What's better -- func walls on solid, or just plain solid?

I'm not having any kind of direct problem with my map, but I have a sort of a... hmmm... "theory" question I suppose. It deals with what would be better for light and r_speeds. Like this:

I have a texture that has a lot releif to it. It looks damn ugly on a flat wall. Simply by making the texture have "releif" to it, it looks awesome. The problem is, I'm not entirely sure what's healthier --

Should I use a flat solid wall as a template, and place func_walls over it? Or would I be better off junking the flat wall, and making the relieft just solid. ??

I hope it isn't to hard to understand -- I can't show you an image cause I don't have an webspace.. but how would you do this?

if the relief is only small, then i'd say make it func_illusionary, which would save on clipnodes. if it's big enough that someone could use it to stand on, then make it a func_wall.

both func walls and illusionaries will stop the face splitting that will happen if you use solid world brushes, so don't make them solid.

Well, its big enough that you could walk into it and notice it. :smile: The releif (for big objects) could have 3 splits in it. :smile:

Thanks.

Make it into a func_wall, stop using Q-Tools and switch to ZHLT, and you can make it block light as well as save on leafnodes

:biggrin:

fizscy46 said:
Make it into a func_wall, stop using Q-Tools and switch to ZHLT, and you can make it block light as well as save on leafnodes

:biggrin:

The Q-Tool bit is a running joke I have :razz: I'm actually using Zoner's P series :razz:

Edit: And a batch compiler :razz: I've been mapping for almost 2 years (HAW! SURPRISED AREN't YOU?) so I definetly know what complie tools to use.

So, mapping for two years and you're wondering whether or not to use a func wall?

Tsk tsk.

I would simply make the flat brush and then add the bits that stick out. Group all those bits together and then make them one func_wall or func_illusionary.

I'd probably turn them into a func_wall and then clip off the whole thing so you can't get stuck in the bits. This has the added benefits of letting bullets hit them instead of passing through them, preventing the brush from being broken into many faces, and hopefully preventing snags. Then again you won't get any shadows because they're all entities... this would be easier if you had a picture :razz:

Set the ZHLT lightflags (Which is available on all brush entities) to opaque and it blocks light. I do that on a lot of my things (For example, on my g-man death map screeshots (See my maps), the lights that hang from the ceiling in the 3rd shot are func_walls, but the light isn't shining above them as if they were normal func_walls

Yeah, I know, but for some reason they didn't seem to work in reclamation. So screw 'em!

Making brush-based entities 'opaque' makes RAD take a much, much longer time and usually look omega-fugly every time I've used it, so I just turn that open off fully.

something i read a long time ago had me using the opaque option as standard on func_brushes, until i noticed that sometimes they would cause models to render badly.

like stairs being made into func_walls to stop face splitting at the sides would make the world brush below them dark. then when a player was on the stairs, the model would be lit according to how the dark world brush below the stairs was, or in this case wasn't, being lit.

now i only use the opaque option when i think it will help.

fishy said:
something i read a long time ago had me using the opaque option as standard on func_brushes, until i noticed that sometimes they would cause models to render badly.

like stairs being made into func_walls to stop face splitting at the sides would make the world brush below them dark. then when a player was on the stairs, the model would be lit according to how the dark world brush below the stairs was, or in this case wasn't, being lit.

now i only use the opaque option when i think it will help.

That black-out model effect happens also if you have null under a func_wall set of stairs/rubble kind of thing. So I usually just have an incline or underlying floor that is scaled up to 10 or so to use minimal lightmaps and polies.

Well, I guess I now know why my RAD takes multiple days to run