Valve HL2DM Mapping Competition Submission

"SuperCobra" said:
cause u got a weak mobo for the AMD amd owns intel
and also intels are for servers not amd

I take it you have an AMD? How can AMD own intel if intel are better for servers?
I
would use my 2600 for a my main pc and my P4 for a server if the 2600
wasnt so slow at synthetic processes, Intel and AMD a good for
different things. :smile:
My 2600 was originaly my main pc which I bought coz it was CHEAP, and then I won my P4 system at a lan.
I can throw whatever I like at my P4 and it never let's me down, ever.

places hand over face

Both of you guys ... just stop.

I understand you've had proper luck with your machine, but what you're saying isn't really true. Same goes with SuperCobra.

Anyway, This is distressing news I am hearing about HL2 mapping. I
haven't messed with it enough to learn much of anything about it.

Mouse said:
Indeed, detail brushes are amazing things. I
used them for trims, entire buildings, walkways, stairs. The whole gas
station in my map was all detail brushes. Also, the whole broken
building, which is actually about 7 or 8 different brushes, is all
func_detail.

Detail brushes blow ass. All they do is reduce compile time, which
means jack to me at this point. While making my map I determined that
they still split faces of other brushes if you line their edges up with
the edges of world brushes. I have all these 'detail' trims and rubble
that still split up all the faces of the walls and ground around them,
so they're pretty worthless in my book.

Except for the fact that they cut down on compile times drastically and also cut down r_speeds, yeah they're pretty useless.

::rollseyes::

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting </DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
::rollseyes::
</DIV></DIV>

on this note, i'm outa here.. its after midnight and this old fella is tired.

nite/nite gents.

Concerning the detail brushes: strange. Source documentation dictates
otherwise. I'll func_detail some of my own stuff and check in-game.
They seemed to be working fine to me.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Mouse</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quote:</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Mouse</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Indeed, detail brushes are amazing things. I used them for trims, entire buildings, walkways, stairs. The whole gas station in my map was all detail brushes. Also, the whole broken building, which is actually about 7 or 8 different brushes, is all func_detail.
</DIV></DIV>
Detail brushes blow ass. All they do is reduce compile time, which means jack to me at this point. While making my map I determined that they still split faces of other brushes if you line their edges up with the edges of world brushes. I have all these 'detail' trims and rubble that still split up all the faces of the walls and ground around them, so they're pretty worthless in my book.

</DIV></DIV>

Except for the fact that they cut down on compile times drastically and also cut down r_speeds, yeah they're pretty useless.

::rollseyes::
</DIV></DIV>

Except that if you read what I posted you'd know that everything you just said was redundant. Not only did I agree saying it reduced compile times but I also stated that they do not reduce 'r_speeds' because they still split regular faces. Way to argue your point by stating the opposite of what I said.

When I look at my map using mat_wireframe 2 (which shows how all the faces are split into little triangles throughout the map) I can clearly see detail brushes splitting faces where they shouldn't be. Give me a bit and I'll edit this post with pictures to show what I'm talking about.

BTW You are so wrong about the number of info_player_starts to put in a map. Nothing like asking for unnecessary telefragging.

:::EDIT:::
Ok, I'm going to prove that I'm not crazy. This is a tiny section of my map that shows what I'm talking about perfectly. I think the splitting only occurs when a face of the func_detail is exactly parallel and touching a world brush, so there are still uses for them in certain situations (just not in the situations I need them for this map)

nothing



world



func_detail



func_brush



Notice the similarities between the world and detail pictures. Also notice the similarities between the nothing and brush pictures.

Now, I believe that if I were to move this brush one unit away from all those edges it wouldn't split faces, but that's pretty useless to me for this brush. I couldn't believe this when I saw it because I was certain that I read in the docs that the whole point of the func_detail was to have the properties of a func_brush without the entity crap and to prevent unnecessary face splitting. Turns out that's only partially true. :sad:

Func_details don't have any entity information whereas
func_brushes have a bunch of entity info that I'm not using, which I
think causes unnecessary FPS drops. I determined that because of the
switch to func_brush I managed to lose about 10 FPS in some areas.

