The Oculus [WIP]

[J-M v2.5.5]

This is so strange - I just compiled my standard test map for random stuff with VHLT and I didn't modify the texture light values. Previously I used ZHLT for this map (never got to try out SHLT) and the difference in brightness is negligible just about everywhere.

In other words, Thothie, I'm only having slight changes in lighting due to lighted textures, contrary to the differences of a factor 100 you had here and there. These tools are really a mystery ...

 

[Thothie]

Yeah, some textures come up fine, others need insane multipliers. The brightess of the original texture seems to be a major factor.

-texreflectscale seems to have unpredictable results too. I had to use -texreflectscale 3.0 on Deraliasewers just to get the lighting I got (with the water @ 2500 vs. the standard 75, even after the SKIP brush application - but still better than the 7500+black models I got without the SKIP brushes). I had to bump it up to 1.5 on The_Wall to get the standard lighting, and had to boost those face panels to 2500 as well.

Interesting thing though:

Models can not be lit by light. They are only lit in two ways:
(1)light_environment
(2)the lightmap of the ground surface(it has to be a world face, entity faces don't count) under the model.

With the -texreflectscale at 3.0, the result is more or less he thought it'd be... (Although also hugely bright, but the walls are fairly pale...)


However, without the texreflectscale...


It looks much like the SHLT compile. So... Maybe, without odd settings, it seems to work better than he thought it would. Maybe something about the non-standard texreflectscale causes the model lighting to bjork more severely than it otherwise would. Although the models were coming up black in Deraliaswer before I added the textreflectscale flag, so I'm not sure...

Suffice to say, VHLT r weird. If it hadn't saved Dragooncaves, I'd probably dump it entirely - granted Dragooncaves shouldn't need saving, but that's just MSC's own weirdness.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Anyone else getting an unusual amount of seemingly untraceable "Mixed face contents in leafnode" reports when using VHLT...?

 

[jon50559]

Yes, that's what forced me to quit using those wretched tools.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

It's so strange, because all my CLIP brushes are textured in CLIP only, and the same goes for my ORIGIN and SKY brushes...

I'm having ZHLT compile my map now, but it produces two "Leaf portals saw into leaf" errors, which VHLT does not... Besides, the "Mixed face contents in leafnode" thing seems harmless as my map (the VHLT compile) runs fine.

 

[Thothie]

An aaa brush colored non aaa on one side will do that too. Under some circumstances, a !liquid brush will as well.

I usually use SHLT... VHLT's odd lighting is what gets me the most - even adjusting for brightness, and light not falling through some brushes where it should, it just does odd and ugly things sometimes. But I'll keep it in reserve for the occasional weird situation, such as that Chunk error on Dragooncaves.

You can usually let a handful of leaf portal errors slide though, provided there's no odd FPS or visual effects in the designated area.

PS. Remind me to post in this thread in FEB2012, so I can chide Crow for spending two years on the same map.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Just found this:

How's it coming along with fixing the crashes and remaining unreasonable leafnode contents oddities?

Still don't know what causes the crash unless more detail comes out.
The bsp leafnode content problem is related to the inaccuracy of numbers stored in bsp file. Not going to fix it.

And this:

These errors can hardly be avoided and also exist in other compilers due to the nature of bsp.
The worst result(which rarely occurs) is disappeared faces or invisible holes or walls.
These warnings suggest you to check for errors near these coordinates in the game.
If no errors are found in playing, these warnings can be ignored.

 

[Thothie]

Sounds like he hasn't been able to duplicate the error.

If you have a map getting you that error, you should link it to him, that he may fix the buggger up.

As for the second quote, yeah, that's the bit we all know and love when we get leaf errorz in our terrainz. But again, if you don't see a problem, and there's no FPS loss, then you can let a few such buggers slide.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Looks like VHLT disables clipnode economy per default O_O

Other than that I am very pleased with these tools though. I have zero visportal errors even though I have some fancy cliff walls in my map, and when I compile with ZHLT, I get a bunch.
The "Mixed face contents" reports I keep getting appear to do nothing indeed, as vluzacn claims. You can disregard them.

Edit: Should I make a separate thread for my VHLT spam >.>? Just realized it might not be very polite towards Crow if I litter his Oculus thread with this.

