Really complicated leak... Created 18 years ago2006-04-23 07:15:16 UTC by Biax

Hello everyone, I've got a bit of a bad situation here. I'm getting really close to finishing the biggest and most detailed map I've ever made, and it just had a massive jump in compile time.

What I had been doing is putting a box of sky around the level, and then filling in all the areas within that which werent part of the level with solid brushes of "sky" texture.

When my compile time took a massive leap like this (from 15 minutes to not finishing in over 45 minutes) with me hardly changing anything (I added a crawlable vent) I figured all that carving through the solid sky brushes must have messed up HLRAD somehow...

So I went about cleaning up my sky, I killed the box around the whole level, and all those solid sky brush pieces. Now I try to compile I get a leak. So I came onto this site (awesomely great site btw) and saw some talk about loading pointfiles, so I did that, and I have this:

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/7818/pointfile0gg.jpg

Im using VHE 3.4, and it doesnt seem to have the pointfile line in the 3D view, only the 2D views, and I'll be stuffed if I can follow THAT around. The originating entity is a light IN THE VENT. I'm very sus on the vent now.

I was hoping maybe someone might be able to recognise a commonality about this pointfile or something. It's like the levels been turned inside out or something, I'm bamboozled.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Oh damn I forgot to mention I also got one of those funky hull 3 leaks, I don't really know what it means :

Warning: === LEAK in hull 3 ===
Entity info_player_start @ (-352,-980,-316)

Try loading the pointfile in-game: bring down the console while playing and type in pointfile. It'll generate a bunch of white dots that you can easily follow to your leak. It's pretty much the best method of finding a leak that there is.

Remember to add this parameter to the HL shortcut -particles 30000, so you don't run out of particles to draw the pointfile

Oh cool. It gives an error though "not enough free particles" and only draws the pointfile line up to a certain point, which I'd say is only about the first 1/5th or 1/4th of the whole file.

Thanks for the tip.

EDIT: thanks, I'll change that

It's pretty much the best method of finding a leak that there is.

I prefer the Big Box Method.

Pointfile is much faster

I suggest using -particles 50000, there were some cases i had more than 30k of them.

I always find my leaks with .lin file. Its way more accurate.

Loading the pointfile in Hammer 3.4 is messy. It works much better in the Source editor though.

not messy at all, with the .lin file i can locate the leak very fast.

I wouldn't necessarily be suspicious of the area around a light. It may be only that the leak was found when tracing rays from that light.

Suggestion: when you get the leak(s) fixed (there may be multiple), particularly with big maps: compile often, particularly when adding some complicated brushes. If necessary, big box or cordone a portion of the map that you haven't changed to keep the compile time down. As you successfully compile, expand the boxes or cordoned area.

If it takes 2 minutes to compile 10 times successfully after making a few changes each time, and it takes an hour to find a leak after an unsuccessful compile (with a day or two delay to find out how to detect leaks).. do the math.

I advice you to get Leakmarker. The site isn't in english but the name of the file is written in english so it's possible to fine the file if you don't speak the site's languge.

Leakmarker uses the .lin file to mark the leak with a block it generates in the .map file. (no long line that leads to the spot with the leak any more Just try to find that block(give it an unusall color)) There are instructions on how to use it in the zip. It wont take you long to understand it's quite easy to use.
The .lin and .map files are in your RMF directory. You can open map files trough hammer too.

I tried the "Big Pink Sky" method...took a long time to compile but I found it straight away. Lol the leak was very noobish: I had copied a breakable window into part of the hull, then changed it to func wall with Normal render properties and thought the compiler would think its part of the hull...wrong Ryan...suffer.
Leakmarker looks like a fantastic program, I'll surely be using it in the future.

Thanks for the help everyone, I'm back on track to getting this map finished

Carving? NEVER USE CARVE TOOL!

Why does it even exist?

Carving isn't bad.

Carving is bad for thos who don't know the dangers.

Carving a 6 sided brush into a bigger 6 sided brush is fine. But don't carve any complex brushes like cillinders, unless you know what you are doing.

Well I've just been carving rectangular prisms out of rectangular prisms for things like doorways and windows. I don't useit all the time, just when I know its a time saver and is going to do exactly what I would have done with the clipping tool anyway.

And so far I've had 0 problems due to carving.

Until now. Complicated leaks are a result of sloppy mapping. Follow the lil red line until you get to the outside of the world. There's your leak. It's not that difficult. but yes, it can be tedious.

Prevention is always better than cure.

Well this problem wasn't actually caused by carving, I just thought it was. So my record is still in tact