You are correct. All entity information is stripped from
func_details at compile time, so when you run the map they behave
exactly like world brushes. Or so the SDK docs say.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Leperous</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting ReNo</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Its most likely I will need a few days yet on Echo, so if anybody in the US is feeling generous I might appreciate a more direct send on.
</DIV></DIV>
You do realise that getting someone in the US means they will have to forge your signature on the print-out form you're meant to attach (which Valve will be able to tell by the postmarks etc.?)

</DIV></DIV>
Certainly a fax would be cool? I mean, it'd take co-ordination but I think it could happen.

Thats really strange whats happening with your detail brushes. In my map the entire dam, left canal wall and secondary dam (you'll see it when I update my profile) are constructed from brush details. If what your saying is true that could explain the frame rate and also my extremely long compile times for my map. That and the fact the place is one frickin' huge out door area. :razz:

BTW You are so wrong about the number of info_player_starts to put in a map. Nothing like asking for unnecessary telefragging.

Ok, first of all, WTF are you talking about? Where is this coming
from? I assume you're referring to a post I made a few weeks ago
about having a good balance of spawn points. So I am wrong?
There should be an obscenely large or obscenely small amount?
Your trying to flame me on this just makes you look bad and it is petty.

And you don't have to use func_details. But for your trims and
details that aren't part of the hull, what else will you use?
Maybe they split up faces like a regular brush, but using regular
brushes will make your map compile much slower. And the engine
does not render a func_detail like a plain brush. It actually
does your framerate better to have these things be func_details rather
than just geometry. I understand that you might be upset that the
documentation says they don't split faces when they do actually split
faces, but that doesn't mean they are worthless. And that is what
you said.

And please, if you're going to flame me for something else I said in another thread, do it in that thread.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Mouse</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
And please, if you're going to flame me for something else I said in another thread, do it in that thread.
</DIV></DIV>

please, it also looks bad if you make a comment without verifying its possibility beforehand.

the thread was locked, with no small assistance from yourself. anywho's its irrelevant now.
calling the kettle black also looks petty :/

Mouse said:
And please, if you're going to flame me for something else I said in another thread, do it in that thread.

please, it also looks bad if you make a comment without verifying its possibility beforehand.

the thread was locked, with no small assistance from yourself. anywho's its irrelevant now.

calling the kettle black also looks petty :/

Please, you were just as much to blame for that as me if not more
so. If the way I set up spawn points bothers him that much, he
could send me a private message. Stop nitpicking just because you
have a problem with me for whatever reason.

the point is not to place blame, i don't even know you,how can i have a problem with you.

i do however dislike people who jump before they look, and at least in this case the term is apt.

yak was a big part of that topic, but unfortunately it was locked before he arrived to settle his portion of it.

i am unsure why it came up now, but i can assume it was in response for you calling him on his research of this current problem.

when i have a problem with you, you will know it. this is not a problem. yet.

for my part, i still think more=better, but since its moot presently i will wait for it to resurface before i make myself clear.

/end discussion.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Cash Car Star</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Leperous</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting ReNo</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Its most likely I will need a few days yet on Echo, so if anybody in the US is feeling generous I might appreciate a more direct send on.
</DIV></DIV>
You do realise that getting someone in the US means they will have to forge your signature on the print-out form you're meant to attach (which Valve will be able to tell by the postmarks etc.?)

</DIV></DIV>
Certainly a fax would be cool? I mean, it'd take co-ordination but I think it could happen.

</DIV></DIV>
A fax to who, Valve or the American monkey? Looks like I'm going to have to go down this road too and have to reward someone handsomely via Paypal :razz:

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Leperous</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
A fax to who, Valve or the American monkey? Looks like I'm going to have to go down this road too and have to reward someone handsomely via Paypal :razz:

</DIV></DIV>
what are you guys talking about? i seem to have missed something.

