like func_wall it does not cut other world geometry. Only other func_details, whose detail_level is the same or lower, get cut.
A Func_detail's clipping hull can be removed (make it similar to func_illusionary).
In all other points it is equivalent to world geometry. It casts shadows, it blocks VIS, and so on.

Personally, I prefer kHED. It's an easy to use low-poly model-editor for Goldsrc and Source. It imports and exports Wavefront Objects (.obj), 3D studio models (.3ds), Half-Life models (.mdl), Half-Life SMDs (.smd) and Milkshape3D models (*.ms3d).
kHED is freeware.
Link: http://khed.glsl.ru/

Hey

Captain Terror:I like it so far! It's too bad there is no propper for Gsource..

I wrote a tutorial about this some time ago and posted it to the german thewall-forums. Actually it is possible to create lowpoly models and model-skyboxes for HL1-engine games with Valve's Hammer Editor.

I did not wrote it in english but i will translate it for you. Would be great if someone could proofread my translation of the tutorial, because I'm no native speaker of English.

You can find my original posts to the thewall-forums here and here.

sorry for my bad english.