Edit 2: The only CSG switch in the command reference is one that disables clipnode economy... And VHLT already has it disabled (what the ****). Does anybody know how to actually enable it?

 

[Thothie]

I suspect it has to be disabled due to the screwy way VHLT determines lighting. You'd likely have to fiddle with the source to re-enable it - if using the disable flag doesn't simply inverse the value.

Although... Looking at the code...

#define DEFAULT_CLIPNAZI    true
[...]
g_bClipNazi = DEFAULT_CLIPNAZI;         // "-noclipeconomy"

I think it actually defaults to clip economy on - maybe it just doesn't report it in the settings.

In regards to rapage of Oculus thread... A "Compiling Questions" thread wouldn't be a bad idear.

edit: Then again, if it was using clip economy - you probably wouldn't have to put SKIP brushes on your glowing water, as there would be no clip to trap the light. >_> VHLT does seem a lot more aggressive about trapping light inside clips, which is sometimes a pain in the butt, as often your light sources are shaped in such a way that you wanna put a clip brush around them. :\

 

[Crow]

Is there a way to disallow the use of the glow spell?

I could have sworn at one point a feature was added for this but I can't remember :<

 

[Thothie]

Holy crap! It lives!!!

Anywho:

- triggers/glow_block - Stick this "scriptname" property on a trigger_multi and any player who crosses it will have their glow snuffed out. They'll be unable to use glow again until they cross another trigger brush with the script "triggers/glow_unblock" (or the map changes).

Explained in a bit more detail by Cal yonder.

 

[Crow]

Ah, shveet

 

[Wishbone]

Ah, shveet

Nice to see ya back to mapping man! If ya need any NPCs made just PM me or Thothie!

 

[Crow]

I just can't keep away =)

Though, knowing my history, I hesitate to start ordering scripts on my behalf.

However, if you have nothing else to do, I do have some mini bosses in mind...

Edit: Someone make the forum width bigger. Go.

 

[Wishbone]

I just can't keep away =)

Though, knowing my history, I hesitate to start ordering scripts on my behalf.

However, if you have nothing else to do, I do have some mini bosses in mind...

Edit: Someone make the forum width bigger. Go.

Well, I have just two more NPCs to get done which all they need is some tweaking. I can do your mini bosses though, as long you don't want them to be overpowered and stuff, then I should be able to do them. Anyways, when you need them done feel free to PM me then i'll get to it.

 

[Crow]

oooOOOOOooo spooky

I added a moon to the space skybox

 

[Monika's_BFFEx0256]

oooOOOOOooo spooky

I added a moon to the space skybox

Needs two large eye shaped stars, Cheshire cat

 

[Wishbone]

oooOOOOOooo spooky

I added a moon to the space skybox

Nice moon! I like moons...

 

[zeus9860]

oooOOOOOooo spooky

I added a moon to the space skybox

Nice moon! I like moons...

 

[Stoned]

oooOOOOOooo spooky

I added a moon to the space skybox

Nice moon! I like moons...

Could use some fine tuning, the inner curve looks uneven.

 

[Crow]

God damn this skybox. I hate it when you can tell its just a giant box. I don't like any of the other night time skyboxes I have because they are either too bright or are a weird color. Also, the one I have now has the moon directly above you, so the angle of the sky lighting has to be directly downwards, more or less, which looks really weird, especially on rocks.



Someone make a a skybox that is just stars and a moon, but doesn't have the funky giant box look to it.

 

[Thothie]

Jeeze, we have, what... 271 files worth of skyboxes? What will it take to satisfy you damn mappers?

Try:
dashnight256
LMmnts_
castle_m
fullmoon

 

[Crow]

The aesthetic effect I create with my forest needs a dark background for it to work. If any part of the skybox is too bright, it looses the effect because you can clearly see the outline of the brushes.


dashnight256
Too bright

LMmnts_
Too bright

castle_m
This one is close, but it looks like someone just copied the mountains in the back, moved them down a bit, and colored them black. Ew.

fullmoon
Huh. Howd I miss this one ><
Ill give it a try.

 

[Crow]

I have a request of any mapper that would like to help. Since I hate doing caves, I have a small ish area that needs to be turned into a complex cave system. It has 1 entrance and 1 exit, and the path from one to the other needs to be hard to navigate (very maze-like, have lots of dead ends).

Anyone?