Its all right there in the quote in Lep's post to be honest Orph.

I'm probably going to send my map off on monday via airmail, and
possibly email the map off to Valve at the same time to hope if it
doesnt arrive then they will realise its the post's fault :smile:

the point is not to place blame, i don't even know you,how can i have a problem with you.

i do however dislike people who jump before they look, and at least in this case the term is apt.

yak was a big part of that topic, but unfortunately it was locked before he arrived to settle his portion of it.

i am unsure why it came up now, but i can assume it was in response for you calling him on his research of this current problem.

when i have a problem with you, you will know it. this is not a problem. yet.

for my part, i still think more=better, but since its moot presently i will wait for it to resurface before i make myself clear.

/end discussion.

Well I have a problem with you and the way you make assumptions and
slyly incite flames. Maybe you're not aware of it, but you are
exceptionally confrontational and negative. And I'm not going to talk
to you about this anymore, especially not here.

Yak: the rollseyes things might have been a little excessive, I wasn't
trying to insult you. And if you thought I was attacking you on the
spawn points thread, I wasn't doing that either, it was discussion and
then Orpheous blew it out of proportion and put words in my mouth I
didn't say. You want to say anything else to me do it in private
message because I am not going to look here again.

Everyone, good luck in the contest. I'm out of this thread.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting ReNo</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Its all right there in the quote in Lep's post to be honest Orph.
</DIV></DIV>

i read that, but i am confused, is this competition so engrossing that you must send written permission or proof you made the map?

i do not recall such measures in prior valve sponsored ordeals.

You have a form you have fill out and sign (This form is giving them
rights to use your map, I believe) and you have to send a CD containing
your map.

So, I don't see how faxing would work, unless there's a place to turn in the map online.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Mouse</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>

Everyone, good luck in the contest. I'm out of this thread.</DIV></DIV>

any way i can convince you to not let the door hit you on your way out? i am about fed up with these confrontational new members acting as if its their right to create situations and then pawn them off on others.

mouse, you have been here but a small portion of this sites existence, and this is twice we have crossed swords, and this time it was 100% your doing.

i dunno why you want to get on my bad side, but i would truly rather you stopped this instant. i am not going anywhere, and i am not asking you to either, but it will get real miserable real fast if you do not lighten up immediately.

as i said, i do not know why it came up in this thread, but i can imagine its because of your last issue concerning yak's comments on player starts.

we can go round and round if you like, but i am really tired of it. i am even thinking of suggesting a probationary time frame for new members, to see if the will fit into the current snarkpit community, just to stop new members from creating situations of this type.
i can be an ass, but this time, i am innocent. stop being a s**t and so will i.

I have never had a problem with Orph or mouse (i like them both in fact) So i am saying this in the very best way possible:

Shut... the... f**k... up...

Everyone is ALWAYS fighting. just STOP. I initially LIKED the snarkpit because there were not any lamers and it was a very freindly and HELPFUL community. Now with all of these people getting sand in thier vaginas about SPAWN POINTS [color=white]it's become VERY unpleasant. Just... Just STOP it![/color]

Nickel, do you have any idea how infuriating it is for people to play mediator? especially when they come in half way and think they know what the subject it?

this, todays ordeal, had absolutely nothing to do with spawn points, in fact i stated that quite clearly more than once. it has to do with people whom create situations that have hostile endings. some may think i do this, some may not, but that is todays topic.

i do not mind mediators who can follow a topic and zero in where its going, or came from, but its hard to be quiet when a mediator is off base.

no i am not yelling at you, but the recent increase in this confrontation stuff is getting annoying. as i said already, character clashes are inevitable, but new members should NOT take it upon themselves to solve them. at least not the ones whom don't do it well.

i trust you meant well, but spawn points were not todays topic of dissension's my friend :sad:

Well I haven't got a clue what people are bitching about and I don't really care Any other people outside of the USA who have posted in yet?

