Vis/Skip/Hint - Weirdness

Discussion for Level editing, modeling, programming, or any of the other technical aspects of Quake
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bork[e]
Posts: 4357
Joined: Tue Mar 23, 2004 8:00 am

Vis/Skip/Hint - Weirdness

Post by bork[e] »

About every 3rd or 4th compile one of my skip brushes are solid black and solid. BSP, VIS, LIGH, BSPC all normal...what's the deal on this?
AEon
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Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2003 7:00 am

Post by AEon »

The problem is that skip faces on hint brushes will at times cut into the geometry... if you are not using many hint brushes, you may want to try to make them *all* faces of the "offending" brush(es) hint... and only apply skip to those hint brushes where you never see any problems...

Background (you probably know this): Hint brushes are technically only *one* brush *face*... e.g. on a brush you would only texture one face hint, the face that defines the line of sight you rerequite and all the other faces skip, to avoid *useless* vis splits...

But for some reason the skip faces will at times messup the actual solid geometry. Had that problem in AEneon.

(Sorry, been a while, I forgot some of the terms :))

Also this may no longer be the case in the lastest version of q3map2.
rgoer
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Joined: Sun Aug 17, 2003 7:00 am

Post by rgoer »

making all faces hint is not the best idea...

if skip is giving you problems, replace it with nodraw (although, really, you should try and rebuild your brush so that it works with skip)...

if hint portals line up perfectly on the blocksize grid (defaults to 1024^3 I think?), you get problems also, could this be your issue?
[img]http://www.sloganizer.net/en/style4,btw-spc-cocks.png[/img]
rgoer
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Post by rgoer »

btw when I say that it is "not the best idea," I do not mean to say that it is a stupid idea and that anybody who does this is stupid. Just that there are better ways to do it.
[img]http://www.sloganizer.net/en/style4,btw-spc-cocks.png[/img]
Myth
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Joined: Wed Jan 12, 2000 8:00 am

Post by Myth »

What is the difference between skip and nodraw? Been wanting to know that for a while.
redfella
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Joined: Mon May 12, 2003 7:00 am

Post by redfella »

I'll put it more blunty Myth... WTF is skip?
black & white blanket logic
Fjoggs
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Joined: Fri May 03, 2002 7:00 am

Post by Fjoggs »

AFAIK skip works like a anti hint, and doesn't brake up the geometry, like the hint can do on surfaces it touches. While nodraw, well, is nodraw and not structural. :P
I know this is most likely far from the truth and rgoer can most likely explain it far better and more technical.

To put it in one sentence:
It's very useful, so use it.
redfella
Posts: 441
Joined: Mon May 12, 2003 7:00 am

Post by redfella »

Fjoggs wrote:It's very useful, so use it.
How do you use it if you don't know wtf it does, goof! :P
black & white blanket logic
AEon
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Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2003 7:00 am

Post by AEon »

As far as I understand it, the "skip" shader was actually more trivial, q3map2 checks such faces and "simply" completely ignores that face (invisible, non-solid etc)... so much for the idea... this does not seem to work always as it seems though.

If ydnar was here he could perfectly explain things.

YDNAR! :)
Fjoggs
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Joined: Fri May 03, 2002 7:00 am

Post by Fjoggs »

redfella wrote:
Fjoggs wrote:It's very useful, so use it.
How do you use it if you don't know wtf it does, goof! :P
I remember telling you this on irc sometime ago.
bork[e]
Posts: 4357
Joined: Tue Mar 23, 2004 8:00 am

Post by bork[e] »

rgoer wrote:making all faces hint is not the best idea...

if skip is giving you problems, replace it with nodraw (although, really, you should try and rebuild your brush so that it works with skip)...

if hint portals line up perfectly on the blocksize grid (defaults to 1024^3 I think?), you get problems also, could this be your issue?

no...but now that you say that I realize that for the past few months I've been doing the hint brush backwards. I flipped all of the hint/skip brushes 180 degrees and that fixed the problem. :drool:
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