Frustrating leak Created 17 years ago2007-03-28 16:54:56 UTC by MousE

I have been working on a map for a while now. Yesterday I decide to raise some of the ceilings in a few rooms. I only extended the wall and ceilings in the rooms directly up. When I went to compile, of course, I have a leak. I quadruple checked all the walls for leaks. I even overlapped all the walls and ceilings just a bit to make sure. I have no entities out side either. I also loaded point file, and it looks like a huge red scribble all over the map, that I can't even begin to understand. Is there any other reason why it would be saying there is a leak?

Is there any other reason why it would be saying there is a leak?

Well, this is just a guess, but... I'd say you might actually have a leak.

Try using the cordon bounds to section off areas, and just compile them, until you can narrow it down to a small area. That'll make it much easier to find.

Edit: On second thought, that won't work... cordon bounds effectively seal off any leaks, if I'm not mistaken. There's another method used in one of the tutorials, if you can find it.

Yeah, and I just found this on VERC:

The Big Block Method
If your level is especially large and you're having difficulty tracking down your leak, you might benefit from using the "Big Block Method" of leak tracking. What this is essentially, is you covering a large portion of your level with a solid block (make sure it goes completely through from top to bottom). A recommended size is a quarter of your level.

Place the large block over a portion of your level, then attempt to compile. Move the block to a new section and recompile until the leak error disappears. When this happens, you know the leak is somewhere within the space of the block. Now you can repeat the procedure using a smaller block, only within the space that was covered last with the big block.

This method would only work, of course, if you had one leak, or a number of leaks that would all be covered at once by the block.

I guess TWHL doesn't have any tutorials on leaks? :

Indeed. I don't know a single mapping site that doesn't have one, but I could swear we did... maybe it's part of a another tutorial, or just not marked well?

did you select all of the walls and the ceiling at the same time and extend them up?
if you do that it definitely will create a leak. try stretching the walls one at a time

Well, it is a very bad practice to do that, but he did say he overlapped them. So even if he does have screwy brushwork techniques, it shouldn't be a problem in this case. Although, to be sure of this, I would really have to see it firsthand.

OK, since I have posted this earlier I have been thoroughly looking over to find the leak. I still can't find it. So I did try the big block method. Now the leak shows for another entity. But now when I load pointfile, its still a mess, but goes inside the boxed off area... Here's a screen shot : http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=438001685&size=o

I'm just soo confused because I played it yesterday, so I know it was fine before I extended the walls (which I did do one at a time).

Your 3D view isn't showing too much there, but from what I can see, your walls are all over the place, possibly not even on grid.

I'll write a leak tutorial if you REALLY want...

How about I write one? I could sure use a tutorial award in my profile, unlike you.

If he extended the walls up with the ceiling then the walls would move up at the bottom too. Check for leaks near the floor too.

No they wouldn't, not unless there was a brush lower than the floor brushes being extended upwards at the same time.

He should still check along the floors just in case. He also might of accidently dragged a wall section up instead of resizing it.

check all of the walls sealing the level to the void. make sure they're tied to world and not an entity

to find and fix your leak use the block method srry posted.. It's really the only way I have ever found leaks.

that's a pretty decent pointfile.. i've seen much worse.. follow it until it goes through a brush

No, the pointfile (there are two: the .prt and the .lin file) is actually usefull. The lin file that is, this file is way more accurate.

Open the pointfile via menu Open Pointfile. Hammer ask if you want to open mapname.prt. Click no. Find the .lin file and open that. Folow the line from blue to red and it should take you to the leak (or very close to, it depends.).

Post the problem map in the vault

Better not, if you wont start searching for leaks now you will never get the hang of it.

well it seems that this leak is retarded

The best way to prevent leaks is to frequently seal off the complete portions of the map, hide them and then run the new portion to see if it has any leaks. And always use grid and zoom when connecting walls and stuff.

lousy good fer notin' thread reviver...

Clerlic: Don't revive old threads, he probably already fixed it. And if he didn't, he'd probably have made a new thread by then.

Make sure you haven't made any of the map's outer walls into entities.

The same goes for you as well, Killer-Duck: don't revice old threads!

Jezus Christ!