Orph: If you're so frustrated with all this "constant fighting" then just
drop the subject. It's not helping anyone, ranting about the matter, and personally my respect for
you drops everytime this happens, irregardless of whose fault it is.
Keep it to the PM's, please.

Agitated British people: I would send in your entries (if you trust me
enough! :smile: ) But first I need a spindle of DVD-R's to burn things onto.
Bleh. Plus, I'm really not too sure how long it would take packages to
get from California up to Seattle (or wherever we mail these things).
Personally though, I would just air-mail it early, and not trust some
random stranger on a message board. I guess 2-3 days is a big difference though... :wink:

okay, sorry. <---(admitting i am wrong, some ppl take a lesson form this)
I didnt think that THIS one was about spawn pts though, I was talking about that thing with mouse in another thread. I know YOU weren't saying anything about them.

I was not wrong when i said that this is getting to be too much with all the flaming and fighting and "moron avatar"-ing.

I know i am a relatively new member because I have not been here that long, but i am trying to be a GOOD member. Look at the snarkmarks, that is damn good for only being here for about a month. I wanted to contribute to the HL2 commuity and this seemed like the place to do it because it was nice, but what I'm saying is that its getting less nice with all these new users who like to get the older ones riled up.

Nerdy, picked-on-at-school HL2 fan+Anonymity= Complete jackass with the ability to mouth ALL THE TIME... not a good equation... :sad:

CJ, then i guess its a good thing for me that they invented negative numbers :biggrin:

in all the time you have known me, the one thing that is constant is, i cannot let things go easily. especially when i am the one taking it in the face.

anywho's, onward and upward, this topic went off base, without my assistance this once. i guess the least i can do is nudge it back into place.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Campaignjunkie</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext> Personally though, I would just air-mail it early, and not trust some random stranger on a message board. I guess 2-3 days is a big difference though... :wink:
</DIV></DIV>
Some of us are lucky enough to be in a position to moron-brand and ban that person if they fail to send it in though

Crap, I haven't started a single flame war yet. I guess I need to
get on the ball. Maybe I'll post a half-dozen 3 meg .bmps of my
latest map :razz: .

Oh, and I can send stuff to Valve, but since I live on the east coast
you'd probably only save a day unless you live in China or something.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Mouse</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
Ok, first of all, WTF are you talking about? Where is this coming from? I assume you're referring to a post I made a few weeks ago about having a good balance of spawn points. So I am wrong? There should be an obscenely large or obscenely small amount? Your trying to flame me on this just makes you look bad and it is petty.

And you don't have to use func_details. But for your trims and details that aren't part of the hull, what else will you use? Maybe they split up faces like a regular brush, but using regular brushes will make your map compile much slower. And the engine does not render a func_detail like a plain brush. It actually does your framerate better to have these things be func_details rather than just geometry. I understand that you might be upset that the documentation says they don't split faces when they do actually split faces, but that doesn't mean they are worthless. And that is what you said.

And please, if you're going to flame me for something else I said in another thread, do it in that thread.
</DIV></DIV>

I wasn't flaming you unless you consider disagreeing flaming? A real flame would have been along the lines of "You're a goddamned idiot for what you said blah blah blah". Anyways, my opinion on the matter is that you should place enough player starts to accomodate slightly more than the recommended player load. That doesn't mean you should have 20 player starts in a 4 player map, but you could and should have 20 in a 16 player one. Unless of course you as a mapper decide that your recommended player load already is the absolute max, then obviously you shouldn't be putting player starts on top of each other. It's just a good rule of thumb I'd think.
I really haven't tested the func_details beyond the face splitting, so I'm not too sure about their impact on general FPS compared to regular brushes. I'm having a rather difficult time deciphering the showbudget information and there are too many variables for me to determine what's what through simple testing. I doubt that they are rendered any differently from a regular brush ingame, so I think that in the situation I have presented they are no better than a regular brush. I do know that they are no longer entities after compiling (documentation says this and testing confirms it), but if they create the same number of split faces as a regular brush than they are going to have the same impact on world rendering, so there's no real performance gain. Of course they make compiling times much faster, but I'm a patient man, so I don't care about that.

