Hi. I realize that this is a basic question, but I have been unable to find an answer. What causes "sparklies" (the bright dots where two brushes meet), and how do you eliminate them?
I have a rather simple map which was sparklie-free until my last compile, now there's lots of 'em. What's going on?
Thanks!
Well, a bit more detail. I have a simple stairwell which is smooth on the underside. The stairs wrap around a tall square room (the stairs are attached to the wall). I'll admit the starwell is ridiculously long (I've been throwing watermelons down it for the last half hour - quite fun). I get sparklies between the steps on the more distant stairs.
I took apart a Valve map, took a section of their stairs (a func_detail), placed in it my map and they looked even worse. All of the stairs look fine up close though. I can't take screenshots at the moment, but I'll try later.
Again, we are talking about an insanely deep stairwell; it stretches two thirds of the vertical space available in the editor... perhaps that is the problem? (I'm a university prof and this will be used in a discussion on visual perception).
quoting omegaslayer from this thread
A quote from the VERC collective:
I hate to tell you, but there isn't any real way to solve this. It merely means you have a very large and brush (world brushes) complex map. Turnign stuff to func_detail wont work because func_detail is considered part of the "world brushes". They only thing you can do is reduce the # of brushes you have in your map and turn a lot of stuff into models.
a stairwell that's as long as you say yours is, could probably be considered a brush complex map.
Well, I've made an odd discovery. I have one map which gives the error message "too many portals" when it compiles. If I complile this map with hl2 open in the background I see numerous sparklies when I run the game. If I then switch to one of my other problem-free maps in game I also see several sparklies. If I close hammer, and close and restart hl2 the sparklies are gone (although I can still find one or two in my problem map if I really hunt for them).
I like to keep both hammer and hl2 open so that I can switch back and forth to playtest between compiles (I tend to make maps one small piece at a time and then stick them together). I didn't realize this was an issue.
quoting omegaslayer from this thread
A quote from the VERC collective:
I hate to tell you, but there isn't any real way to solve this. It merely means you have a very large and brush (world brushes) complex map. Turnign stuff to func_detail wont work because func_detail is considered part of the "world brushes". They only thing you can do is reduce the # of brushes you have in your map and turn a lot of stuff into models.
a stairwell that's as long as you say yours is, could probably be considered a brush complex map.
i thought vbsp automatically fixes up t junctions ?
look at your compile log, in the vbsp section, and check if you see
"notjunc=true"
if this is the case you'll indeed see tiny white dots on older graphic cards. in my experience anyway.
I seem to have solved my problem, although I can't figure out why this is happening. I need to restart HL2 evertime I compile a new map. If I don't do this my lighting is off (too bright, but not full bright) and I get lots of sparkles. If I restart HL2 the map is fine. Can anyone offer an explanation for this?
Note that I do have a reasonably good graphics card (an ATI X850XT).