If you don't mind waiting longer for compiles, then you are really
shooting yourself in the foot. If a map takes 2 minutes to compile then
there is no real reason not to compile and test each little change and
therefore tweak settings such as lights far more frequently and easily.
On the other hand if it takes an hour, chances are you will settle for
imperfection far more eagerly. If there is no downside to using
func_details for certain uses, then it makes sense to make them so. As
with most things, they have their use and when this use arises, they
should be used.

I think Mouse was annoyed at the total irrelevance of your mention of
spawn points - it came across as pointless, trivial, and petty, to be
quite honest.

Mouse was annoyed? Well gee, I was annoyed by being basically called an idiot by somebody who doesn't have all his facts straight, but hey, who cares! I should go back to rarely posting and mostly lurking, I'm certain ya'll be better off for it.

Duncan, i'll be the first to admit a biased view, but forget any posts after the spawn point comment yak made for the moment.

re-read the replies prior and see if you can detect where this might have been avoided. you are fairly level headed, but you seem afflicted with the same ability as some of the rest to only see the effects of things, not the root cause.

perhaps, yak over-reacted, hell even i was not sure why the spawn point thing came up, i said so many times. but still i can see where it went amiss.

sometimes, its not the old timers, and sometimes the new member needs to, if not be quiet, at least be accountable for the actions they set into motion.

actions they set into motion.

this is not my attempt at telling you that you may be wrong, it is my attempt at mediating this in the hopes it will go away.

please feel free to disregard my comments. it won't be the first time someone has. :/

Look, Orph, it's not worth it. Thanks for the defense though :razz:

Yak, I would be sad if you started lurking and stopped posting. I appreciate your sense of humor and your wonderful sarcasm. Don't go, we all love you here at the SnarkPit...

lets not start another "good ol boy" thread please.

okay.

Anyway, i will not be submitting my map for VMC. I will never have it finished. MY deadline is right NOW (seriously, i am going to bed and out of town until the 16th starting at 3:30 tomorrow. Too much COOL stuf i wanna do with my map, and not enough time. I don't wanna cut anything out, so i will build at y own pace. too bad i may have had a shot at $5000

So is it safe for me to use detail brushes on most of my surfaces, i.e. building fronts, my gas station, subway tunnel, etc? My compile time is going on 40 hours as we speak and I don't know if it's because I have an open area the size of a football field or what. I'm not entirely sure what I should do at this point. Thanks.

http://www.snarkpit.com/forums.php?forum=1&topic=3396&highlight=optimizing&findpost=66176#post66176

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Nickelplate</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Anyway, i will not be submitting my map for VMC. I will never have it finished. MY deadline is right NOW (seriously, i am going to bed and out of town until the 16th starting at 3:30 tomorrow. Too much COOL stuf i wanna do with my map, and not enough time. I don't wanna cut anything out, so i will build at y own pace. too bad i may have had a shot at $5000</DIV></DIV>
Me too, I think :sad: Damn you real life!

I didn't have a chance of finishing my entry off to any reasonable
quality level in time, so unfortunately I haven't entered. Good luck to
all Snarkpitter's who did, hope one of you see some of the prize fund :smile:

Static, I know we kinda talked about the use of detail brushes in the
thread, but its not really the place to continue the discussion. Look
up more info in the editing forums and start a thread if you can't find
what you need.

Just sent the entry off to Washington, ill post my entry as soon as I can find soemone to host it....... Good luck to all that entered, we'll know who won by the 30th :biggrin: